dangboby

hi all

I have 9 years of full contributions and 5 years when I did not contribute enough. For my previous years to make the full contributions I have to pay around 800 pounds per nyear. I should qualify for also class 2 contributions.

Should I make the ioluntary contributions for the upcoming years or for previous years? I assume if I pay upcoming years it may be cheaper as im only paying class 2 rates?

For the government gateway login, they send access code to UK mobile. Is there any other way of doing it so they send it to personal email or Canadian number instead?

What is the most cost effective way of making the payments? What if I no longer have a UK bank?

Thanks.

Pulaski

The £800 is Class 3, so you won't be paying that if you qualify for Class 2, currently around £165.

You can currently, if you hurry, pay for all the years back to 2006-07, so 17 years. So that would get you at least 26/35ths of a state pension, and potentially more if you have more years until you retire. And you should buy as many years as you are allowed and can afford, as, assuming you live beyond retirement age, you will receive back in increased pension the cost of every year you buy in only about 7½ months of retirement. So if you buy, say 10 extra years @£165yr, your pension will be increased by enough to get you £1,650 in the first 7½ months of retirement (and carry on at that level until you die).

Check out this very long-running thread in the US forum on the subject of voluntary NI contributions. I'd start around January 2022 and read forwards before deciding if there is any benefit to reading further back through the thread.