EU citizen's rights to UK pension after emigrating

by **mr_broots** on Sat Nov 06, 2010 4:21 pm

Hi,

Situation:
An EU citizen (Lithuanian, although never having worked or paid social security in Lithuania), now living in the UK for nearly 10 years (and paying UK NI - PAYE & Self-Employed for this time). Unfortuantely unable to apply for UK citizenship due to dual-nationality laws in Lithuania preventing this.

If emigrating to a non-EEA country (South Africa), will it be possible to pay voluntary UK NI contributions and claim any sort of UK State Pension when retiring? I am thinking the answer is likely "no", as they are not a UK citizen.

In that case, what would probably be the best way to go about this?
Pay voluntary contributions to the Lithuanian SODRA (state pensions), if that is even possible, or maybe have the UK contributions paid out to a South African pension fund?

Thank you kindly.
Regards.

by **mr_broots** on Mon Jan 10, 2011 2:28 pm

Anybody?

Or is this in the too hard bin? :roll:

Thanks.

by **mkp** on Mon Jan 10, 2011 3:32 pm

Hi Mr_Broots

Have a look at NI38 - www.hmrc.gov.uk/pdfs/nico/ni38.pdf
It is possible to pay either class 2 or class 3 contributions from abroad irrespective of citizenship. It would be sensible to obtain a pension forecast when the departure date is known. Here is some more info: http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/cnr/osc.htm

I note that there was some 'talk' a few months back that raised the issue of linking the UK state pension to UK residency and/or citizenship rather than simply on NI contributions, as it is currently.

Good Luck

MKP

by **mr_broots** on Mon Jan 10, 2011 4:11 pm

Hi MKP,

Thank you very much for taking the time to reply.

I did see NI38, but I couldn't really ascertain from that (unless I missed something) whether that would apply to someone who is not a British citizen and then proceeds to emigrate.
I guess the first thing to do is obtain a forecast as you mentioned.

Regards.