fluffymorson Middleton

Thank you Gary for such a helpful response. That's really all I wanted to know. Do contributions paid in NZ get treated as paid in the UK? Armed with that knowledge, I can make an informed decision on whether to pay voluntary UK NIC.

Hello … thank you for your response. I am sorry to say that I have already called that number previously. I spent nearly an hour speaking to someone who could not help me at all. In fact, the best advice they could offer was for me to wait until I retired (possibly 20 years from now) and then ring back to check if my NZ years had been counted. When I explained to the person on the NI Helpline about the form CA93A I had sent on the request of HMRC back in 2010 she simply said that she had never heard of that form. I understand that form may have been superseded since 2010 but it was completed by us on the request of HMRC and we never received a response to it. I don’t know what else to try.

Hello This forum is really useful and I am very grateful that it has been set up. I have a question I hope you can help with. I am a British citizen now working in the UK. I worked full time in New Zealand from 2006 to 2009. Those 4 years are showing as gaps in my National Insurance contributions. I understood that there was a reciprocal agreement in place which meant that time spent employed in NZ and paying tax there would count towards NI contributions here in the UK. Is this the case, are those gaps between 2006 and 2009 an error or do I need to make voluntary contributions now to cover them? I am very grateful for any help you can offer in this regard as I have not been able to get a conclusive answer either via telephone or letter.