A Qualifying Recognised Overseas Pension Scheme (QROPS) is an overseas pension scheme that HM Revenue and Customs accepts as a permitted destination for UK tax-relieved pension savings. After the advent of ‘A-Day’ on 6th April 2006, when transfers of UK pension rights to a QROPS became possible, they have been a popular choice for many expatriates. However, over the years additional regulations have been introduced, and gradual changes in UK tax law, particularly for those who are resident in the UK, have reduced the tax planning effectiveness of a QROPS.
That said, there is certainly still a place for the judicious use of a QROPS in certain circumstances, particularly with the introduction of Inheritance Tax on certain UK pension assets, from which a QROPS can be exempt under certain circumstances.
For many who have existing QROPS, perhaps transferred at a time when the tax benefits and flexibility benefits were greater, it is important to be sure of the UK tax position of your QROPS.
For a British expat, the question is rarely whether a transfer is possible. It is whether a transfer makes sense, the extent to which the fund stays inside the UK tax net after it lands, and what happens to it on death once pensions come within Inheritance Tax on 6 April 2027. This guide sets out the tax position on each of those points as the law stands for the 2026/27 tax year.
What Is a QROPS?
A QROPS is an overseas pension scheme that has told HMRC it meets the conditions to be a Recognised Overseas Pension Scheme (ROPS) and has asked to appear on HMRC’s published notification list. Once a scheme holds that status, a UK registered pension scheme is permitted to transfer a member’s benefits to it without the payment being treated as an unauthorised payment.
The status rests on three tests.
- Established outside the United Kingdom. The scheme cannot be a UK pension scheme.
- The Regulation Requirements Test. The scheme is regulated as a pension scheme in the country where it is established, or it meets the alternative conditions that apply where no such regulator exists.
- The Tax Recognition Test. That same country recognises the scheme as a pension scheme under its own tax system.
A scheme that meets those tests is a Recognised Overseas Pension Scheme (ROPS). It becomes a Qualifying Recognised Overseas Pension Scheme only when its scheme manager gives HMRC the required undertakings, including an undertaking to report payments to HMRC, and notifies HMRC that the conditions are met.
The distinction matters to you because the tax consequences of getting it wrong fall on the member. If you transfer to a scheme that turns out not to meet the conditions, the transfer is an unauthorised payment and retrospective taxation can apply. The unauthorised payments charge is 40% of the payment. Where unauthorised payments in a 12-month period reach 25% or more of your pension rights, a further unauthorised payments surcharge of 15% applies, bringing the total to 55%.
Being sure that the scheme to which you transfer is a QROPS is vitally important, as is being sure that it continues to remain a QROPS for as long as your pension funds remain vested in it.
Trust-Based and Contract-Based QROPS
A QROPS can be built in two legal forms, and the difference decides who owns your money and which document defines your rights. Malta permits both. The Isle of Man, Jersey and Guernsey require a trust, and Gibraltar’s regulator treats a trust as mandatory despite its statute allowing other forms.
| Trust-based QROPS | Contract-based QROPS | |
| What document governs your rights | A trust deed and the scheme rules | An individual contract between you and the scheme provider |
| Is a trustee involved | Yes. A trustee company is appointed to run the scheme in line with the deed and rules | No. There are no trustees |
| Who legally holds the assets | The trustee, as legal owner of the trust fund | No published source states this. Ask the provider to confirm it in writing before you sign anything |
| Who is the scheme administrator | The trustee company | The scheme provider |
| Where you find them | Malta, Isle of Man, Jersey, Guernsey, Gibraltar | Malta |
Why your country of residence may treat the two differently. Some civil law countries do not recognise trusts at all, and may treat a trust-based scheme as an investment platform for tax purposes rather than as a pension. The pension treatment you thought you were buying is then not there, and a contract-based scheme can be the answer.
No tax authority or statute states this, so treat it as the industry’s working assumption rather than settled law, and do not read across to your own position. Trust recognition does not split neatly along common law and civil law lines: Singapore and Hong Kong are common law trust jurisdictions, and Malta is civil law but offers both structures. The reliable answer comes from tax advice where you actually live, taken before you choose, because the choice is expensive to reverse.
Who Regulates a QROPS, and Who Holds the Assets?
