You can have both pensions separately or combine but combining is only worth it if you are short on UK one or you have less than 15 years on Spanish on and want the full Spanish pension
However reading your post you seem to be saying you only have 17 years in UK. You can't back pay for the remaining years to get a full UK pension. Only the last 6. So I guess you will only manage 23 years in UK. You then need to combine that with Spanish one if you want a decent pension.

 

Sorry thats wrong, its not just the last 6 years for topping up UK state pension. You can catch up with any missing years going all the way back to 2006. This special arrangement has been extended a few times but its believed to end in April 2025, and then I believe it will go back to only the last 6 or 7 yrs. So its VERY VERY urgent if anyone wants to buy missing years of National Insurance contributions to start the ball rolling urgently. Thats why the UK HMRC and pensions people are so busy.

 

I can't answer the question as to whether you can pay voluntary NI contributions in Spain if you are working and paying SS as well. I did pay some years of Class 3 contributions before claiming my state pension but had not worked since moving to Spain.

Regarding taxation, pension income in Spain is treated the same as income from work. The only exception is for UK Crown Pensions (Civil Service, Local Government, Police, etc) as these are only taxable in the UK, but must still be declared on your Spanish income tax return as exempt income and can affect your marginal rate of tax if your other income exceeds the Spanish personal allowances. For someone aged between 65 and 74 the basic personal allowance is €6,700 plus a further €2,000 for general expenses so a total of €8.700. There is a low income allowance which means that anyone earning (or receiving pensions of) less than €15k a year pays no income tax, but above that level it tapers away gradually until anyone earning over €21k a year only gets the €8,700 allowance. Once you reach the age of 75 the personal allowance increases to €8,100 plus the €2k for general expenses.

The national rates of tax payable on income above the personal allowances is shown in the link below. The tax you pay is split 50/50 between national and regional governments and the regional tax rates often vary (slightly) from the national ones so you would need to check the rates for the region you live in, which would apply to 50% of your tax liability.

Spanish tax rates and allowances for 2024. (europeaccountants.com)

 

Deleted, duplicate post

 

Thanks to both for the info.

1kaipa. I know you can normally only pay voluntary contributions for the last 6 years but at the moment you can pay back to 2006, which will revert back to the usual 6 years from April of next year. Not sure if you are saying that doesn't apply in my case for some reason. On my government gateway account it lists all those years as available for payment, albeit at the class 3 rate. But as I worked abroad during those years it says I should call the pension centre as I may be able to pay the cheaper class 2.

 

Yes if you worked abroad and you write them a letter with your employment history and employer names from 2006 onwards they should allow you to pay class2. It worked for me. They are happy if you are self employed. Your actual income doesn't seem relevant when abroad as long as you weren't unemployed. I think they only force you to pay class 3 if you claim unemployment benefit abroad OR you didnt pay any NI contributions on the last year you lived and worked in UK. I have a friend who didnt pay the last year in UK, that was a very costly mistake as now paying class 3 while living abroad.
I don't know the spanish pension system. If its means tested it may reduce your spanish pension if you have another income or it may not ? The UK pension is not means tested at all.
Also if you are thinking of buying missing NI years in UK, make sure you ask the UK pensions people if each of the missing years will actually increase your pension. In some cases certain years may not increase your pension so it would be a waste to pay for them.

 

What sort of pension will you be getting? I ask because only pensions which are not taxable in Spain are UK Crown Pensions (Civil Service, Armed Forces, Police, and a few other professions). The UK state pension is taxable in Spain as are private pensions and all other worldwide income either earned or from investments.
If your pension is not UK Crown you will have to lump in all your income/earnings. Pensions in Spain are classed as "income".
You have to apply to obtain the tax exception form the Uk if it is not a Crown pension.
As for taxes on incomes in Spain read this guide.

https://www.pellicerheredia.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Taxes-Guide-in-Spain.pdf

Some years it is an advantage for a couple to submit a joint tax return other years not. Obviously this will have an affect on the amounts of tax you will be paying. I understand where you live can also affect how much taxes you pay. Autonomous Regions have the ability to make changes to the taxes they collect.
Yes, it is not so easy! That is why a lot employ the services of a Gestoría.
Having said all of that each year things change. Who knows what the future will bring.

