Geordieborn

It's very good of you to come back to everyone with the information. Just for clarity, no overlapping contributions are counted by either country, hence vol. conts paid in the UK while in Italy are not used. But say you did not work in Italy (or in the UK if the other way around) for the first year or more, then that year or more the contribution(s) would be used it the other country. In your case they will be used to calculate your UK pension, based on UK contributions only. In most cases I've looked at it is rare paying voluntary UK contributions is of much use - it's a gamble on how long you will live... There are however exceptions!

robbyasti

Yes, no overlapping contributions are counted. I didn't work in Italy for my first two years here, so the voluntary NI contributions for those years will be counted by INPS.