nhs84

My partner and I are looking to move back to the UK (back for me at least) for a few years so he can experience Europe and then decide whether to settle somewhere in the UK or EU (Brexit means that’s another topic) or back to Australia.

my question is how long who he need to work in the UK before being able to make voluntary NI contributions if we left the UK?

christmasoompa

3 years. https://www.gov.uk/voluntary-nationa...-contributions

HTH.

nhs84

Thanks

AlyWhitaker

Don't mean to hjack this thread, I'll create a new one if needed, please just let me know

I'm confused at the information listed on that website you listed.. So I moved to US in 1998, and had worked in UK since 1989. So I worked 9 years total.

Do I have to make up NI contributions for the number of years I have been away? or are they saying you need to have a minimum of 10 years worked. Like I said.. I'm confused. Can someone explain?

christmasoompa

You don't have to do anything, but at the moment you may not qualify for any UK state pension. You need a minimum of 10 years contributions to qualify for any pension, but that would be an incredibly small amount, it's 35 years to get a full pension. You can check your contributions online, you may find that you have more than you think as it's not just years of work that contribute, it can also be things like caring for children.

If you can make voluntary contributions to increase your payout, it would be a very sensible investment for most people. At the moment you can 'buy' a lot more years than usual (you can usually only go back 6 years), but that will end in 2023, so worth investigating asap.

HTH.

AlyWhitaker

Thanks! So how do I go about buying more years? I'm waiting for my NI number to be mailed to me. I can't seem to find any documents with it listed. But I guess once I've got that.. I can check on that website?

christmasoompa

Info about how to make voluntary contributions is in the link above. I’m not sure if you need your NI number to check your record, but again that’s on the link above so you can give it a try.