The pensions or financial services regulator in the country where the scheme is established regulates it, and the trustee or provider holds your assets. HMRC does not proactively regulate a QROPS at all. Its Regulation Requirements Test asks whether somebody else does, and it can be met two ways.
Where the country has a regulator of occupational pension schemes, the scheme must be regulated by it. HMRC is explicit that there is no alternative: an unregulated occupational scheme cannot be an overseas pension scheme at all.
Where there is no regulator of non-occupational schemes, the test can instead be met through the provider. HMRC requires that the scheme provider is regulated by the financial services regulator of the country where the scheme is established, not by a UK regulator, for the purpose of establishing and providing the pension scheme.
The scheme manager must give HMRC that regulator’s name, address and any reference number on form APSS251. If a provider cannot tell you who regulates the scheme and hand you that reference, you have your answer.
Hong Kong is the one jurisdiction in this region with schemes on HMRC’s list, and its occupational retirement schemes are registered with the Mandatory Provident Fund Schemes Authority under the Occupational Retirement Schemes Ordinance. Singapore and the United Arab Emirates do not appear above because neither has a QROPS, so there is no scheme for a regulator to authorise.
| Jurisdiction | Who authorises the scheme | Who licenses the trustee or provider |
| Malta | Malta Financial Services Authority, under the Retirement Pensions Act (Cap. 514) | Malta Financial Services Authority, under a separate licence |
| Gibraltar | Gibraltar Financial Services Commission, but only once the Commissioner for Income Tax has granted tax approval. Losing tax approval can cost the scheme its authorisation | Gibraltar Financial Services Commission |
| Isle of Man | Isle of Man Financial Services Authority, under the Retirement Benefits Schemes Act 2000. Tax approval is separate and comes from the Assessor of Income Tax | Isle of Man Financial Services Authority, by separate registration of the scheme administrator |
| Jersey | The Comptroller of Revenue | Jersey Financial Services Commission. Jersey law requires the trustees themselves to be JFSC regulated |
| Guernsey | The Guernsey Revenue Service. The GFSC states that registering a scheme with it is not an approval regime | Guernsey Financial Services Commission, under a fiduciary licence |
| Hong Kong | Mandatory Provident Fund Schemes Authority, under the Occupational Retirement Schemes Ordinance | Mandatory Provident Fund Schemes Authority |
| Singapore | No QROPS on HMRC’s list, so there is no scheme to authorise | Not applicable |
| United Arab Emirates | No QROPS on HMRC’s list, so there is no scheme to authorise | Not applicable |
Is the investment platform regulated separately?
In Malta it is. Custody and investment management are separate licensable activities under the Retirement Pensions Act, so the entity holding your assets and the one investing them carry their own licences. Ask for each by name and number rather than accepting a general assurance.
Where an Offshore Bond Is Used as the Investment Account
In plain terms, some schemes do not hold your investments directly. They buy an insurance bond and your money sits inside it, so there is a layer between you and your assets. No regulator or statute we could find sets out who supervises that layer or who legally holds the assets inside it. Ask the provider to name, in writing, who legally holds the assets inside that bond and which authority regulates them. If the provider will not put it in writing, you have no documented route to recover the money and no named regulator to complain to should that layer fail.
Where Is QROPS Available?
Australia, the Isle of Man, the Netherlands, Jersey, Guernsey, New Zealand, India, Gibraltar, Malta, Ireland and Hong Kong hold almost every scheme on the list. Singapore and the United Arab Emirates have none, which decides the answer for most expats in this region before anything else does. As at the list published on 3 August 2026, HMRC’s notification list contained 3,251 scheme entries across 28 jurisdiction headings.
Australia alone accounts for the great majority of the list, because Australian superannuation funds notify individually.
| Jurisdiction | Scheme entries on HMRC’s notification list, 3 August 2026 |
| Australia | 2,503 |
| Isle of Man | 279 |
| Netherlands | 119 |
| Jersey | 88 |
| Guernsey | 56 |
| New Zealand | 37 |
| India | 35 |
| Gibraltar | 28 |
| Malta | 28 |
| Ireland | 26 |
| Hong Kong | 12 |
| Singapore | 0 |
| United Arab Emirates | 0 |
| All other jurisdictions | A handful of schemes each |
| Total, 28 jurisdiction headings | 3,251 |
The transfer of UK tax-relieved pension rights to a QROPS attracts a 25% penalty charge on the funds transferred where the QROPS is situated in a country other than the one where the member lives. So, to take advantage of an Isle of Man QROPS (say) without a penalty charge, you will need to live there.
