Your pensions if you move abroad

Moving abroad does not cancel your UK pensions. You can claim the UK State Pension while living anywhere in the world, as long as you have paid enough UK National Insurance contributions to qualify¹. Workplace and personal pensions can also continue to be paid to you overseas: UK law allows workplace pensions to be paid outside the UK², and the pension from an occupational scheme will still increase each year in line with the scheme rules and current legislation³.

What changes is the detail. The biggest single issue is whether your State Pension goes up each year with the UK increase, or is frozen at the rate first paid. That depends entirely on which country you live in, not on your nationality. Beyond that, you need to know how to claim from abroad, where the money can be paid, how to keep the payments coming, and what to consider before moving a private pension overseas.

Your UK State Pension can be paid anywhere in the world

The State Pension is payable anywhere abroad. You can claim it if you have paid enough UK National Insurance contributions to qualify, and the amount you get might be affected by retiring or moving abroad⁸. The qualifying years can be made up of contributions paid through employment, National Insurance credits, and voluntary National Insurance contributions⁶.

If you paid into another country's social security system during your working life, that may help you get a UK State Pension or increase the amount you get, and you may also be able to get a pension from that country too⁶. Time abroad does not wipe out what you built up in the UK, but it may slow down how quickly you build further qualifying years, which is covered below.

One thing that does not change is your status: your UK citizenship will not be affected if you move or retire abroad⁹. What you may lose is access to income-related benefits. You cannot get many income-related benefits, like Pension Credit and Housing Benefit, if you are abroad for more than 4 weeks¹⁰. The State Pension itself is different: it keeps being paid wherever you live.

Frozen or uprated: how your country affects yearly increases

This is the issue that catches most people out. Although the State Pension is payable anywhere abroad, it is not normally increased when pension rates go up in the UK³. Whether yours goes up depends on where you live:

• You are not affected if you live in the UK, whatever your nationality, or if you were living in the EU, EEA or Switzerland by 31 December 2021 and continue to live in the same country¹¹.
• If you live in a country without the right agreement, your pension stays at the rate it was when you first became entitled, or the rate when you left the UK. These are known as "frozen" or frozen-rate countries¹².
• The government publishes official statistics estimating the cost of uprating State Pensions in frozen rate countries, covering 2024 to 2028, which updated figures last published in 2019¹².

The practical effect compounds over time. A pension frozen at the rate first paid keeps the same cash value year after year while prices rise around it, so its real spending power falls. Someone who moved to a country where increases apply sees their pension rise each year in line with UK uprating.

Deferring works differently too. If you put off claiming your State Pension and you move to the EU or EEA, Switzerland, or a country with a UK social security agreement (except Canada or New Zealand), the deferral rules are the same as in the UK, and the extra amount usually increases each year based on the Consumer Price Index¹³. If you move to a country not in that list, the extra payment is based on the State Pension you are owed at whichever is later of the date you reach State Pension age or the date you move abroad, and it stays the same: it will not go up or down over time¹⁴. Legislation sets out how increments are calculated for people who were overseas residents during part of a deferral period¹⁵.

You might be able to increase the amount you get by delaying your pension, or by paying voluntary contributions to fill gaps in your National Insurance record¹. Both routes are worth checking before you leave, because the options can be narrower once you are overseas.

Qualifying years: 10 for any State Pension, 35 for the full amount

The qualifying rules are the same whether you claim in the UK or abroad. To get any new State Pension, you need 10 qualifying years on your National Insurance record⁴. To get the full amount, you need 35 years of qualifying contributions⁵. People who reach State Pension age before 6 April 2016 come under the basic State Pension rules instead, where the full amount needs 30 qualifying years if you were born between 1945 and 1951¹⁶.

Some people need more than 35 years. If you were contracted out of the Additional State Pension before April 2016, you might need more than 35 qualifying years of National Insurance contributions to get the full State Pension⁵.

If you are short of years, you may be able to fill gaps with voluntary contributions, and paying National Insurance while abroad protects your State Pension and your entitlement to other benefits and allowances¹⁰. The rules for paying voluntary contributions from abroad are tightening from 6 April 2026, covered in the section on working abroad below. You can check your National Insurance record to see how your State Pension might be affected by contributions you did not pay while abroad¹⁷, and the guide to your National Insurance record explains how qualifying years build up.

