AIBU to think claiming two state pensions seems unethical?

[CoffeeAndCats3]

I wrote about this on another thread, but thought I'd start my own as it irks me and I'm wondering if IABU.

My parents emigrated from the UK in their early/mid thirties and have never lived in the UK since. They are now late 60's. My Mum told me recently that both her and my Dad are claiming a full UK pension, in addition to a full pension in the country them emigrated to. They don't need this money, but she seemed quite smug about how they can 'double dip' and live the Life of Riley while sitting on a load of money, rental properties etc. I told her it seemed a bit unethical to me, but she didn't understand my viewpoint at all.

How is this possible? She said that they only had to pay their (national insurance?) for a period of time after moving, to then be eligible for the full UK pension on retirement? Can someone explain to me if this is correct, as I half think they've scammed the UK system somehow!

Youve grossly misrepresented it.
you have to work and pay NICs then whilst you are an expat you pay voluntary NICs its around £900 per year now if you pay on time. You can pay up to six years late but it goes up every year. You still have to have 10 full years to get any state pension and 35 full years to get the full UK state pension, plus in many countries it’s frozen. The amount you get when you claim at 67 stays the same, there is no triple lock or increase at all. There are expats in Canada on full uk state pensions that are £20 a week.

yes it’s around £900 now, it goes up every year and the break even point is 3 years so if you get to 71 or 72 you’re getting interest on your principle investment.

It has literally only just gone up to £900,
in fact no one has actually even paid that yet so people are allowed to be annoyed there was a policy in place that allowed people to milk the system for so long.

My husband and I both worked in the UK, making contributions, before we emigrated. We're entitled to it - why wouldn't we collect it?

Yes, because that’s what NI contributions primarily fund…

Quite.

£200 per year? I wish, cost us over £5,000 to get a full state pension for the nearly two years my husband lost after taking redundancy due to ill health and that was quite a few years ago. Perhaps topping it up was cheaper years ago, its not now.

£5k for two years seems very expensive. I paid voluntary contributions from 1995 onwards and it was about £600 per year then.

I think it depends on what you earned and what contributions you previously paid. My husband was a shift electrical engineer so his NI would have been higher as his salary was high. Still got the same old age pension as others though. Not quite sure how the state pension contributions work, as all I know is what we had to pay. The cost went up quite steeply from either April 2025 or 2026 which is why we topped it up for missing years when we did as it would have cost a lot more after the increase.

There are well-off pensioners but a lot are poor too.

Its £923 annually each for class 3 voluntary. Its absolutely worth it, especially for older workers. Its a ridiculous loophole

How do they have enough qualifying years?

No one is challenging being able to claim what you contributed before leaving.

Its the generous top up scheme which allows people to continue to contribute from abroad having left.

State pensions are subsidised benefits - what most workers contribute is not enough to "buy" the value of pension they receive. The top up contributions are a relatively cheap way to buy subsidised pension. We shouldn't be allowing people who've left the country to continue accessing subsidised benefits.

The scheme is designed so if you leave the UK for a few years, such as working in say India or the DRC, or deck hand in the Caribbean, you can maintain your UK pension contributions.
A lot of people do return to the UK even after many years abroad, and need a pension.
What’s wrong is only needing 35 years for a full pension, it should be increased to say 44 years.

The rest of us can

I can't believe this. You should not be able to claim the UK pension if you move away.

Agreed. Shocking.

They are contributory pensions. He worked for 20 years in the UK. Then came here and worked. So he earned them.

He did not pay any extra contributions after he moved here. He receives what he was entitled to for his many years of working there.

I worked in UK for 10 years I still contribute annually to my national insurance (about £300 a year) and will get a state pension based on that (I am not a UK citizen). I also have a private UK pension that I paid into when there, I have a private Irish pension and will get Irish state pension. Is it fair (private ones yes because I and my employers paid into them). UK state pension I don't think so and as far as I know the terms of this are changing so it may not be possible to do going forward, it was all really confusing and you needed to be fairly switched on to understand it and set it up, there are companies that help you to do it so it is well known and utilised. I was very dubious when I was first told about it because I couldn't believe it was legit

That scenario sounds fine but the trouble is it is open to non UK citizens who have worked in the UK for a number of years and have no intention of returning. I am benefitting from it but don't think it is fair and was pretty surprised it had not been raised as an issue before

“Is it fair … UK state pension I don't think so”

So you know it’s not fair, you know it’s morally dubious but you’re still going to claim, why? Does selfishness overrule ethics?

Policy objective
These changes promote fairness by ensuring that individuals building a State Pension from outside the UK have a sufficient link to the UK and are paying a fairer price to do so.

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/voluntary-national-insurance-contributions-for-periods-abroad-from-6-april-2026/voluntary-national-insurance-contributions-abroad-from-6-april-2026

As someone else said above, it was a big story in expat circles for a while.

In the US, they changed the law a year or two ago so that your US state pension no longer reduces if you receive a foreign pension. At that point a lot of US-based Brits realised they should register their interest ASAP so that they could make backdated NI payments at the reduced rate and going back up to 20 years. Up to that point there didn't seem to be any point paying into the UK system, if they were just going to take your payouts off your US pension, but then the goalposts moved.

Maybe the UK should bring in something like that - reduce your state pension by whatever amount you are receiving from abroad?

Even if you paid into it for 40 plus years?