Until 30 October 2024, transfers to a Maltese or Gibraltarian QROPS enjoyed exemption from this rule. However, transfers to such a QROPS from 31 October 2024 carry a 25% penalty charge if you do not live in that country.
Two absences matter for expats in this region. A person living in Singapore or Dubai cannot satisfy the same-country residence exclusion at all, because there is no QROPS in the country where they live. Any transfer they make is exposed to the charge unless one of the employment-based exclusions applies.
Hong Kong is the exception in the region, with 12 schemes listed, so an individual resident in Hong Kong can, in principle, meet the same-country condition.
The 30 October 2024 change reshaped the picture more than any list movement. Before it, an expat anywhere in the EEA could transfer to a Maltese or Gibraltarian scheme without charge, and both jurisdictions built substantial QROPS industries on that basis. Both remain on the list, but the charge-free route into them for a Non-Resident living elsewhere has closed.
HMRC republishes the list on the 1st and 15th of each month, and schemes are added and removed at every publication. Check it on the day of your transfer.
How Does QROPS Work?
A QROPS transfer moves your accrued UK tax-relieved pension rights into an overseas scheme, where the money is held, invested and paid out under that country’s pension rules.
Four parties act in a QROPS transfer, and each of them reappears throughout this guide.
- You, the member. You request the transfer, and the UK tax charges land on you if it goes wrong.
- Your UK scheme administrator. The person or body answerable to HMRC for the UK registered scheme the money is leaving. It tests the transfer against the Overseas Transfer Charge and against your Overseas Transfer Allowance, the cumulative cap on what you can move overseas before a charge arises, deducts any charge due, pays it to HMRC and reports the transfer.
- The QROPS scheme manager. The person or body responsible for the overseas scheme receiving the money. It gives HMRC the undertakings that make the scheme a qualifying one, and it reports to HMRC the payments it later makes to you.
- The regulated financial adviser. The firm authorised to advise on the transfer itself, which UK financial services legislation requires before your pension rights can move. We do the UK tax analysis that runs alongside it, and we can introduce you to an adviser qualified to give the rest.
UK tax rules reach the fund through three separate mechanisms, one on the way out and two that keep running after it lands.
1. The transfer itself is tested. Your UK scheme administrator must establish whether the Overseas Transfer Charge applies before the money moves, and must test it against your Overseas Transfer Allowance, which is usually £1,073,100. The administrator deducts any charge due and pays it to HMRC.
2. The fund is ring-fenced inside the receiving scheme. The transferred money forms a “ring-fenced transfer fund” within the QROPS, with a “key date” attached to it, being the date of the first transfer into that ring-fenced fund. That ring-fencing exists so HMRC can identify which part of an overseas pot came from UK tax-relieved savings, and for how long UK charges can reach it.
3. The scheme manager reports to HMRC. A QROPS scheme manager must tell HMRC about payments made to relevant members, generally within 90 days of the payment, using form APSS253. Reporting continues while the UK member payment provisions apply to you, and in practice for at least 10 years from the transfer. The member payment provisions treat a payment out of a transferred fund as though it came from a UK registered scheme, so an unauthorised payment attracts the UK charge even though the money sits abroad.
Once those periods have run their course, and provided you meet the five-year and 10-year residence tests set out under Main QROPS Rules, payments out of the fund fall outside the UK member payment charges.
Who Is Eligible for a QROPS Transfer?
You can transfer to a QROPS if you hold benefits in a UK registered pension scheme that has not yet come into payment, and a scheme on HMRC’s notification list will accept the transfer. There is no requirement in UK tax law to be Non-Resident, and no minimum transfer value set by HMRC. Residence and fund size change the tax outcome and the advice requirements, not the eligibility.
QROPS Tax Criteria
Four tests determine your UK tax exposure on a transfer. Work through them in order.
- Is the receiving scheme on HMRC’s notification list, and is it genuinely a QROPS on the day of the transfer? Appearing on the list is not a guarantee, and HMRC says so explicitly.
- Does an exclusion condition from the Overseas Transfer Charge apply to you? The exclusion conditions turn largely on whether you are Non-Resident, so your position under the Statutory Residence Test drives the answer.
