STATE PENSION

Which countries freeze your UK State Pension?

Last updated September 2026 · 5 min read

Retire to Spain, France or the United States and your UK State Pension rises every April like everyone else's. Retire to Australia, Canada, New Zealand or most of Asia and Africa, and it is frozen at the rate you first received. Permanently. Around half a million British pensioners are affected.

Why it happens

The UK only uprates the State Pension for pensioners living in countries where it has a reciprocal social security agreement that specifically includes uprating. Where no such agreement exists, or the agreement does not cover it, the pension is frozen at whatever rate applied when you first claimed it abroad.

It is not means-tested and it has nothing to do with how much you contributed. It comes down entirely to which country you happen to live in.

Where it is frozen, and where it is not

Pension rises each year	Pension frozen
All EU and EEA countries, including Spain, France, Portugal, Italy, Germany, Greece, Cyprus and Malta	Australia
United States	Canada
Switzerland	New Zealand
Israel	South Africa
Philippines	Most of Asia, including Thailand and Malaysia
Jamaica, Barbados	Most of Africa and the Caribbean

The definitive list is on GOV.UK and agreements do occasionally change, so check before making a decision you cannot easily reverse.

The number that surprises people. Someone who moved to Australia in 2005 on £100 a week is still receiving roughly that today. A pensioner who stayed in the UK on the same original entitlement would now be on somewhere around £180 to £200. That gap compounds every year, and over a twenty-year retirement it can easily exceed £50,000.

What you can and cannot do about it

Moving unfreezes it, but not retrospectively. If you later move to an uprating country or return to the UK, your pension resumes increasing from its current frozen level. You do not get back payments for the years you missed.

Choosing your destination is the only real lever. For anyone weighing up Portugal against Australia, this belongs in the calculation alongside climate, family and cost of living. It rarely is.

Otherwise, plan around it. If you are set on a frozen country, the sensible response is to build income that does rise. Rent from property tends to track inflation over time. A frozen State Pension does not.

Put it in proportion

The full new State Pension is £241.30 a week in 2026/27, about £12,500 a year. Frozen from the day you retire, its real value roughly halves over a long retirement.

Which brings you to the same conclusion most expats reach eventually: the State Pension is a floor. Whatever you want on top of it is something you have to build yourself, and the earlier that starts the less it costs each month.

What could you build alongside it?

The planner takes your own numbers and shows what an income of your own could look like by the time you stop.

Open the planner

This guide is general information, not financial, tax or legal advice. Social security agreements and pension rules change. Check the current position on GOV.UK and take qualified advice before making decisions about where to retire.