UK Pension Guides
UK Pension Guides for Expats
446 in-depth guides covering all aspects of UK pension planning for expats and internationally mobile clients — from QROPS and DB transfers to drawdown, State Pension, and pension tax planning.
Types of UK Pension
Workplace pensions, SIPPs, DB schemes, QROPS and how each works.
Pension Consolidation: Should You Merge Your Old Pensions Into One?
Over a long career, it is easy to accumulate a collection of separate pension pots with different providers. Consolidating them can reduce charges, simplify management, and make retirement planning far more effective — but there are important checks to make before triggering any transfer.
Read guide →Pension Sharing Orders in Divorce: What Expats Need to Know
Pension is often the largest marital asset after the family home, yet it is routinely undervalued or mishandled in divorce settlements — particularly for expats whose pensions and legal proceedings span more than one country. This guide explains the three methods courts use to divide pension on divorce, the particular complications facing non-residents, and why specialist advice is not optional when a defined benefit or overseas pension is involved.
Read guide →Pension and Property: Using a SSAS to Invest in Commercial Property
A Small Self-Administered Scheme (SSAS) can hold commercial property directly, including business premises that are then leased back to the sponsoring company — a powerful tax-planning tool for business owners with significant pension assets.
Read guide →SIPP Allowable Investments: What You Can and Cannot Hold
SIPPs offer broad investment flexibility but the rules on what is and is not permitted are strict. This guide explains the full range of allowable and prohibited investments — and the grey areas in between.
Read guide →SIPP Borrowing Rules: How Pension Funds Can Use Leverage
A Self-Invested Personal Pension can borrow up to 50% of its net asset value, but only for specific purposes. This guide explains the rules, permitted lenders, and the traps that catch unwary investors.
Read guide →SIPP Contributions When You Are Not a UK Resident: The Rules Explained
Can non-UK residents contribute to a UK SIPP and receive tax relief? The rules are strict and often misunderstood — this guide explains exactly what is and is not allowed for expats.
Read guide →SIPP Investment Options: What You Can (and Cannot) Hold
SIPPs offer far broader investment choice than standard personal pensions — but the rules on permitted investments are frequently misunderstood. This guide covers the full range, including commercial property, and the common pitfalls.
Read guide →SIPP Overseas Investment Guide: What You Can Hold and What to Avoid
A SIPP allows broad investment flexibility — but not unlimited flexibility. For internationally mobile investors who want to hold overseas assets, currency exposure, or non-UK listed securities, understanding what HMRC permits and what platforms support is essential. This guide covers allowed and prohibited investments, overseas equities, international ETFs, currency, and adviser access restrictions.
Read guide →SIPP Prohibited Investments: What You Cannot Hold and the Penalties If You Do
While SIPPs offer broad investment flexibility, HMRC has a detailed list of prohibited assets — and holding them triggers punitive tax charges that can destroy a significant portion of your fund.
Read guide →SIPP vs Stakeholder Pension vs Personal Pension: Which Is Right for Expats?
A three-way comparison of SIPP, stakeholder pension, and personal pension — with specific focus on what each offers for UK expats managing pensions from abroad.
Read guide →SIPPs for Expats and International Property Investors: A Practical Guide
A Self-Invested Personal Pension gives expats wide investment flexibility including commercial property. Understanding contribution rules, tax relief, and drawdown options is essential for those living abroad.
Read guide →SIPPs for Expats: A Complete Guide
A complete guide to Self-Invested Personal Pensions (SIPPs) for people living outside the UK — contributions, investment flexibility, drawdown, and tax treatment under double tax treaties.
Read guide →SSAS Employer Loan-Back: Rules, Limits, and Risks for Business Owners
A Small Self-Administered Scheme can lend money back to the sponsoring employer — but only within strict HMRC rules. This guide covers the conditions, limits, security requirements, and why non-compliant loans attract punishing tax charges.
