One has healthcare entitlement with or without an S1 as a resident. The difference is that with one you pay lower social charges.
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I’d definitely then consider a temporary posting then, remaining in the UK social security system - you still have the France employment visa, employment and entry to the France healthcare system. (Via the A1)
My thoughts were entirely on you retaining the ability to obtain a S1 from the UK to obtain reductions in France social charges for your future retirement pensions and other income.
Receiving or possibly entitlement to a France pension could remove that ability.
The UK is included in the process to allow credits for a state pensions accrued in one country to be recognised in France. (Trade and cooperation agreement). So you could still get a France pension with less than 10 years. If considering retirement in the near future I’d check whether a France pension would outweigh your possible future tax savings with a UK S1. (Documented elsewhere in the forum but quickly a possible savings of 8.2% on pensions and 10% on interest).
It may be that working in France for several years may give you a permanent residency right after a reduced period of years. I think the period was reduced from 5 years to 2 years on retirement pre-brexit, I don’t know the situation now, probably not but certainly worth checking out and factoring in if still in play!
Oh - and you mentioned -
Were you in a contracted out pension scheme at any point before 2016 ? If so, be careful to carefully check your full pension entitlement - there were reductions to peoples base amount calculation on 2016, but I presume you got the letter with that calculation and have checked.
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No, mines a building materials manufacturer but I’m 100% working on large O&G projects.
Well this is my goal since I wish to retire in France. I guess if/when the opportunity comes my HR dept can inform me on this point. the answer will certainly be part of my decision making process.
I’ve checked and double checked on the government website, I’m at full contribution and locked in now.
Oh, right. I wasn’t aware of that. Does that apply even if you have > 10 years’ worth of contributions too? Currently if I retire at 64, I’ll only have 93 trimestres. I have paid in to the UK pension scheme, but would only get £150 p/week unless I top it up before I retire… pretty sure it’d be more beneficial to transfer that over to my French state pension if possible.
I posted this on the thread Martin Lewis’s advice on topping up pensions - I’ve tried to paste it below, looks like it works.
The main thing I think is you can [must?] get a France pension for the years paid into France using the years also paid in the UK to qualify for the France minimum. You then get the pensions from each country pro-rata (? for France) for each year of contribution. BTW, I’d suggest it’s definitely worth topping up the UK pension if you can - the ‘payback’ is about 3 or 4 years - I can’t remember exactly.
I hope this is a pleasant surprise for you!
Yes, if you ignore any return on the investment, then however many “missing years” you buy, you have only to survive 4 years after pension age to be ahead.
Great opportunity. Visa and residency should be fairly straightforward if your company HR helps - they have to. My concerns would be getting set up for tax and healthcare. A good expat relocation company, paid for by your company, should be able to manage all of this for you and I would recommend doing that. As an example, your UK state pension will not be taxed in France but the amount will be added to calculate your French income tax percentage. Capital gains tax applies, even on tax free savings like ISAs, so I am cashing my ISA in before the move. I have retired but will move to our French house later this year so I am going through all these issues. I am fortunate in having an EU passport some parts are much easier.
Car and driving licence are other things to consider.
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Therein lies the rub! So many hand-holders/relocators are actually rubbish and give wrong advice.
But equally if you deal with things in a French way (ie not expecting them to be the same as one’s home country) and ask the right questions nothing is that complex. I’ve never really had a problem with French admin, other than frustration at the sometimes glacial speed and the need to supply the same document 4 times.
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Starting to get a bit complicated guys, above my pay grade lol, expat relocation company, jeez.
Thanks JaneJones for bringing it back to earth.
@Grumpy_OldMan I imagine you can sense the envy many of us are feeling! I really hope you get the move.
You should get lots of help from your HR department, and also from your new colleagues.
