Working or retiring overseas

In most cases, you won’t need to pay UK income tax if you’re a resident for tax purposes overseas. But you may need to pay income tax on your pension in the country you’ve moved to. If you live in a country with a double taxation agreement (DTA) with the UK, you’ll pay tax in both countries unless you apply for UK tax relief. You can find a full list of all countries with a DTA by searching ‘double taxation agreements’ on gov.uk.

If you no longer have a UK bank account, Citibank offers a service where your pension can be paid directly to an overseas bank account. Please note other banks may operate a similar service and you should make your own enquiries regarding this possibility.

If your payment is made via the Citibank service, the bank details displayed on your monthly payslip will reference Citibank’s bank account and not your overseas bank account.

Pension payments are credited to UK accounts on the 21st of the month, or the Friday immediately prior if this date falls on a weekend or bank holiday. Your payment will take an additional few business days to credit your overseas bank account, depending on the country you live in.

Find out more about working or retiring overseas.

You need to call our Member Service Team to request the bank mandate for the specific country you’ll be living in so we can pay you correctly. Call 0333 300 1043 Monday to Friday, 9am to 5pm.

If you’re moving overseas, you can ask your new pension scheme whether you can transfer your USS pension over to them. You may wish to seek financial advice and guidance before transferring your pension overseas.

We won’t transfer to an overseas scheme unless it’s a Recognised Overseas Pension Scheme (ROPS). So we’ll check this before completing the transfer. You can also check this for yourself using the Recognised Overseas Pension Schemes notification list.

You can request the cash equivalent transfer value (CETV) by completing the Transfer out request form.

Find more information about the transfer out request form by visiting transferring to another scheme.