- Do you have enough unused Overseas Transfer Allowance to cover the transfer? Your Overseas Transfer Allowance is £1,073,100 for 2026/27. Both an exclusion and sufficient allowance are needed to avoid the charge entirely.
- How many complete UK tax years of non-residence do you have behind you, and what is the key date of the ring-fenced fund? These two figures decide whether UK charges can still reach withdrawals.
QROPS Benefits
Two things decide whether a QROPS helps you or costs you: how many complete tax years you have been Non-Resident, and what the relevant Double Tax Treaty says about pensions between the country in which the QROPS is situated and the country in which you live. The points below separate the tax advantages, which we can put a number on, from the investment and currency ones, which are for your regulated adviser.
Tax Efficient
Once the member payment provisions cease to apply, withdrawals fall outside UK tax entirely if you continue to be Non-Resident for UK tax purposes and the receiving country’s rules and treaty govern the position. For an individual who has been Non-Resident for UK tax purposes for well over a decade with no intention of returning, that removes a layer of UK reporting and charge for as long as Non-Resident status is maintained.
The fund also sits outside the UK Lump Sum and Death Benefit Allowance testing that applies to UK registered schemes, having been tested once against the Overseas Transfer Allowance on the way out. For a large fund with no protection, a single 25% charge against repeated UK lump sum testing is worth running properly.
Whether it is efficient for you depends on your residence history, fund size and treaty position, and those have to be worked out individually before any comparison means anything.
Easier to Manage
Moving several UK pensions into one overseas scheme does cut the number of providers you deal with, and you get a single statement in place of several. It does not simplify your UK tax position. Each ring-fenced transfer fund carries its own key date, so three UK pensions moved into one QROPS still produce three sets of records to track against the five-year and 10-year tests.
Fund Growth
Growth depends on how the fund is invested, and an overseas scheme can open up investment options a UK scheme does not offer. The arithmetic starts lower, though. Where it applies, the 25% Overseas Transfer Charge is a permanent reduction of the fund on day one, so any growth projection should run from the fund after the charge. We can tell you what that starting figure is before you commit to anything.
Immune to Exchange Rate Fluctuations
Holding a pension in the currency you expect to spend in removes exchange rate exposure between the scheme and your spending, and introduces it between the scheme and sterling. The tax consequence is narrower and more certain. The Overseas Transfer Charge and the Overseas Transfer Allowance are both computed in sterling, so if your fund is denominated in another currency, a currency movement between your transfer request and the transfer date can change how much of your allowance the transfer uses.
Increased Income Draw-down Amount
Some QROPS jurisdictions permit a higher rate of income withdrawal than the original UK pension drawdown rules may have permitted, because the receiving country sets its own limits once the member payment provisions cease. That is a real difference in what the scheme can pay.
Timing is the catch. While the provisions still apply to your ring-fenced fund, a withdrawal exceeding what UK rules would have permitted is an unauthorised payment, so the higher draw-down is available only once the residence tests under Main QROPS Rules are met.
Tax-free Lump Sum Withdrawal
Lump sum entitlement inside a QROPS is set by the receiving scheme’s rules and the receiving country’s tax law, not by the UK Lump Sum Allowance of £268,275. Several jurisdictions permit a larger tax-free element than the UK does.
The UK charge still reaches the payment while the member payment provisions apply: a lump sum exceeding what a UK registered scheme could have paid tax-free is an unauthorised payment, and the charge applies to the excess.
Where you are resident when you take it matters as much as the scheme’s rules, because a payment that is tax-free in the paying jurisdiction can still be taxable where you live.
Downsides to Having a QROPS
The costs of a QROPS are certain and immediate. The advantages are contingent on your residence and your treaty position.
- The possibility of a 25% charge on the way out. The charge is deducted before the money leaves, so the fund that arrives is smaller than the one you transferred.
- The transfer can be irreversible in practice. UK registered schemes are not obliged to accept a transfer back from a QROPS. A defined benefit transfer that has been given up cannot be reinstated at all.
- Guaranteed benefits are surrendered. Transferring out of a UK defined benefit scheme gives up an index-linked income for life, plus any spouse’s pension attaching to it.
- UK charges follow the fund. The member payment provisions, the five-year rules and the 10-year rule mean the UK can still tax withdrawals for years after the money has left.
- Ongoing costs are borne by a smaller fund. Trustee, administration and platform charges in an international scheme are met from a fund that has already lost a quarter of its value to the charge, where one applied.
