Worth doing in your case. I had 43 years contributions. I am lucky enough to have government pensions that more than make up the difference. It is what it is. Being contracted out made no difference to state pension pre 2016 other than It meant you didn't get serps.

Contracting out affects any state UK pension taken after 2016. This can drastically reduce your UK pension if contracted out for a long period.

I took early retirement in 2012 and I've just reached state pension age (66). I've had to add 6 years voluntary contributions to get the full £11,500 pension.

https://www.gov.uk/contracted-out

Very true and the way it works although we are lucky enough to benefit from the triple lock the gap between pre 2016 and those with opted out state pension widens compared to those on the post 2016 single tier pension. The annoying thing as I see it is the reduction for those opted out was because unbeknown to many they paid slightly less NI I believe 1.5 or 2% less? There was no mention of this fact reducing the single tier pension until they actually introduced it. Yet in the past 12 months they have reduced all NI contributions by 4% with no reduction on state pension. I accept it is what it is and yes being opted out means one benefits from a private pension but it does seem a bit odd that those opted out saved less than half the NI reduction currently being paid.

I’m unclear about claiming UK and Spanish pensions. I will have a full UK pension, having paid voluntary contributions, and around 24 years here in Spain. I assume I should get both based on those contributions and the rules in each country?

Elsewhere I’ve seen suggestions, hopefully unfounded, that you can’t pay into two systems, or that voluntary UK contributions, as they overlap, will reduce or cancel out compulsory Spanish contributions, or that Spain will I can’t have their pension as I already have a UK pension?! Can anyone reassure me?

Also, what happens with different retirement ages? For me it’s 66 and 2 months for UK and 10 month later here in Spain… So does that mean I will have to wait to claim both together in Spain and lose those 10 months of the UK pension, or can I claim the UK separately first, even though I will be working another 10months in Spain?

Thanks

Please see my post #5 above. Details are given and a nice explanation of how your pensions are supposed to work when you have worked in more than one country.

Your UK pension should kick in when it is supposed to regardless of whether you are still working in Spain. It is a separate system and if you are lucky, DWP will pay it on time without you having to hang around too long or trying to chase it up. (They are quite poor at responding).

Good luck.

You need to go to INSS not use this forum ( although the advice here is generally fairly accurate). I say this because you will find that your Spanish pension prediction will assume that you have only worked in Spain and that in order to do anything about your Spanish pension you will need to tell them you have worked abroad. Now whether this is because they then add you UK pension to the Spanish years to give you a full Spanish pension ( and you therefore lose your UK pension) or it is simply to allow you that option if you want I don't know- however it is part of the form you sign when you are about to get your Spanish pension so you have to answer the question. My gut feeling is that it is simply to allow you to do that and that in reality you get both pensions completely separately ( or else UK folk working in Spain as automnios are paying large amounts of money to fund other folks pensions and I am sure that would have come to light a long time ago).

I think that link is not going to help the poster as it only uses examples of people who have no complete pensions in solely one country. In other words it only looks at examples where folk combine pensions. The poster already has( or will have ) complete UK pension but wants to know what happens to the 24 years in Spain as you obviously can't add that to UK pension or alternatively it would have been a waste to pay voluntary contributions in UK if they only need 13 years from UK to get Spanish full pension.

Just because you have a 'complete' pension in one country does not necessarily exclude you from drawing a pension in another.
You have worked for it and contributed to the system, it's just that the UK still has this curious "top-up" system that allows you to boost your pension.
You will be taxed on it anyway so it is to Spain's benefit.
Officially and according to the EU ruling you must apply for the UK pension through the Spanish Social Insurance system anyway.

See: https://europa.eu/youreurope/citizen...d/index_en.htm

I get about two thirds of the full state pension, but fulfilled the necessary number of years.
I have not been able to get details of the reduction from government offices, but they did say it was due to contracting out.
I can only think of about 10 years max. when I would have been contracted out, so losing a third of the pension seems like it may be too much.
Are there any simple tools that could be used for working out what the reduction due to contracting out should be?

I do not begin to understand the situation regarding contracted out pensions. I was contracted out for several years. As part of that deal contributions were made to an alternative pension. I retired with a full contribution record (including some voluntary payments as I retired early). That all sounds pretty straightforward, however, I receive a pension from the DWP which is nearly 10% greater than the maximum full pension amount of 221/wk. On top of that the additional pension contributed to during the contracted out period is an additional 50/wk.

I have no idea how the state pension figures were arrived at, but I am certainly happy with the situation and I have no intention to query it!

If you have the HMRC App you can check which years you have full contributions and the years you were contacted out.

Yes that is true if you have a full pension you can take that and if you have enough minimum years in another country you can take that minimum separately. However if you want them separately you apply separately to each country - you won't get separate ones if you apply in Spain and tick box you worked aboard. That way you are saying you want them mixed together. So you don't apply for your complete UK pension in Spain unless you think you will get more byixing and getting 37 years , which is the full Spanish pension. In posters case : take full UK pension separately from UK and then collect 24 year s of Spanish pension later but don't tick worked abroad box.

Many thanks for everyone’s input. Just to be clear, I do intend to contact the INSS but thought there might be someone here with personal knowledge/experience of this situation.

However, I have since found someone on a UK money forum who has been through this process (albeit UK/Germany in his case), knows others who have, and explained in detail how the EU social security coordination system works under regulation EC 883/2004. First, each country calculates what you should get according to contributions under its system. And then it does a theoretical calculation as if you had paid contributions in both countries into its system but disregarding any overlapping periods. From there it calculates a pro-rata amount.

So in my case, the UK would ignore my Spanish contributions as they would make no difference to my entitlement to a full British pension. Meanwhile, Spain would disregard my voluntary UK contributions as they overlap with my Spanish contributions, and simply calculate on the basis of my 17 years working and contributing in the UK and my eventual 24 years here in Spain. This could possibly, though not necessarily, result in a higher amount than my separate Spanish pension, but it would not be less.

I have also asked the DWP about this and they said of course I can have both pensions. But whether Spain agrees remains to be seen.

So the alternative scenario is the one suggested by the speculation and opinions I’ve read about how the system works, where the UK pays me their full pension, and Spain decides in that case I lose my entitlement to my Spanish pension, despite working 24 years self-employed paying around 300 euros a month in national insurance.

No prizes for guessing which one I favour (and which I think sounds most likely) but I must be prepared for the worst.

Also worth stressing that when people talk about combining pensions, they seem to imply getting one or two. But, whatever happens, each pension is paid by the respective government separately. The only thing combined is the qualifying years for the calculations.

And I find the idea of answering “no” to the question on the Spanish pension application form “have you worked abroad?” troubling. Surely that would be lying to a government body… If it’s legitimate to apply separately, then what would be the sense in playing the system in that way?

As I say I will contact the INSS, though my experience of Spanish bureaucracy is not positive and I suspect the average civil servant here will not know the answer. I think it would need someone higher up who actually processes pension applications of this sort. But anyway, fingers crossed.

And all this is somewhat academic anyway as I can’t change anything, whatever the system, as I’ve bought my UK voluntary contributions and have to work another 3 years here in Spain, contributing. So whatever will be, will be…

I don't have the HMRC app, didn't even know there was one.
Getting confirmation of the number of years contracted out would certainly help.
However, the biggest stumbling block appears to be how to calculate the reduction due to being contracted out.

The HMRC Gateway App will give you an up to date prediction of your UK pension and similarly the SEPE one will do the same but will offer to do a prediction based on working abroad but you need to go to INSS to do that.