AIBU to think claiming two state pensions seems unethical?

They will have paid contributions and now they'll be paying tax. At least they can be independent.

Why are you so concerned about it? Be glad for your parents.

Advise them not to tell others, it's private. They made a mistake telling you!

I disagree with you that it’s ‘unethical’ - presumably your parents have paid into both stage systems in order to qualify for a state pension.
In any case - to my knowledge, the uk government is making this harder to do now as they are increasing the voluntary pension rate for most people who live abroad.

I think you sound quite nasty tbh!

Class 2 basically isn't available anymore for expats after the latest budget.

In NZ I believe you can claim superannuation from another country as well as NZ super, but the NZ amount is reduced on a dollar for dollar basis so you aren't getting more than the standard NZ super. If the overseas super is more than the NZ one then you miss out on anything from NZ.

What you describe is madness OP.

I did not once portray it as current. You have misread my posts.

If you read back, particularly my post on page 2, you will see where I've said it was historical.

I get all that very well, and my contribution is one your friend is working through. My comments are because you’ve portrayed it as current and it’s not. It’s not an option anymore.

Also if you were employed or self employed while abroad, you should have been entitled to the lower class 2 rates for any periods before April 2026.

You should maybe call them to query it as there's a potential that you may have overpaid, and (sometimes) it's possible to get the difference refunded or allocated to another year if you would prefer that. They do require proof of employment to dispute and recalculate the rates so have any paperwork handy.

Thats the class 3 rate. People abroad could previously pay the lower class 2 rates but from April this year, that's no longer allowed as the criteria has changed for overseas expats. Everyone now has to pay the higher class 3 rate.

You still get slightly more back than you would pay in so it's still something people will do. It's just no where near the good deal that previous people had.

I've explained all this in my previous posts.

If you’re living abroad and opt to pay NI its £980 a year, we paid it for the first two years we moved abroad as we weren’t sure then if it would be a permanent move, and if it wasn’t neither of us wanted a gap in our NI payments.

There was a scheme that DWP put out a while ago.

It closed in April 2025. If you registered interest with them before the deadline then they allowed temporary special circumstances for people to back pay historical years, right back to 2006.

My friends that still work in this eary and still working through the backlog of voluntary payments as there was a massive uptake.

The usual allowance for voluntary payments is the previous 6 years, so currently people can pay for 2020-2026.

Anyone in the scheme that registered interest, had the ability to pay a lump sum of just under £3200, approx £160-£170 per year at the Class 2 rate (the rates change slightly every year) and this lump sum is enough to give you the full state pension of 12.5k per year.

Ah you don’t mean that one. So why are you also posting saying £170 a year??

Do you mean this one? It’s closed, it’s at max 6 years retroactive now, and you had to have started making your contributions sufficiently long ago to meet the qualifying years. So for that category of people yes they had that option. More recently than that they have removed the cheaper class of payment for overseas residents so it is no longer a £170 a year now. I put a link earlier with a description.

They should just change the law, refund the contributions and stop them taking pensions. It’s absolutely outrageous and I can’t believe successive governments have allowed it to continue when we already have a pensions affordability crisis.

I'll share my initial post again from page 1 for those that missed it.

While I haven’t done the calc, there would be a number of years after earning the pension after which if you are still alive it would be statistically certain you’re taking out more than you put in. And not a crazy number of years, prob in the 10-15.

Not sure why you're having pop at me as I haven't criticised your posts at all.

Maybe you and @echt should read my previous posts.

I'm the one that explained it changed in April this year and explained the changes.

You need to update yourself on the changes if you’re going to present yourself as informed.

It has changed.

"Technically" means really. They are really doing nothing wrong.

It also may well be that in some countries, e.g Australia, you have to claim your UK pension before being considered for the means-tested state pension, so it makes sense to top up NI contributions.

Being outside the triple lock pisses off the Au government big time, as more Pom retirees shift onto the Au state pension due to dwindling pensions levels.

That depends. Some foreign countries, e.g. Australia are outside the triple lock so it's frozen, others, e.g. the EU are inside the lock.

I think what has occasioned this thread is the recent kite-flying or faux concern about welfare v. defence and the triple lock has come under scrutiny. An obvious target that would cause less concern is those overseas.

Except.....such overseas recipients of the UK state pension now also have the vote for GEs.

That depends on which country you live in. It increases if you live in the EU or certain other countries (there’s a list).

Read my previous post, i used to work in this area.

Paying less than £170 a year for 20 years, so less than £3200 lump sum, allows you to claim £12.5k per year SP.

Seems like a pretty good investment with regards to getting much more back than you pay in.

The one time lump sum payment, the equivalent of one quarter of the annual pension payout, is just wild returns and completely unaffordable for UK nationals.