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If you work abroad for a foreign employer you do not normally pay National Insurance contributions (NIC) in the UK, but you may have to pay social security contributions in the foreign country. This can leave you with a ‘gap’ in your UK contributions record which can affect your entitlement to a UK state pension.
If you will reach state pension age on or after 6 April 2016, you will be eligible for the ‘new’ state pension. You can find out more about the new state pension on the GOV.UK website. You will need 35 qualifying years' worth of contributions to get the full amount (you should be able to get a pro-rata amount provided you have at least ten qualifying years).
A ‘qualifying year’ sounds as though you might need to have a perfect 52 weeks of working for it to count. In fact, for ‘Class 1’ NICs, any tax year where you receive a minimum amount of earnings or credits (which you receive for example, if you cannot work because you are bringing up children who are aged under 12) can be a qualifying year. The 2018/19 tax year could be ‘banked’ as a qualifying year provided you have earned the equivalent of 52 x £116 (this amount is known as the Lower Earnings Limit) – total £6,032. You could also make up a qualifying year by, say, earning £116 for 40 weeks and then receiving NI credits for the other 12 weeks. Please note that any pay periods in which you have earned under the Lower Earnings Limit will not count towards the total.
If you go abroad but you have fewer contributions than you need for the year to count, you can think about making ‘voluntary contributions’ – Class 3 NICs. They cost £14.65 a week for the 2018/19 tax year, and help protect your state pension entitlement. There is more information about NICs in the ‘tax essentials’ section.
Someone who has not worked at all during 2018/19 may need to make 52 weeks’ worth of Class 3 National Insurance contributions to make it a ‘qualifying year’ at a cost of £761.80. Someone who has already worked for part of the year, may need to make fewer Class 3 contributions and therefore pay less.
Before committing yourself to expensive voluntary contributions, you should consult the NIC office or contact the Future Pension Centre to get an indication of your likely pension at retirement age. You can also check your state pension through HMRC’s new Personal Tax Account facility.This will help you decide whether it is necessary to make voluntary contributions.
For more information on the state pension, visit the ‘tax essentials’ section.
You can find out more about NIC when going abroad in HMRC’s booklet NI38. This also contains some helpful information about health care abroad.
If you do decide to make Class 3 NIC voluntary contributions, you should note that they do not count towards contribution-based Jobseeker’s Allowance – you may need to claim this when you finish studying, if you cannot get a job. Generally, only NIC paid on employment earnings in the previous two tax years (Class 1 NIC) count towards contribution-based Jobseeker’s Allowance (Class 1 credits may count too). However, a non-contribution-based version may be available which is being replaced by Universal Credit, which is worked out based upon your overall financial situation.
One final thing to consider is that if you work abroad for a foreign employer, you may have to pay foreign contributions – these are not typically reclaimable. Depending on which country you pay social security contributions in, they may count in terms of deciding your entitlement to some social security benefits in the UK. This is called the ‘aggregation principle’ and essentially allows you to ‘top up' your UK contributions with overseas social security contributions where necessary, in order to meet the UK requirements.
You can find out more about social security benefits within the EU on the EU website. Similar aggregation rules may apply if you pay social security in a country with a bilateral Social Security agreement with the UK, for example, Canada, Japan, New Zealand, and the USA. You should contact the International Pension Centre for more information on the position if you go to such a country.
