Of all the pension questions expats ask, this is usually the one with the most money riding on it. A final salary – defined benefit – pension is one of the most valuable things many people own, and the decision to transfer it, or leave it exactly where it is, is legally treated as significant enough that you can’t make it alone.
What You’d Actually Be Giving Up
A defined benefit pension promises a guaranteed income for the rest of your life, usually rising with inflation, and often with a spouse’s pension built in should you die first. That’s a genuinely valuable set of guarantees – replicating a guaranteed, inflation-linked income for life through investment returns alone is difficult, which is exactly why the regulator’s starting position is that transferring out is not usually in most people’s best interests. Understanding what you’d be exchanging that guarantee for is the first step, before any question of moving abroad even enters the picture.
Why Moving Abroad Puts This Decision on the Table
For expats specifically, a few things tend to bring the transfer question to the surface: wanting your pension income in a currency other than sterling, wanting to consolidate several pensions before you leave the UK workforce for good, concerns about a scheme’s long-term funding position, or simply wanting more flexibility – a larger tax-free lump sum, or the ability to pass unused funds to beneficiaries more efficiently – than a defined benefit scheme typically offers.
None of these are automatically good enough reasons on their own. They’re the starting point for a conversation, not a decision.
The £30,000 Rule
If your defined benefit pension’s Cash Equivalent Transfer Value (CETV) is above £30,000, UK law requires you to take regulated financial advice from a specifically qualified Pension Transfer Specialist before any transfer can proceed. This isn’t a recommendation – it’s a legal requirement under the Pension Schemes Act 2015, and your scheme’s trustees are obliged to confirm that advice has taken place before they’ll release the funds. Crucially, this applies regardless of where in the world you’re living when you make the decision. Moving abroad doesn’t remove the requirement, and no adviser without the correct UK FCA permissions can lawfully give you this specific advice, wherever they themselves are based.
Why Expats Often Need Two Advisers
This is the part that surprises a lot of people. The UK Pension Transfer Specialist assesses whether giving up the scheme’s guarantees is in your interests – but they typically aren’t licensed to advise you on where the money goes afterwards, particularly once you’re a non-UK resident. That second piece, recommending and managing the receiving pension and its investments, is where a separate, locally licensed cross-border adviser comes in. A compliant process for an expat therefore usually involves both working together – the UK specialist assessing the transfer itself, and your cross-border adviser handling the wider financial planning and receiving scheme.
Requesting Your Transfer Value
The starting point is requesting a CETV from your scheme’s trustees. Most schemes provide one free guaranteed quote every twelve months, and the quote is typically valid for three months from calculation – which sets a real, and fairly tight, deadline for completing any advice process and resulting transfer before you’d need to request a fresh one.
What the Advice Process Actually Looks At
A proper assessment isn’t a quick yes or no. It involves a full fact-find covering your scheme details, health, dependants, other assets, income needs and retirement plans, followed by a formal comparison – required under FCA rules – between what the scheme would likely pay you over your lifetime versus what a transfer could realistically achieve given reasonable investment assumptions. The output is a written recommendation to transfer or to remain, and a recommendation to stay put is a genuinely common, entirely valid outcome – not a failed process.
What It Costs
Fees vary across the market. Some firms charge a flat fee regardless of the outcome; others charge a percentage of the transfer value, which the FCA has flagged as a potential conflict of interest since it can create an incentive to recommend transferring. Combined fees for the UK specialist and your cross-border adviser, given the depth of analysis and number of parties involved, typically run into several thousand pounds. This should always be set out clearly, in writing, before any work begins.
Timing It Around a Move Abroad
If you’re actively planning a move, it’s worth starting this process with enough runway before you go – not because moving changes the legal requirement, but because coordinating a UK specialist, a cross-border adviser, and your own relocation timeline all at once is considerably easier when it isn’t rushed against a departure date or a CETV that’s about to expire.
Where to Go From Here
We’ve covered the full advice process, the two-adviser structure, and what to expect from a CETV request in detail on our Final Salary & Defined Benefit Pension Transfers page. If your pensions are more straightforward – defined contribution pots without safeguarded benefits – our Expat Pension Transfers page covers that simpler process, and our Expat Pension Planning hub covers the wider picture.
Frequently Asked Questions
Do I have to take advice even if I’m certain I want to transfer?
Yes, if your CETV is above £30,000 – the scheme cannot process the transfer without evidence that regulated advice has taken place, regardless of how certain you are.
Does living abroad change any of these rules?
No – the requirement attaches to the UK scheme itself, not to where you’re resident when you transfer.
Will the advice always tell me what I want to hear?
No, and it shouldn’t – a properly regulated process gives you an honest assessment, which is sometimes a recommendation to stay in the scheme.
How long is a CETV valid for?
Typically three months, which is why timing the process properly matters.
Get in touch with details of your final salary pension and your plans, and we’ll arrange the right introduction for a proper, regulated assessment.
