WorldCitizen2021

Hello, I’ve been in the US through marriage for over a year now, working in the US although mostly online since covid-19. The whole move was a blur, and had possibly been temporary as I was also looking for jobs in the UK and my wife was willing to relocate. Looks like we’re staying here for the foreseeable future.

Since 2020 was a blur of uncertainty, I never notified HM Revenue and Customs about my situation. Please can anyone advise me what I need to do to make it official, to maintain NI payments so I can still access the NHS and state pension IF I do return? Can I still access the NHS as a visitor? And what is the current process for undoing all this and returning anyway? Finally, do I still have to do a UK tax return? Presumably if I am a US resident, I don’t? Or maybe I do, but (hopefully) I don’t have to pay tax? Sorry for so many questions. Thank you in advance for any advice on this.

TexanScot

Generally speaking, eligibility for non-emergency treatment on the NHS is based on residency, not your National Insurance contribution history. Once you become ordinarily resident in the United Kingdom again, you will become eligible for non-emergency treatment on the NHS.

You won't lose any prior entitlement to the State Pension, although you might want to take advice as to whether or not it's worth you making any voluntary contributions to top up whatever entitlement you have accrued to date.

If you don't actually live in the UK then you're not generally entitled to non-emergency treatment on the NHS, however bona fide emergency treatment is available to ANYONE on the NHS regardless of citizenship or residency, so they will patch you up for free if you break a leg whilst over visiting family.

Do you have any UK-sourced income from rental property etc?

civilservant

As was stated above, access to the NHS is in no way related to your NI conts.

Yes, but you should be declaring you are a non-UK resident and they should be billing you.

Rete

You didn't say but are you here on an approved spousal visa?

rpjs

You can file a form P85 to tell HMRC you're no longer resident in the UK and you expect to be living abroad for the foreseeable future (I think HMRC uses expecting to be out of the UK for at least three years as their criteria). You will most likely get a modest refund from them if you were paying UK tax before you moved to the US.

If you've got at least three years of National Insurance Contributions (NICs) under your belt, you can elect to carry on paying voluntary NICs to continue to build your entitlement to a UK state pension. You need at least ten years' of NICs to get any UK state pension, and 35 years to get the full pension. Ex-pats currently pay Class II NICs which are a pretty good deal, about £3 a week, a lot of us on this board consider it a "no-brainer" to carry on paying voluntary NICs. A couple of years ago, the British government floated, but has currently shelved, the idea of abolishing Class II NICs which would switch us ex-pats to Class III which is somewhat more expensive, about £15 a week, but still not a bad deal as the current UK state pension is £135 a week. Google "NI38" for details on how to apply.