{"id":166873,"date":"2025-06-08T06:02:13","date_gmt":"2025-06-08T06:02:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/166873\/"},"modified":"2025-06-08T06:02:13","modified_gmt":"2025-06-08T06:02:13","slug":"your-money-questions-am-i-too-late-to-top-up-my-contributions-to-qualify-for-a-better-uk-state-pension","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/166873\/","title":{"rendered":"Your money questions \u2013 Am I too late to top-up my contributions to qualify for a better UK state pension?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"It is worth seeking advice to establish where you stand with regards to a UK state pension if you have paid tax there in the past? Photo: Getty\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/IB paperwork.jpg\" loading=\"eager\" width=\"100%\" data-testid=\"article-image\"  \/><\/p>\n<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_caption1 indo-300db776_none indo-91174671_secondary indo-66f0fec7_regular indo-1d70522a_marginbottom0 indo-1d70522a_marginleft0 indo-1d70522a_marginright0 indo-1d70522a_margintop3 indo-b48c4984_left\" style=\"color:var(--color-grey-60)\">It is worth seeking advice to establish where you stand with regards to a UK state pension if you have paid tax there in the past? Photo: Getty<\/p>\n<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_paragraph indo-300db776_none indo-91174671_primary indo-1d70522a_marginbottom0 indo-1d70522a_margintop0 indo-b48c4984_inherit\" style=\"color:var(--color-primary-80)\">Q I applied for a UK pension last year and was told I had eight qualifying years of National Insurance contributions up to April 2024. I was in the UK in the 1980s. The shortfall I had to pay to get minimum pension was about \u00a33,000 (\u20ac3,550). Unfortunately, I missed the final date limit. Life got in the way. I didn\u2019t fill in the online form for a call back, either. Is it too late for me to pay the shortfall? It\u2019s very difficult to contact UK HM revenue to get an answer.<\/p>\n<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_paragraph indo-300db776_none indo-91174671_primary indo-1d70522a_marginbottom0 indo-1d70522a_margintop0 indo-b48c4984_inherit\" style=\"color:var(--color-primary-80)\">A Since you have not worked or paid tax in the UK since the 1980s, you won\u2019t be eligible to pay the lower-rate Class 2 National Insurance, said Sarah McGurrin, head of employee benefits with NFP Ireland, a professional services firm specialising in employee benefits.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It is worth seeking advice to establish where you stand with regards to a UK state pension if&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":166874,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3093],"tags":[51,38535,474,69828,2499,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-166873","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-personal-finance","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-charlie-weston","10":"tag-finance","11":"tag-money-experts","12":"tag-personal-finance","13":"tag-uk","14":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114646230197438060","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/166873","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=166873"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/166873\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/166874"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=166873"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=166873"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=166873"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}