\u00a0\u201cEssentially, if you’re in the UK, you would typically have to pay what’s known as the Class 3 rate or \u20ac1,000 per year to buy a year,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cSo, the idea with this is that you need 35 years of national insurance contributions – either paid or from your time working in Britain or up North – in order to maximise your UK state pension, which is worth about \u20ac14,000 annually.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
![\"T05ACC](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/T05ACC.jpg\")
A pensioner holding leather wallet with money in it. Picture by: Alamy.com.<\/p>\n
At present a person who previously worked in Britain can claim back six years in one go.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Meaning anyone who wishes to claim six years worth of stamps would presently pay \u00a31,200.\u00a0<\/p>\n
However, not everyone who previously worked in the United Kingdom qualifies.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cYou must have one full year of work in the UK on the books,\u201d Mr Ring said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cSo, if you were over there for a couple of summers, in total a year, that wouldn’t work, unfortunately.\u201d<\/p>\n
Even once the cost of paying a Voluntary National Insurance contribution rises later this year, Mr Ring urged people who have previously worked in the United Kingdom to keep paying them.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Despite the extra cost, he believes it still represents exceptional value for money.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cFor every year that you either have or that you buy, it’s worth \u20ac400 each and every year to you in retirement,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cSo, if you had one year on your national insurance record, you’re going to get \u20ac400 each and every year from age 67 – approximately.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you had two years, you’re going to get \u20ac800 and so on all the way up to 35 years – in which case you’d be getting approximately \u20ac14,000.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt’s still essentially a no-brainer versus paying for a private pension, for example, because the return that you get is phenomenal.\u201d<\/p>\n
Main image: A pensioner with cash in hand. Picture by: Alamy.com.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Irish people who have previously worked in Britain have been urged to top up their British pension ahead…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":248182,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[72,176,61,60,174,175],"class_list":{"0":"post-248181","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-personal-finance","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-finance","10":"tag-ie","11":"tag-ireland","12":"tag-personal-finance","13":"tag-personalfinance"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/248181","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=248181"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/248181\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/248182"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=248181"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=248181"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=248181"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}