Ever worked in the UK? Here’s your step-by-step to buying yourself a UK state pension alongside your Irish one – and on the cheap. Our Managing Director, Colm Moore CFPⓇ, recently provided a step-by-step guide to increasing your UK state pension entitlement in the Irish Independent. Check it out below and learn how you can claim this valuable benefit.
Hundreds of thousands of people crossed the Irish Sea in the 1980s and after the 2008 financial crash in search of a new life, building roads and cities, teaching in schools, nursing in hospitals, or working in finance. Many of them returned to Ireland in the belief they had left their UK state pension behind them.
Now, these returned immigrants have a chance of a lifetime to benefit from their time in Britain, with the UK government effectively subsiding them to top up their UK pension.
Thanks to a temporary concession, Irish people who worked for at least three consecutive years in Britain and paid national insurance (the equivalent of our PRSI) can buy back as many as 6 extra years to their UK pension, instead of the usual six. And by continuing to make voluntary national insurance contributions in the years ahead, some of those former emigrants could claim both a full Irish and full UK state pension in retirement.
“The UK government is not exactly writing to everyone in Ireland to say ‘you are entitled to this’,” says Colm Moore, Managing Director of Moore Wealth Management. “But there’s no better financial advice than to buy back these pension years. It’s an A-rated guaranteed income from UK government.”
The cost of topping up your UK pension depends on whether you have to pay class 2 (non-resident) or class 3 (resident) contributions, with HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) determining which category you are in.
The cheapest option for buying national insurance contributions is class 2, which costs about £179 for each pension year. If you are categorised as class 3, you will have to pay £907 to buy each pension year.
From the 6th of April 2026, any non-resident applying for additional contributions into the National Insurance will have to pay at the Class 3 contributions rate.
But even if you buy years at the more expensive rate, you would have made your money back if you lived for 3.5 years after you retired, compared to less than six months by buying at class 2 rates.
The application process takes time and there’s a backlog, so get the ball rolling now. Most of the process is conducted online and if you’re in any way tech-savy and are comfortable filling out forms, you could find the process relatively straightforward. If not, some financial advisers will do it for you
The UK introduced changes to its state pension in April 2016, when it introduced the so-called New State Pension, which is worth more but also requires more years of contributions.
To qualify for the full new pension, which applies to a man born on or after April 6, 1951 or a woman born on or after April 6,1953, people generally require a 35-year record of paying national insurance contributions – up from 30 years under the previous regime.
Under normal rules, it’s only possible to plug gaps in your national insurance record up to six years after the year in question. But under transitional arrangements, which were due to end on April 5, 2023, but were extended until July 31 due to an influx of inquiries, people who come under the new state pension system are able to plug any missing years from the 2006/2007 tax year onwards. This means people can currently pay for up to 16 years missing from their record.
Financial planner Colm Moore says:
Because the UK changed the qualifying period from 30 years to 35 years in 2016, you had people who were approaching retirement age and then found that the goalposts had changed. So, they brought in an option for people to buy back 10 years from 2006 to 2016.”
Despite Brexit, both Irish and UK citizens living in Ireland can still benefit from social insurance contributions they made when working in the UK.
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