More than 400,000 state pensioners miss out on higher payments | Personal Finance | Finance
Around 450,000 state pensioners are estimated to be missing out on higher payments through the triple lock. The New and Basic State Pensions increased by 4.8% last month for most people over 66, in line with wage growth. The annual uprating means those on the full New State Pension now get £241.30 a week, while those on the maximum Basic State Pension get £184.90 per week.
But there are three specific groups of people most likely to miss out on the full State Pension payment. These include those who have not built up enough qualifying National Insurance years, retirees who were “contracted out” before 2016, as well as nearly half a million Brits who have moved overseas in retirement.
The latest figures from the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) showed that there were around 1.1 million recipients of the UK State Pension living abroad as of the end of August 2025. Of them, around 453,000 wouldn’t be due to the increase in 2026/2027 despite having paid the necessary amount of National Insurance Contributions to get the state Pension, The Daily Record reports.
This is because the State Pension is frozen at the point of emigration for people living in a wide range of countries, many of which are Commonwealth nations.
Your State Pension will only increase each year if you live in:
Retirees won’t get yearly increases if they live outside these countries. However, pensions will go up to the current rate for those who return to live in the UK.
A survey conducted in 2020 by the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Frozen British Pensions (APPG) of 2,567 UK pensioners living in ‘frozen’ countries found that around 49% of them were receiving £65 per week or less, indicating they left years ago when the weekly rate in the UK was at that level.
Even in 2020, this was well below the full basic state pension, which was £134.25 per week and the new state pension of £175.20 a week and has since risen.
Other groups living in the UK have been given smaller rises through the April uprating overall, such as those on the old state pension and deferred state pensioners, as the triple lock only applies to their core state pension, as per Birmingham Live.
