BUZZ ACCOUNTINGVoluntary National Insurance from abroad
£3.50 a week while you're abroad can buy you a UK State Pension year. Over a career overseas that's the best-returning 'investment' most expats will ever ignore. We check your record, tell you which class you can pay, and set it up.
Your UK State Pension needs 35 qualifying years for the full amount (about £230 a week from 2025/26) and at least 10 years to get anything. Years abroad don't count — unless you pay voluntarily. And here's the part almost nobody knows: expats who worked in the UK right up to leaving, and who work abroad, can usually pay Class 2 — £3.50 a week, about £182 a year — rather than Class 3 at £17.75 a week. Each year bought adds roughly £6.60 a week to your pension for life. Pay £182, get back around £340 a year from state pension age, indexed. There is nothing else like it.
What we do
- Pull your NI record and count your qualifying years and gaps.
- Determine whether you qualify for Class 2 or Class 3 abroad (the CF83 conditions — working before departure, employed or self-employed abroad).
- File the CF83 application and set up ongoing payments from abroad.
- Advise which back years are worth buying — you can normally go back six years, and some are better value than others.
Two cautions: buying years you'd fill anyway (by returning to UK work) can waste money, and anyone contracted-out in the past needs their starting amount checked before buying. That's exactly what the review is for. This is factual pension-record work — we don't give investment advice.
Payback, roughly
Class 2 costs about £182 per year bought; each year adds about £342/yr of State Pension (2025/26 rates).
£149 — record review, class check and application. One-off.
Fixed, agreed in writing before we start. Two or more services together? Ask for the bundle quote.
Get startedAsked about this every week
Is this really worth it if my pension is decades away?＋
Usually spectacularly so: a Class 2 year costs about £182 and adds about £340 a year to your pension for life. Even doubting every assumption, the payback is a few years of retirement. The honest exceptions: people who'll reach 35 years anyway, and some with contracted-out history — which is exactly what we check.
I live in Australia — I heard my UK pension gets frozen anyway.＋
It does (no annual increases once in payment there, same in Canada/NZ/South Africa) — the deal is smaller but usually still good. We show the maths with the freeze included, not the brochure version.
Can I fill years I've already missed?＋
Normally the last six tax years. The special window reaching back to 2006 closed in April 2025 — the six-year rolling window is what's left, so gaps age out permanently each April.
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