jenintheden

My husband has been offered a job in Vancouver and we intend to move in a couple of months’ time. I will look for a job on arrival. We don’t know how long we’ll be staying – at least a couple of years, could be longer (probably not forever).

I’m trying to work out what to do about pensions. His employer does not have a pension scheme (I obviously don’t know if mine will).

We want to make retirement savings of some sort while we’re away but I don’t know what the best thing to do would be. I think the options are:

1. Transfer some of our earnings to private pensions in the UK
2. Open up some form of private pension in Canada (I have no idea how this would work)
3. Pay into some other form of investment in Canada
4. Something else…?

Does anyone have any experience of this? What are the advantages/disadvantages of each option?

What do Canadians usually do?

Moondoggy

Hi,

Not wanting to be a pain, but I think you might get a better response if you post this in the Canada 'General' forum section, this sub-forum is mainly concerned with immigration queries and discussion.

helcat12

What Canadians usually do isn't really what you need to know, not being Canadians.

If you were planning on staying permanently, then that would be another matter but if you are not, then it doesn't make sense to transfer UK work-related pensions. This will incur a charge which can be quite substantial and not worth it if you are only staying a short while.

I know that you can continue to make voluntary contributions to National Insurance so that your UK State pension will still be up to scratch if you do not already have 30 years of contributions. (30 years contributions is what you need to get the full State Pension in the UK.)