Mike

@HMRC Admin 25, I'm living abroad and paid voluntary class 2 on June 10th; I called after paying and they confirmed they saw my payments and made a note about which years they relate to as I received 2 different HMRC letters & didn't pay all the dates. But when I login to the HMRC app & look at my contributions, those years have still not been filled in. Is there some giant backlog? I'm surprised people on the call can see the contributions paid in June 2024 but still my account isn't updated as of April 2025.

@HMRC Admin 20: What situations is it not worthwhile to pay the contributions? Presumably the only times are if you: 1) Already have enough years of contributions 2) Will work long enough in the UK to reach the number of contributions naturally If I live abroad and don't plan to return to the UK + only have 8 years of contributions currently I guess there's no need to call the service?

@HMRC Admin 20: are you able to confirm the typical response time currently for someone applying to do voluntary contributions from abroad when they apply online? It seems Simon applied after me but received a reply before me. The "Check when you can expect a reply from HMRC" tool is basically useless since it defaults to the end of the tax year when clearly that is not the speed of replies actually happening

Simon, what date did you apply? I applied online on 16th March and still no letter :/