I did not think it was possible to claim both pensions. You claim from where you last worked. Hopefully someone else here can confirm that

 

Ok sounds like an amnesty if you can pay from 2006 I didn't know that. I think you pay class 2 if you work in Spain ( as you are only eligible for a pension and not healthcare or unemployment benefits etc as you aren't a UK resident). So if you can pay from 2006 that gives you 17 years to pay up front which will give you 34 - so pretty much full UK pension. Then you can get separate pension from Spain but you must have worked 15 years min and the amount is dependent on how much you worked. But yes - it is the best deal you will get this life!!

 

I found this previous question. Maybe this is of help?

https://www.expatforum.com/threads/claiming-uk-and-spanish-state-pensions.1540995/

 

All very useful thanks...

Rusty Nail: it's simply a normal UK state pension, so will be taxable. And yes all very confusing and subject to change. I do have someone who does my tax returns here as I am self employed and refuse to deal with hacienda alone! So I will speak to him when i have sorted out these UK contributions.

1kaipa: it has been much discussed in UK media and promoted by financial experts, which is why it's so hard to get through to the future pensions service as they are inundated with calls and have already extended this deadline twice I believe.

 

You can go to the Social Security website in Spain where they give you a pension prediction based on your contributions. This is the best place to start. Note you can take your UK pension and keep working in Spain if you want and therefore potentially get a bigger Spanish pension.

 

It has been very hard to get though to UK Pensions no matter which department you need.
They do not do electronic certificates for you PC, like here in Spain (or other European countries).
For some reason the British like to hold on to the past. Pension office have to send letters not emails, The tax office still send cheques.

Edit: Should add that once you are through on the phone the staff are very helpful.

 

Not quite sure what you mean by getting a bigger Spanish pension. I could defer the UK pension a year, which would mean a slight increase, but that would never make up for losing that year.
I have been into the Spanish social security website to check my pension forecast. I can retire here in May 2027 (when I will have 25 years of contributions), but July 2026 in UK. So, my doubt is whether I can claim the UK pension in 2026, then continue working in Spain for the final 10 months, before claiming the Spanish pension. I know there are rules here about working and receiving the Spanish state pension at the same time (such as partial retirement or deferred) but not sure if this applies to the UK pension. But I guess these are questions for social security here.
And yes, the Spanish electronic certificate is fantastically useful and makes lots of bureaucracy much easier, whereas the UK system does seem a bit antiquated but will have to be patient…

 

What I mean is that the more complete days you have worked in Spain determines the size of your pension not the number of years in which you worked. If you have worked 25 years in Spain then you should get a fairly good pension but obviously not a full one as you need 35 years for that. Basically once you reach UK pension age you will simply get that- you don't need to inform Spain or apply through Spain ( unless you were going to combine which in your case would be not required). Then when you reach Spanish pension age you get that one separately or you can work longer in Spain to get more years added if you wish. The only thing that strikes me as strange is why anyone who worked for 3 continuous years in UK and then moved to work abroad doesn't simply make class 2 contributions to UK whilst also paying for pension in the country they live and work in. Effectively you could get 2 full pensions whilst only having to pay around £170 a year to UK. That would seem to good to be true- so I guess there is a catch?

 

This is only responding to the paying the last 17 years of NI contributions. I have lived in Colombia for the last 29 years and so hadn't paid NI contributions for that time in the UK. I just worked through the process and paid 17 years of class 2 contributions in October, and about 3 months later these were credited to my account and are now registered up to last year. If you haven't done so, then I would highly recommend getting the HMRC app for your phones, as it is very clear what you have paid up to now and what your pension is currently calculated to be. Some above have stated that you can only pay the last 6 years and they are correct, normally. However, the government has opened the opportunity to pay as far back as 17 years for a limited time. The deadline has been extended, but it won't go on forever. When you make the transfer, you will not get any receipt or acknowledgement of the payment until the years are processed, which can take many months. However, you can call them, and they can confirm that the payment was made, but you will still need to wait for them to process it. On a side note: I underpaid the total by 5GBP and so they weren't able to process the last year. I received a letter and so I transferred the missing 5GBP and they then credited the whole year some weeks later. My point is that it is slow, and you need patience, but it does work. I am now looking forward to having a full UK pension at 67. I was only going to have half that.

