Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, which countries the UK has (a) bilateral or (b) reciprocal agreements on provision of the State Pension; when each of those agreements was made, whether UK pensioners resident in those countries receive yearly increases; and how many UK pensioners there were in each country as of 9 June 2022.

The UK State Pension is payable worldwide and is up-rated annually in countries where there is a legal requirement to do so. This is a longstanding policy which has been supported by successive governments for over 70 years.

As of November 2020, 473,842 State Pension recipients residing in the European Union or countries which are members of the European Free Trade Association (Switzerland, Iceland, Norway, Lichtenstein) receive annual up-rating under various EU-Exit related agreements, including the UK-EU Withdrawal Agreement, which entered into force in 2020 and the UK-EU Trade and Cooperation Agreement, which entered into force in 2021.

Other countries with which the UK has a reciprocal agreement also allowing for State Pension up-rating, the date in which the particular agreement was made, and the number of State Pension recipients residing in these countries (as of November 2020) are:

• Barbados (1992) – 3,849 recipients.
• Bermuda (1969) – 718 recipients.
• Bosnia-Herzegovina* (1958) – 31 recipients.
• Israel (1957) – 5,077 recipients.
• Jamaica (1997) – 10,807 recipients.
• Kosovo* (1958) – no data.
• Mauritius (1981) – 1,007 recipients.
• Montenegro* (1958) – 0 recipients.
• North Macedonia* (1958) – 121 recipients.
• Serbia* (1958) – 9 recipients.
• Philippines (1989) – 3,144 recipients.
• Turkey (1961) – 1,870 recipients.
• USA (1984) – 126,977 recipients.

*Following the break-up of Yugoslavia, the UK agreement with former Yugoslavia now covers Bosnia-Herzegovina, Kosovo, Montenegro, North Macedonia, and Serbia. Croatia and Slovenia are EU Member States covered by the UK-EU Trade and Cooperation Agreement.

The UK also has reciprocal social security agreements with New Zealand (1983) and Canada (1995) covering provisions for State Pension, but these agreements do not provide for annual up-rating. As of November 2020, 63,930 State Pension recipients reside in New Zealand and 126,426 recipients reside in Canada.

Source:

State Pension statistics by country of residence are currently available to November 2020 and these are available on Stat-Xplore here: https://stat-xplore.dwp.gov.uk

Guidance for users is available at:

https://stat-xplore.dwp.gov.uk/webapi/online-help/index.html