- Returning to the UK undoes the plan. Residence is tested at the moment of payment. A return to the UK, even years later, can bring withdrawals back inside the UK charge and can trigger the Overseas Transfer Charge if it happens inside the relevant period. The Temporary Non-Residence Rules may be in point here.
- Income drawn from a QROPS is not eligible for relief under the Foreign Income and Gains regime (FIG).
What Are QROPS Tax Implications?
A QROPS transfer creates UK tax consequences at four separate points: when the transfer is made, when money is later withdrawn, when the fund moves on to another QROPS, and when it passes on death. The first three are covered below. Inheritance Tax and QROPS from 6 April 2027 deals with the fourth. Each is governed by a different set of rules, and a transfer that is clean at the first stage can still produce a UK charge at the second.
QROPS Tax Charge for Accessing Your Pension
Taking money out of a QROPS can still trigger a UK charge of 40%, and 55% where the surcharge applies, in certain limited circumstances. While the member payment provisions still apply, a payment from the ring-fenced fund that would have been unauthorised from a UK registered scheme is treated as unauthorised, carrying the 40% charge plus the 15% surcharge where the threshold is met.
This is the stage most people get wrong. Early access, full encashment, and payments below the normal minimum pension age can all produce a UK charge on someone who has lived outside the UK for years. Whether they do in your case depends on the five-year and 10-year residence tests, which Main QROPS Rules sets out in full, and it is a question with a definite answer once your residence history is on paper.
In reality, however, most people do not incur Member Payment charges on QROPS transfers and they tend to only access benefits after the relevant retirement age.
How QROPS Withdrawals Are Taxed
Once the member payment provisions cease to apply to your ring-fenced fund, UK tax on withdrawals falls away. Host country Income Tax may of course apply on drawdowns from your QROPS on the basis of your residence in that country. You should consult any Double Tax Treaty which exists between the QROPS jurisdiction and your country of residence.
For an individual in Singapore, the treaty position is the part most often skipped. A withdrawal from a Maltese QROPS paid to a Singapore resident is dealt with under Maltese domestic law, the Malta/Singapore treaty, and Singapore’s treatment of foreign-sourced pension income. The UK does not tax the payment, but its absence does not make the payment tax-free: Maltese tax would apply.
QROPS Taxation for Transfers to Another Pension Scheme
A later move from one QROPS to another is a fresh chargeable event, not an administrative tidy-up, and may itself attract the Overseas Transfer Charge, tested against the same exclusion conditions and allowance as the original.
Three protections apply. Funds that are not ring-fenced transfer funds, and funds whose original transfer was made or requested before 9 March 2017, are outside the onward charge, as is money already charged once, so the same fund is not charged twice. The pre-9 March 2017 protection is lost the moment those funds return to a UK registered scheme.
The practical trap is that people move a QROPS when they move country, precisely to restore the same-country exclusion, and the onward transfer itself becomes chargeable.
Taxation of a QROPS Pension Transfer Overseas
The Overseas Transfer Charge is 25% of the transferred value. It is imposed under section 244AC of the Finance Act 2004 on transfers from a UK registered scheme where the member is not resident in the country in which the QROPS is situated. The member and the scheme administrator are jointly and severally liable for it. Your scheme administrator will normally deduct the charge from the fund before the transfer completes.
The charge does not apply where you have sufficient Overseas Transfer Allowance and one of the following exclusion conditions is met:
- Same-country residence: you are resident in the same country as the one in which the QROPS receiving the transfer is established.
- Occupational scheme: the QROPS is an occupational pension scheme and you are an employee of a sponsoring employer under that scheme when the transfer is made.
- Overseas public service scheme: the QROPS is an overseas public service scheme and you are employed by an employer that participates in that scheme.
- International organisation scheme: the QROPS is the pension scheme of an international organisation and you are employed by that organisation when the transfer is made.
The EEA and Gibraltar exclusion has gone. Until 30 October 2024 a fifth condition excluded the charge where the QROPS was established in the European Economic Area or Gibraltar and the member was resident in the UK, the EEA or Gibraltar. That condition now applies only to transfers requested before 30 October 2024 and completed before 30 April 2025. Every one of those transfers has long since completed or failed, so for any transfer you make today the condition is spent. A British expat in Singapore transferring to a Maltese QROPS in 2026/27 has no exclusion available on the basis of the scheme’s location.