 

All useful to know. I have the HMRC app and it’s essential to know where you are in terms of pension forecast and qualifying years. And as I mentioned elsewhere, I managed to speak to the future pensions centre this morning (essential to call the moment they open), and they confirmed I can pay the last 17 years, then two more ongoing, to get the full UK pension. I had already completed the form CF83 online to apply to pay class 2 contributions, which should apply in my case, so just have to wait for them to respond, which they estimate at 2 months. So patience is the key but as you say it does work and is one hell of an investment.

 

Hi did you get an answer. I am in the same situation. I don't understand if my contributions if I did them would benefit me. I need to buy 15 years to get to 35 years to get full pension from the UK. I could buy those years. I also have pension of 23 years in Spain. I assumed that because in Spain you need 38 years for full pension that I would get a pension based on Spain and the UK both paying a proportion of the maximum. If I can just buy more years to get a full UK pension and 3/4 of a Spanish pension that would be great but I am unsure if that actually is what would happen. I am sceptical that I would get extra by buying those 15 years.

 

Hi Tim,
I am in a similar situation. In Spain the pension value depends on your NI contributions over the years. Any time spent working in the UK can be considered for the calculation of whether you have worked the minimum of 15 years (if you choose to select this option), but cannot help increase your Spanish pension in any way. Much better to claim two pensions than trying to combine.

 

You need to urgently phone the UK future pensions centre if you are considering paying missing years going back to 2006 and getting authorisation to pay the cheaper class 2. The offer expires in April 2025 and they are very slow in processing paperwork, its months not weeks. I don't know the Spanish system so can't comment. If you only want to go back 6 years there is no urgency

 

Went into the online pension forecast website and got the following prediction...

You can get your State Pension on the XX XXXXXXX 20XX*
Your forecast is £221.20 a week, £961.83 a month, £11,541.90 a year

* I have replaced the exact date with xxxx, just to maintain privacy.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I have been making annual voluntary contributions at a lower rate for some years now, at a low rate of about a couple of hundred of pounds instead of the £1000 or so most folks pay. It has something to do with me having a business before I left the UK.

But I guess this looks like I will get the full amount of UK state pension, when I retire.

 

Luckily, I will be able to claim both the Spanish and UK pension, but remains to be seen if my UK contributions would be better going towards my Spanish state pension, as I will not have the full number of years for the Spanish state pension.

 

Again with this erroneous idea of transferring contributions from one country to another. That is NOT how it works. This is a misunderstanding of the system of coordination between social security systems, which simply ensures that contributions that may fall below a national minimum will be recognised in light of contributions made elsewhere. But there is no combining or mixing. Only the years actually contributed will be recognised. The UK will pay you a pension based on your contributions to the UK system and Spain will pay you a pension based on your contributions here. I mean, seriously, why would Spain pay you a higher pension based on contributions you’d made in another country?

 

Spot on. You can even see this in the Spanish online pension calculator. If you indicate that you have worked abroad it just asks for the number of years and you will see that the value does not increase it is as if you were officially working in Spain for those years, but on a salary of 0 euros.

 

It's good to know that I can use my UK NI contributions, to top up my Spanish pension, so I get the Spanish pension based on 37 years and six months.

 

I assume (hope) you're being deliberately obtuse or trying to be funny... but whatever, no point in wasting any more time on this nonsense.

 

"The Protocol on Social Security Coordination sets forth the totalization of contribution periods completed in the other Party for the recognition of retirement pensions. Therefore, it allows those years of work in the United Kingdom to be taken into account for their future pension. "

Pensions - Ministerio de Inclusión, Seguridad Social y Migraciones

 

Ok, one last attempt. What you’ve quoted simply means that each country you’ve worked in adds together (totalises) your contributions in all countries in order to recognise your right to a pension in the case that you fall below a national average. In other words, if you have 13 years in Spain, below the national minimum, Spain will add the years you have in the UK, say 30, making 43, which means you will have enough to qualify for a Spanish pension, which would otherwise be denied to you. BUT, Spain will only pay the 13 years you’ve actually contributed, and the UK the 30 years there.
As I’ve said elsewhere, I know of several people who have actually been through the process of claiming the two pensions, and this is how it works.