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Thanx, trust me my French colleagues will do everything possible to block the move 
Seriously though I genuinely have a great rapport with them 
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You don’t need hand holders at all. We all managed pre-internet when all we had was a phone and using our feet to find out things once arrived in France. Why pay someone a lot of money to find things out from the internet mostly when you can do it and discovering how things work here is part of the experience and helps a great deal with learning the language and culture. A lot of those hand holding outfits that sprang up during the great british influx during the late 90’s were found to be chancers too!
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You are singing to the choir! I think your post was not meant for me.
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Sorry Charleshh just one refinement to one part of what you mentioned.
UK state pensions are taxable received by French residents just as other income of most types is. The exception is if it’s a UK government pension ie paid due to a job working for UK gov or similar. Also some Local Authority pensions are still counted as UK gov type pensions, other Local Authority schemes not.
So if the UK pension is a “UK gov” pension then the UK has the first opportunity to tax it. France will as you say not actually charge French tax on top if the UK gov has had first bite But as you say the value will still be added to other income taking it to a higher taxable range (potentially) when France calculates your tax payable to them.
This is not true for the normal UK state pension - that’s just income that you declare and pay tax on to France not the UK. Though if the UK state pension ever does exceed the UK tax threshold, you’d probably best have a “France Individu” form signed by your local Impôts sent to HMRC that wil confirm you are now taxed in France.
Other than pensions from UK gov type jobs the other main income type the UK gets to tax first, even if you are a French resident, is income derived from UK immobilier ie property eg rents. Capital gains on UK property if main residence is in France works similar (and sticky in both countries as in neither country is a UK property likely to get main residence capital gains exemptions if you live in France).
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Hi KarenLot. Thank you for that clarification. My state pension is below the £12500 bracket so not currently taxed in uk. In Belgium they just add the amount to my income and adjust my percentage if it moves me into a higher tax bracket. I thought it was the same in France. I have no property or rental income in UK. I am trying to sell Belgian property before I officially move.
I think the key to this is that it demonstrates that you need good advice before moving on all matters fiscal and also for inheritance with usufruit on a house. That said I wish Grumpy_oldman the best and fully endorse the move!
Fill in the “France form individual”, get your local tax office to stamp it and send it to HMRC. You should then get an “NT” tax code.
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Over the years I’ve been transferred to France, to Ireland and sent on assignment to other countries for multiple years. The first thing I would do in your position is contact your HR department and ask them to contact the head office of the French subsidiary’s HR and ask how they would handle it. Large companies often have a specialist in HR to handle inter-company transfers/assignments. You could have the option of moving permanently or on assignment. There may be pros and cons to both approaches.
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I say again that it is rare to find good advisors who are up to date with all the rules and the interactions between countries across health, tax, pensions, investments, etc etc. One shoukd never take any advisor’s word for absolute truth but always cross-check.
Also for anything that involves the UK one needs to check that the advisor is passportes to offer dvice inside and outside the EU. Many aren’t.
So easy to think that just pay some money and everything will be sorted. Personally I prefered to do the work myself and thoroughly understand the issues, and occassionally take professionl advice on a specific point.
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I totally agree. This is another point in favour of an employer supported relocation. They can generally afford to retain advisers from (usually,but not always) the Big Four global accountancy networks, who have the cross border resources and appropriate expertise to advise. They don’t come remotely cheap and it would generally be prohibitively expensive for individuals under their own steam to hire them. (Full disclosure - I was one such adviser, once upon a time).
Agreed…This can make a huge difference to the success of a move across borders. For example it can come as quite a shock as to how difficult it is to open a bank account in the new country for an arriving executive and their family, with no credit history in that country. A good HR team should have a relationship with a local bank to facilitate opening bank accounts locally - so the exec can actually be paid! I went two months before being paid when first seconded to France and it was a distraction I could have done without.
Businesses want their employees to be focusing on the job to be wrapped up in the departure country and the new job to be started smoothly in the arrival country. It is much harder to do this if the employee is having to worry about the paperwork required for the family hamster and budgie on their move (true experiences!), whether their spouse can legally work in the new country, what impact on education the move has for any children etc. The HR team can help manage all this sort of distraction in conjunction with relocation companies.
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