Worked Example: No Exclusion Available
You are Non-Resident and living in Singapore. You transfer a UK personal pension worth £900,000 to a QROPS established in Malta. You are not resident in Malta, the scheme is not an occupational scheme of your employer, and the EEA condition no longer exists. No exclusion applies. The Overseas Transfer Charge is 25% of £900,000, which is £225,000. Your scheme administrator deducts that sum and pays it to HMRC, and £675,000 arrives in Malta.
Worked Example: Exclusion Available but Allowance Exceeded
You have moved permanently to Australia and are Australian resident. You transfer £1,300,000 to an Australian QROPS. The same-country exclusion applies, so section 244AC does not apply to your scheme benefits. Your Overseas Transfer Allowance is £1,073,100 and you have used none of it. The excess of £226,900 is charged at 25% under section 244IA, producing a charge of £56,725.
The second example is the one most often overlooked. Residence alone is not enough. You need the exclusion and the allowance.
Inheritance Tax and QROPS from 6 April 2027
From 6 April 2027, most unused pension funds and death benefits fall within a person’s estate for Inheritance Tax. Death-in-service benefits from a registered scheme and dependants’ scheme pensions stay outside. The change reaches overseas schemes, and two questions decide where you stand: is your scheme a qualifying non-UK pension scheme, and are you a Long Term Resident.
The first is usually skipped. Inheritance Tax hangs on whether the scheme is a qualifying non-UK pension scheme (QNUPS) under section 271A of the Inheritance Tax Act 1984, a different test in a different Act from QROPS status under the Finance Act 2004. Most QROPS satisfy it too, since both turn on establishment outside the UK and local tax recognition, but it does not follow automatically and HMRC treats it as a question to be referred. The second is whether you are a Long Term Resident for UK tax purposes, the test that replaced domicile on 6 April 2025. You are one if you have been UK tax resident for at least 10 of the 20 tax years before the year the Inheritance Tax event arises.
- If you are a Long Term Resident for Inheritance Tax purposes, your QROPS is liable. Inheritance Tax arises on the pension property held within a qualifying non-UK pension scheme regardless of where that scheme is situated or established. Being outside the UK does not put the fund outside the charge.
- If you are not a Long Term Resident, a scheme established outside the UK falls outside the charge altogether. Finance Act 2026 treats pension property as situated where the scheme is established, not where its investments are, and HMRC’s technical note confirms that non-long-term UK residents are not charged Inheritance Tax on schemes established outside the UK. A Maltese QROPS holding UK gilts or UK shares is still a Maltese scheme for this purpose. What sits inside the fund does not change the answer.
If you were UK resident for 10 to 13 of those years, you stay a Long Term Resident for three tax years after leaving. Each further year of residence adds one more tax year, up to a maximum of 10.
For a British expat who left recently, this is the single most important date in this guide. Long Term Resident status falls away after departure, with a tail of three to 10 tax years depending on how long you were resident, so your departure date against 6 April 2027 is worth modelling properly.
From 6 April 2027, personal representatives are primarily liable for reporting and paying Inheritance Tax on unused pension funds. A UK registered scheme administrator can still be caught for paying out in breach of the withholding rules, but that backstop does not apply to a qualifying non-UK pension scheme, so for a QROPS the liability sits with your personal representatives. Once benefits vest in a beneficiary, that beneficiary becomes jointly and severally liable with them for the Inheritance Tax on what they received.
QROPS Allowances
Two allowance figures govern a QROPS transfer, and one widely quoted allowance no longer exists. Confusing them produces a materially wrong charge computation.
The Lifetime Allowance (LTA): What Replaced It
Three allowances replaced the Lifetime Allowance when it was abolished on 6 April 2024, and the one that matters for a transfer is the Overseas Transfer Allowance. Any material describing a QROPS transfer as a way to escape the Lifetime Allowance is describing a regime that has not existed for over two years. Until that date, transfers were tested against it as a benefit crystallisation event.
The three are:
- Lump Sum Allowance: £268,275. This caps the tax-free element of lump sums you take during your lifetime from UK registered schemes.
- Lump Sum and Death Benefit Allowance: £1,073,100. This caps the tax-free element of lump sums paid during life and on death.
- Overseas Transfer Allowance: £1,073,100.