Check this out from Your Europe EU site:

FAQs|State pensions abroad - Your Europe


I'm soon going to retire to France after having worked in various EU countries, including France. Are all my contributions in the different countries added together to determine my pension entitlement in France?
NO — You will not simply get a French pension corresponding to the total amount of years worked in the EU. You'll get a separate pension from each country where you worked for at least a year.
Your final pension will be calculated according to your contribution record in each country: the sum you will receive from each will correspond to the length of your social security coverage there.

 

I was told by INSS that they would inform UK about my pension and then two different approaches would be looked out to give the best outcome. I was told I couldn't claim separately because the Spanish need to know if you get a pension from another country which you tick a box for.

 

But that is the point, I don’t think there’s a contradiction here.

Based on the accounts of people (on this forum and others) who have actually been through the process of claiming two pensions and/or spoken to the INSS, everyone is told something different depending on their circumstances (or perhaps depending on the person you speak to). Some are told to claim together through the INSS, as per standard procedure, while others are told to claim their UK pension separately and directly from the DWP, presumably if there is a sizeable period between the two retirement dates and/or you have over the minimum contributions required in each country.

Correct me if I’m wrong, but I seem to recall gathering from your other posts on this subject in the past that you have under the 15 years in Spain, so would therefore logically need to claim them together to ensure you get a Spanish pension based on however many years you do have.

But, in any case, the best thing to do for anyone is to make an appointment with the INSS a few months before the first pension is due, and ask them what to do.

 

Yes it is true that if you don't have 15 years in Spain you would obviously need to involve both DWP and INSS. If you have over 15 years then this is when people claim separately. However if you go into your Spanish pension forecast via SS website you will see they only give you a prediction based on the default assumptions that you have never made contributions or effectively work in another country. You will see that you can then tick a field saying you have worked elsewhere and then you need to inform them. Once you do this you won't be able to claim separately - because the two countries need to exchange data to work out your pension.

 

So, in Spain you require 37 years and 6 months to get the full pension and in the UK lets assume it is 35 years.

So, if you have the full 35 years in the UK and 20 years in Spain

Option 1

​

Full UK pension PLUS 20/37.5 of the Spanish pension​

​

You get paid two pensions, one from the UK and one from Spain.​

​

Option 2

​

If you opt to combine the pensions and by using the UK years towards the Spanish pension, what is the calculation?​

​

 

It doesn't matter how you do it both countries pay their fractions but when you do it the official way the authorities work out different calculations so that you can see which is best.

 

I`m in a similar situation to some others on this thread.
Will reach UK retirement age in January 2026 when I`ll be 66.
Will reach Spanish retirement age in January 2027 when I`ll be 67.
At present I have 35 qualifying UK NI years , mainly after paying voluntary contributions until I reached 35 years a couple of years ago.
In Spain I currently have 33 years 8 months so will be at about 35 years 8 months at Spanish retirement age which is not enough to get the maximum but hopefully will be enough to get a reasonable pension though like many autonomos I`ve been paying the minimum rate for many years.
At present I plan to apply for my UK pension when I reach 66 (believe I can apply from 4 months before), directly or via INSS. Meanwhile I`ll still be working as an autonomo in Spain so suppose my UK pension will be taxed with income from my work. Up to me to declare I suppose. or will hacienda automatically receive UK pension details from INSS or even from my Spanish bank.
Before, someone mentioned problem of having worked in Spain some periods without paying NI. I have old Spanish wage slips / nominas from the 1980s which didn`t add to my SS contributions for a number of reasons. A gestora mentioned to me a few years ago that she thought there would be a possibility of INSS acknowledging these years and so improving pension and allowing earlier retirement though I have never tried. Has anyone heard of people making successful claims ?

 

This whole issue surrounding contributions to UK and Spanish state pensions, how they relate to each other, and the process for claiming them just goes round and round on this forum in various threads, with actual individual experiences mixed in with wild speculation…

On this and other forums some have suggested you can’t pay into 2 state pensions at the same time. Or if you do, any voluntary contributions in the UK will somehow reduce your Spanish pension. Or that you can transfer years of contributions made in one country to the other… all nonsense but ideas that still persist.

So I would urge you to simply contact both the INSS and DWP a few months before your first pension is due and ask about the best options in your particular case. As for tax, surely you just declare all your income worldwide here in Spain as presumably this is where you are tax resident.