{"id":82182,"date":"2026-09-07T17:52:26","date_gmt":"2026-09-07T17:52:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/82182\/"},"modified":"2026-09-07T17:52:26","modified_gmt":"2026-09-07T17:52:26","slug":"british-expat-state-pensioners-in-spain-at-risk-of-smaller-increases","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/82182\/","title":{"rendered":"British expat state pensioners in Spain at risk of smaller increases"},"content":{"rendered":"

The British Chambers of Commerce has urged finance minister John Healey to replace Britain\u2019s pension so-called \u201ctriple lock\u201d with inflation-linked increases ahead of his first budget<\/a>, saying the savings could help boost \u200cyouth employment \u200band \u200cgrowth.<\/p>\n

The triple \u200clock guarantees that the state pension \u200brises each year by whichever is \u200bhighest among inflation, wage \u200cgrowth or 2.5%. The British Chambers of Commerce said in a submission to the government published on \u2060Sunday that replacing it with annual increases \u200blinked \u200bto \u200cconsumer price inflation could free up about \u00a33.3 billion over \u200ctwo years.<\/p>\n

The business lobby group said the savings should be used to cover some of the \u2060cost of extending \u200ca zero rate of employer National Insurance contributions to workers aged 21 to \u200b24. The \u200cBCC \u200calso called for lower business energy costs, business rates relief and additional export support, saying weak confidence and rising \u2060costs were \u200bholding back investment.<\/p>\n

The group\u2019s recommendations \u200bcome ahead of Healey\u2019s first budget next month. Should such a move go ahead it comes in the wake of significant changes which came into effect on 6 April 2026 for expats<\/a> wanting to buy voluntary National Insurance (NI) years from abroad to boost their state pension.<\/p>\n

Expats can no longer use the cheap Class 2 voluntary contributions (which cost around \u00a3182 a year). Anyone topping up their pension from overseas must now pay Class 3 contributions, which cost nearly \u00a3957 per tax year\u2014a massive five-fold price jump.<\/p>\n

To qualify for making voluntary contributions from abroad, individuals must now prove they lived in the UK for at least 10 continuous years or have 10 qualifying years already built onto their NI record. Unlike the State Pension, workplace and private UK pensions<\/a> are not subject to geographic freezing.<\/p>\n

They can be accessed from anywhere in the world. Expats generally choose between two routes. Payments are made into a UK bank account in Sterling, leaving the retiree to manage foreign exchange transfer fees and currency fluctuations.<\/p>\n

You can legally transfer private pension funds to a Qualifying Recognised Overseas Pension Scheme. However, transferring to a scheme outside the UK\/EEA typically triggers a 25% overseas transfer charge.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The British Chambers of Commerce has urged finance minister John Healey to replace Britain\u2019s pension so-called \u201ctriple lock\u201d…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":82183,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[1254,1255,27850,12259,1955,1936,605,599,600,8896,19822,8477,17],"class_list":["post-82182","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-spain","tag-balearics","tag-british-expats","tag-british-government","tag-budget","tag-cost-of-living","tag-expats","tag-latest-headlines","tag-majorca","tag-mallorca","tag-mallorca-money","tag-pensioners","tag-pensions","tag-spain"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82182","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=82182"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82182\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/82183"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=82182"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=82182"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=82182"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}