How time working abroad counts towards your State Pension

If you move abroad to work before you reach State Pension age, you might not gain qualifying years towards your State Pension, depending on your circumstances, such as whether you work for a UK or a foreign company³. The distinction matters:

• If you normally live in the UK and then work abroad for a UK employer, you will be required to pay National Insurance while you are abroad¹⁸.
• If you work abroad for a foreign employer, you will not normally pay National Insurance in the UK, but you may have to pay contributions in the foreign country¹⁸.

Paying voluntary contributions from abroad is also changing. From 6 April 2026, you cannot pay voluntary Class 2 National Insurance contributions for time spent abroad, with the only exceptions being self-employed individuals treated as gainfully self-employed in the UK under a relevant international social security agreement, and volunteer development workers paying the special VDW rate¹⁹. The qualifying conditions for paying Class 3 contributions while abroad are being raised from the previous requirement of three years' residence in the UK, or three years' contributions including contributions paid while abroad¹⁹. These rules will no longer apply once you return to live or work in the UK²⁰.

There is also a specific change affecting people who have lived in Australia, Canada or New Zealand. From 1 January 2022, if you move to live in the EU, EEA or Switzerland on or after that date and you previously lived in Australia (before 1 March 2001), Canada or New Zealand, you will no longer be able to count those periods towards calculating your UK State Pension: it will be calculated, or recalculated if already in payment, using only your UK National Insurance record¹¹. People not affected by the change, who continue to live in the same country, can still count that time¹¹.

If you live outside the UK, you can get information about your State Pension, including a forecast, by completing application form BR19³. The page on checking your State Pension forecast explains what a forecast shows.

How to claim your State Pension from abroad

There is a different way to claim your pension from abroad, including from the Channel Islands²¹. You can make a claim up to 4 months before your State Pension age⁶. The routes are:

1. By phone or email: contact the International Pension Centre. The quickest way to claim is by calling on +44 191 218 7777⁶.
2. By post: complete the international claim form (form IPC BR1) and send it to the International Pension Centre, at the address on the form¹.
3. Through your local pension authority: if you live in a European Economic Area country, Switzerland, Norway, Iceland or Liechtenstein, or a country with a social security agreement with the UK, you can also claim through the pension authority in the country you live in. They may be able to notify state pension schemes in countries you have lived or worked in¹.

When you claim, you also tell the centre where you want your pension paid, using a form for that purpose²³. An easy read guide published on 5 February 2026 covers who can get a State Pension, how to claim from abroad and how your pension is paid²⁴. If you defer your State Pension and live abroad, including in the Channel Islands or the Isle of Man, there is a different way to claim the deferred amount too¹³.

Getting paid: bank accounts, currency and payment dates

Your State Pension can be paid into a bank in the country you are living in, or a bank or building society in the UK¹. The account can be in your name, a joint account, or someone else's account with their permission¹. If it is paid to an overseas account, the amount will usually be converted into your local currency using the exchange rate at the time of the conversion, and there is a conversion charge of 0.39% before payment¹.

You must choose which country you want your pension to be paid in. You cannot be paid in one country for part of the year and another country for the rest¹, which matters if you split your year between two homes. You can choose to be paid every 4 or 13 weeks⁶.

Payment is made directly into your account, under a system called International Pensions Direct Payment²³. Two timing quirks are worth knowing:

• If your payment date falls on a public or bank holiday where you live, it may be delayed²⁵.
• If you live abroad and your payment is due in the same week as a US federal holiday, it could arrive one day late, because a US company processes these payments²⁵.

If you were underpaid, you may get a one-off payment of up to £3, paid between 30 July and 24 August 2026²⁵.

Keeping your pension paid: life certificates and reporting changes

The Pension Service periodically checks that people living abroad are still eligible. If you get a life certificate from the UK Pension Service, you must respond as soon as possible: your pension payments may stop if you do not¹⁰. This is the single most common way overseas payments get interrupted, and responding promptly avoids it.

You also need to report changes in your circumstances. To make sure you get the right amount of benefits and to avoid committing benefit fraud, you must report any changes²⁶. For the State Pension from abroad, changes to personal details such as your address or bank details must be reported to the International Pension Centre by telephone or letter²⁵. If you go into a care home, you contact the Pension Service by phone or post to report it²⁷.

When someone dies, the reporting route depends on where they were living. If they were living abroad when they died, you contact the International Pension Centre rather than the usual Tell Us Once route²⁸. The same applies to the exercise correcting underpaid State Pension: if the person who died lived abroad, you contact the International Pension Centre²⁹. The pages on what happens to your pension when you die and reporting a death cover the wider picture.

