Key Post UK State Pension - Make voluntary contributions to qualify for UK pension on top of Irish pension

I recently checked my UK state pension forecast and to my surprise, I appear to have no gaps in my national insurance contributions even though I have been living and working in Ireland since 2020. I have been continuing to get full 52 weeks credits and the only conclusion I can come to is that perhaps I am still entitled to full credits having been born in the UK where and lived and worked up until my early 30's. I have also continued to make overseas repayments to my UK Student Loan so perhaps that qualifies me for credits. I've emailed HMRC about it but no response thus far.
 
PoundMan said:
I have also continued to make overseas repayments to my UK Student Loan so perhaps that qualifies me for credits. I've emailed HMRC about it but no response thus far.
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I don't know for certain that is the case. I've never heard of Student loans being classed as employment for NICs.

I think in your situation, I would complete CF83 and send it in. If you are already covered, they'll let you know, but better not to lose out.
 
I don't think I'll lose out as such, given that I can make voluntary contributions covering the last 6 years but I only left the UK in 2020 so probably don't need to panic. I'd just prefer not to get in trouble with HMRC, or end up having to make a large lump sum voluntary contribution to cover years that I was incorrectly given credits through an admin error on their part.

Would the CF83 form cover me as far back as 2020?
 
I'm Nobody said:
I have no idea.
All I know that in 2016 my pension forecast was £33 a week.
Topped up 14 years at a cost of €2,176.
My pension is now £139 a week which exchanged into euro's this month, comes to €640.
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Cool, so basically pay back on your additional investment after your 21st week of pension receipts!
 
Well, I am giving a generous increase of 50% inflation since 2016 in pension increase to bring my £33 to £50.
Which leaves me with a different of £89. Which today is €102 a week.
My main point is don't hesitate to top up your pension, as it is a fantastic return.
 
I received a letter back from UK pensions body saying I don't automatically qualify for topping up pension as I don't have the minimum 3 years continuous NI insurance contributions .
However they say that this 3 year requirement can be met by proof of pension contributions in another EEA country including Turkey.
However my concern is that if they accept irish pension contributions as a qualification for the UK state pension and allow me to buy back years, does this then reduce my irish state pension as I will be using irish contributions as a qualification. If that is the case will my irish state pension only be reduced by the number of years I need to meet the minimum 3 years UK contributions?
 
Surely that is going to depend on how many PRSI contributions you have in total?
 
Lisgoold said:
Surely that is going to depend on how many PRSI contributions you have in total?
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Yes but surely if they are going to pool national insurance and ni contributions it can only be for one pension, either the UK one or the Irish one.
For example if you had 35 Irish contributions and 25 UK contributions after buying back years but you used 2 years prsi as qualification for the UK pension (if that is possible), My question does that still only qualify you for one pension, if you want the UK one they use your prsi contributions as the qualification and then the left over contributions are wasted?
 
Plenty of people on here with way more knowledge than me, but I don't think it works like that.

In your example , of 35 years of PRSI, and 25 years of NI, then as far as I'm aware , you'd end up with two pensions. Neither would be full, but together , they'd be more than either as a single pension. A lot more.

I thought , that you could only use years from one to another countries contributions, to get you up to the minimum required to get anything.
 
Just to note that the full UK state pension has just increased to £203.85 per week or £10,600 per year
 
So two letters sent to hmrc by registered post yesterday, one for me and o e for spouse.

Huge thanks for advice on here, I doubt we would have found out about this otherwise. It also made the application way simpler because of links, info on here.

Fingers crossed we both qualify for class2 NI payments and we should both be able qualify to fund full pensions.

I still don't understand why i have 6 years pension entitlement despite only paying NI contributions for just shy of 3 years; but I lived in the UK for more than 3 years
 
I'll try and explain this point again with my own record



I received my National Insurance number in the tax year I turned 16. Under the old rules everyone was credited with these as full years during full time education. The system doesn't seem to distinguish between people who were born in the UK and everyone else. So it looks like everyone has been credited with those 3 years.

The following 4 years I was at university and third level education doesn't qualify for additional credits.
 
Please note that there are 2 UK state pensions, old and new. It can be confusing but should be differentiated as may cause confusion.

1. New is The full new State Pension is £203.85 per week.

2. The old is known as The full basic State Pension is £156.20 per week.

A bit of a difference.
 
Posted my CF83 form on the 6th May - nothing back to date. How long does a response typically take?

Thanks, John
 
There are significant delays. They are currently processing post from October 2022

According to link below, you can expect a reply by 16th December if you posted it on 6th May


Check when you can expect a reply from HMRC

Find out when you can expect to receive a reply from HMRC to a query or request you've made.
www.gov.uk
 
Hi, has it showed up on the website as being recieved? It took over 2 weeks for mine to show up so I assume we go by the date that is says its uploaded, I posted mine on the 5th registered and it only showed up on the 18th May.
 
Noreen8 said:
Hi, has it showed up on the website as being recieved? It took over 2 weeks for mine to show up so I assume we go by the date that is says its uploaded, I posted mine on the 5th registered and it only showed up on the 18th May.
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Where on the website does it show as being received? I have my proof of delivery from Royal Mail (posted it while visiting UK) but wouldn't mind double checking!
 
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