Read guide →SSAS and Commercial Property Investment: A Complete Guide for Business Owners
A Small Self-Administered Scheme (SSAS) can purchase commercial property — including your own business premises — using pension funds and even borrow up to 50% of net scheme assets. This guide explains how SSAS property works, borrowing rules, connected party transactions, VAT, and the strategic advantages for owner-managed businesses.
Read guide →Self-Invested Personal Pension (SIPP) Investment Options: What You Can Hold
A comprehensive guide to what investments a SIPP can and cannot hold, covering permitted asset classes, HMRC's taxable property rules, and practical investment options for expat SIPP investors.
Read guide →Setting Up an International SIPP for Expats: A Step-by-Step Guide
A Self-Invested Personal Pension (SIPP) with a provider that accommodates non-residents gives UK expats a flexible, UK-regulated home for their pension savings. This step-by-step guide covers provider selection, the transfer-in process, investment choices, and drawing pension income from abroad.
Read guide →Small Pension Pots: Your Options for Cashing In or Consolidating
Many people accumulate small pension pots across different employers and never quite know what to do with them. UK rules allow specific options for pots under certain thresholds — but the right answer depends on your broader pension picture, your tax position, and whether you have already flexibly accessed any pension.
Read guide →Small Pots and Stranded Pensions: Your Options as a UK Expat
Since auto-enrolment began in 2012, UK workers have accumulated pension pots with each employer they have ever worked for. The average person moves jobs eleven times over a career, which means the average UK saver has multiple pensions — some of them small, some genuinely lost. For expats, these stranded pots are especially easy to forget and especially important to sort out. This guide explains the small pot rules, how to trace lost pensions, what consolidation involves, and the traps to avoid.
Read guide →Small Self-Administered Schemes (SSAS): How They Work and Who They Suit
A Small Self-Administered Scheme (SSAS) is an occupational pension structure designed for the directors and key shareholders of a limited company. It offers unique features — including the ability to lend money back to the sponsoring business — that make it particularly attractive for owner-managed businesses, but it comes with greater complexity and cost than a standard SIPP.
Read guide →Small Self-Administered Schemes (SSAS): The Business Owner's Pension
A Small Self-Administered Scheme (SSAS) is a powerful pension structure for owner-managed business directors. The ability to lend money back to the sponsoring employer and buy commercial property makes it unique. Here is everything you need to know.
Read guide →The Pension Protection Fund: What Happens If Your Employer Goes Bust
If you have a defined benefit pension from a UK employer that goes insolvent, the Pension Protection Fund (PPF) steps in to pay at least part of your benefits. Understanding what the PPF does and does not cover — and the compensation caps that apply — is important for anyone with a legacy UK final salary pension, particularly those who have emigrated and cannot monitor their former employer's financial health from abroad.
Read guide →With-Profits Pensions: How They Work and What to Do With Them
With-profits pension plans were among the dominant pension products sold in the UK from the 1970s through to the early 2000s. Millions of people hold them — often as legacy plans from former employers or insurance companies — without fully understanding how they work. This guide explains the with-profits mechanism, what the bonuses mean, when a Market Value Reduction applies, and what options you have.
Read guide →Workplace Pensions and Auto-Enrolment: What Happens When You Leave the UK?
Auto-enrolment has made workplace pensions the default savings vehicle for millions of UK workers. But what happens to those pots when you leave UK employment — whether for a new job abroad or permanent emigration? This guide explains your options and the decisions you'll need to make.
Read guide →Defined Benefit Pensions
CARE and final salary accrual, GMP, NHS, teaching and LGPS schemes.
Speak to a pensions specialist
Our qualified advisers can review your pension position across QROPS, SIPPs, DB transfers and expat pension planning — and where UK-regulated transfer advice is required, it is provided by an FCA-authorised Pension Transfer Specialist we work with.
Get qualified pension advice
We advise on QROPS, SIPPs, DB transfers and all aspects of expat pension planning — and where UK-regulated transfer advice is required, it is provided by an FCA-authorised Pension Transfer Specialist we work with. Pension transfers involving defined benefits over £30,000 require regulated advice.