This is not true. I worked from August 1990 to July 1992 and was credited with 3 full years. My time working there spanned 3 tax years and I had paid enough national insurance to qualify for a full credit for those years.
2026 UK Budget Changes
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Inexpensive
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Fair enough. I'm basing my comment on my personal (self employed) experience where because I very commonly didn't work 52 weeks in a tax year I haven't got credit for those years towards the 35 needed to qualify for a full pension.
IIRC i used to pay class 2 (which was fixed) and Class 4 (which were based on your income) contributions but it was a long time ago so I may be wrong about that.
I would be cautious about Class 3 just because I am not confident the UK government won’t move further to exclude non-resident, non- citizens from pension payments if the numbers are large enough, despite current treaties. The budget situation is bad and getting worse. I would hope they would at leave give voluntary payments back but who knows. Class 2 is so inexpensive seemed worth a punt.
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I assume they treat self employment different to employment.
There is literally a century of reciprocal treatment for Irish and UK citizens when it comes to benefits.
There was a whole treaty negotiated after Brexit to formalise it. It would be apocalyptic for the UK to unilaterally withdraw from this, not least because of the effect on the ≈200k resident UK citizens in Ireland.
I don’t ever see a situation where Irish citizens are treated differently to UK citizens in benefits. Not least because UK administrative data is so bad they have no idea what the nationality of the contributor is.
I hope you are right - I am hopeful that Irish citizens may be OK, I spent almost 10 years working in UK so I won’t get a full Irish pension.
Perhaps of use for others - an update on my earlier post.
I completed the CF83 form online in, or around the date of the post quoted. Today received communication from HRMC with the amount to pay (Class 2) for voluntary contributions to bring us up to date and take my wife over the 10 years of contributions mark.
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FYI I posted my form in during March 25 and finally got a (positive!) response yesterday.
Also, as discussed above I only worked a few months in the UK during two of my 3 qualifying years but was credited the full year as I had paid NI above a certain threshold for the year - incorrectly assuming because I had only worked about 22 months total in the UK I would be ineligible almost stopped me applying (also remember tax year runs April-April in UK so not calendar year)
Also - I'm sure it's been covered many times but if you had a child in the UK and were receiving child benefit those years are counted as NI contributions while the child is < 12. If I had understood this at the time I would have elected to receive the child benefit instead of my wife who had ample contributions already.
Also, as discussed above I only worked a few months in the UK during two of my 3 qualifying years but was credited the full year as I had paid NI above a certain threshold for the year - incorrectly assuming because I had only worked about 22 months total in the UK I would be ineligible almost stopped me applying (also remember tax year runs April-April in UK so not calendar year)
Also - I'm sure it's been covered many times but if you had a child in the UK and were receiving child benefit those years are counted as NI contributions while the child is < 12. If I had understood this at the time I would have elected to receive the child benefit instead of my wife who had ample contributions already.