Your workplace and personal pensions when you live abroad

Your workplace and personal pensions do not depend on where you live in the way the State Pension does. When you change jobs, your pension belongs to you³⁰, and UK law allows workplace pensions to be paid overseas². The pension from an occupational scheme will increase each year in line with the scheme rules and current legislation, wherever you retire³.

You can take a personal or workplace pension while you are still working, as long as you have reached the age agreed with your pension provider³¹. You can currently take a private pension, including some workplace pensions, from age 55, and this is increasing to age 57 from April 2028⁵. If your retirement abroad depends on accessing a pension pot at 55, the timing of that change matters.

Tax is the other moving part. Payments from an overseas pension may be taxable in the UK depending on your residence, and if you receive pension payments from another country you might be entitled to a 10% deduction from the amount chargeable³². If the pension is liable to UK tax, only 90% of the gross pension is chargeable³². Whether you have to file a Self Assessment tax return depends on your circumstances, including income from overseas¹⁷. The guides to how pension income is taxed and personal tax explain the UK side; the tax rules of the country you move to are a matter for its own authorities, and the UK-based embassy of that country can give more information if you want to work there⁹.

Transferring a pension overseas and the overseas transfer charge

Some people consider moving a UK pension pot to an overseas scheme, often described as a QROPS transfer. This is a significant decision with tax consequences, and the rules are technical.

You can transfer your UK pension pot to another registered UK pension scheme³³. Transferring your pension savings overseas can have tax implications depending on your circumstances and the type of scheme you transfer to³³. An overseas transfer charge arises under section 244A of the Finance Act 2004, inserted by Schedule 4 Part 2 of the Finance Act 2017, where a recognised transfer is made to an overseas scheme in certain circumstances⁷. For transfers from a UK registered pension scheme, the transferred value is the total of the sums and assets transferred⁷. You may also have to pay UK tax on some payments from your overseas scheme, depending on when you were a UK resident³³.

The wider framework of allowances sits alongside this. The Lump Sum and Death Benefit Allowance is £1,073,100³⁴, and the guides to the lifetime allowance and tax-free cash and the lump sum allowances explain how these allowances work.

The process for any transfer, UK or overseas, follows the same broad steps: check your current scheme allows transfers out, make sure you will not lose any benefits, decide which scheme to transfer into, check if you need to pay for financial advice, ask your current provider for a transfer value, and ask the new scheme to start the transfer³⁵. Free, impartial information about transferring your pension is available³³, and MoneyHelper's retirement guidance asks for the types of pension you have, how far away from retirement you are, and whether you are planning on retiring outside the UK³⁶.

The rules governing which transfers can proceed have also been changing. A 2026 consultation on the conditions for transfers estimated that removing the overseas flag would save pension scheme members around £164,000 per year, with wider benefits to schemes estimated at £1.5 million over 10 years³⁸. The statutory right to transfer under Part 4ZA of the Pension Schemes Act 1993 is subject to certain conditions, such as the member not having started to draw benefits³⁹.

Where to get help: the International Pension Centre

The International Pension Centre is the main point of contact for UK pensions once you are abroad. It provides advice and information about pensions and benefits if you live abroad or have lived abroad²⁵. You can contact it by email using the online enquiry form, by phone, or by post at The Pension Service 11, Mail Handling Site A, Wolverhampton, WV98 1LW, United Kingdom³. Phone lines are open Monday to Friday, 8am to 6pm, interpreter services are available, and you can request a call back to reduce the cost of calling from abroad²⁵. The centre reports that it is taking longer than usual to reply to online queries²⁵.

The centre handles more than the State Pension: it also deals with benefits including Bereavement Support Payment, Employment and Support Allowance, Jobseeker's Allowance, Maternity Allowance and Industrial Injuries Disablement Benefit²⁵. You contact it if you want to move a pension to the UK¹⁷, and it is the contact for people who live abroad and currently get State Pension or have deferred claiming it⁴⁰.

In Northern Ireland, the Northern Ireland Pension Centre provides information on the State Pension and other benefits you may be eligible for on retirement⁴¹, and nidirect covers living or working overseas and your State Pension⁴². For free, impartial guidance on private pensions, MoneyHelper's retirement guidance tool is available³⁶, and the page on Pension Wise explains the guidance available for people approaching retirement.