Retiring Abroad From the UK: Pension and Tax Facts

Retiring abroad from the UK affects your State Pension, your tax and your healthcare. Your State Pension keeps rising each year only in the EEA, Switzerland and reciprocal-agreement countries such as the USA; in Canada, Australia and New Zealand it is frozen at the rate you first claim. A double-taxation agreement decides who taxes your pension.

Retiring abroad from the UK: the essentials

Issue	What happens
State Pension - uprated	Rises each year in the EEA, Switzerland, and reciprocal-agreement countries including the USA, Gibraltar and Turkey
State Pension - frozen	Fixed at the rate you first claim in most other countries, including Canada, Australia and New Zealand
Scale of the freeze	Around 480,000 UK pensioners abroad have a frozen pension, about 84% of them in Australia, Canada and New Zealand
Tax on your pension	A double-taxation agreement decides who taxes it; without one you could be taxed by both countries
Private and workplace pensions	Can usually still be paid to you abroad; a QROPS transfer is possible but often not worth the cost
Healthcare	You lose automatic free NHS care once you are not ordinarily resident; check the local system (an S1 form may help in the EEA)
Access age	Private pensions from 55, rising to 57 on 6 April 2028