Overseas Transfer Allowance (OTA)
The Overseas Transfer Allowance was introduced on 6 April 2024 and is usually £1,073,100, though not fixed. It equals your Lump Sum and Death Benefit Allowance, which is where the confusion starts, but the two remain separate. Using one does not reduce the other, in either direction.
HMRC’s policy paper of 30 October 2024 described the Overseas Transfer Allowance as one that “does not interact with the other allowances”, but one interaction does matter. On your first recognised transfer on or after 6 April 2024, an amount equal to 100% of the Lifetime Allowance you had used before that date comes off your available Overseas Transfer Allowance.
Each transfer uses part of the allowance, and the order of the two charges matters. Section 244IA applies only where an exclusion condition has already taken the transfer out of the main charge, and then only on the excess above your remaining allowance, at 25%. Where no exclusion applies, section 244AC charges the whole transferred value at 25% and the allowance never becomes the operative test. Your scheme administrator must tell you within 90 days whether the charge applies, the amount charged, and how much allowance the transfer used.
A higher allowance is available where you hold a protected right to a larger lump sum, because the Overseas Transfer Allowance follows the protected Lump Sum and Death Benefit Allowance figure rather than the standard one.
Other QROPS Allowances
One other allowance point affects a transfer, and it is a lump sum protection, which lifts your Overseas Transfer Allowance above the standard £1,073,100. Individuals holding Primary, Enhanced, Fixed or Individual Protection carry a higher Lump Sum and Death Benefit Allowance, and their Overseas Transfer Allowance rises with it. If you hold a protection certificate, the standard £1,073,100 figure is not your figure, and the transfer computation must use the protected amount.
Main QROPS Rules
Two residence-based rules decide how long the UK can tax money that has already left. They are commonly reported as a single rule. One deals with the Overseas Transfer Charge, the other with withdrawals, and they run to different timetables.
QROPS 5-Year Rule
Two separate five-year periods run after a transfer, and both are current law.
The Overseas Transfer Charge relevant period
A change in your circumstances after a transfer can trigger the charge or unwind it. The relevant period is the window in which that can happen, running from the transfer date to the following 5 April and then five further tax years. Move away from the country whose QROPS gave you the exemption, without moving the pension, and the charge becomes due. Pay a charge and then have circumstances change so an exclusion would have applied, and it can be refunded. A transfer made on 1 September 2026 sits inside the relevant period until 5 April 2032.
The five years from the key date rule
For a ring-fenced transfer fund with a key date of 6 April 2017 or later, the UK member payment charges apply for a period of five years beginning with that key date, whatever your residence position. Five complete tax years of non-residence do not release the fund if the key date is more recent than that.
QROPS 10-Year Rule
The 10-year rule governs whether UK member payment charges can reach a withdrawal. It is a residence test applied at the moment of payment, not a bar on touching the money for a decade, so the answer depends on your own tax years rather than on the calendar.
For a fund built up after 5 April 2017, the member payment charges stop applying only if you are not UK resident when the payment is made, and were not UK resident earlier that tax year or in any of the 10 previous tax years. For funds built up before 6 April 2017, the test looks back 5 tax years rather than 10.
Both run alongside the key date rule above, so a post-2017 ring-fenced fund needs 10 previous tax years of non-residence and five years elapsed from the key date before UK charges fall away.
A separate 10-year period governs reporting. Your scheme manager stops reporting payments to HMRC only once the member payment provisions no longer apply and the payment falls more than 10 years after the transfer that created the fund. Until then, HMRC receives a report of what you take.
QROPS List
HMRC’s notification list is the only authoritative record of which schemes have told HMRC they meet the conditions. It is not an approval.
HMRC’s own wording is unambiguous: “We cannot guarantee these are ROPS or that any transfers to them will be free of UK tax. It’s your responsibility to find out if you have to pay tax on any transfer of pension savings.” HMRC goes further and states that it “will usually pursue any UK tax charges (and interest for late payment) arising from transfers to overseas entities that do not meet the ROPS requirements even when they appear on this list.”
The burden of establishing that a receiving scheme genuinely qualifies sits with you, and the 40% unauthorised payments charge lands on you if it does not. HMRC also removes schemes temporarily while it reviews them, including where it suspects fraud, so presence one fortnight is not evidence of presence the next.
Local Company Schemes
These are ordinary domestic pension arrangements that happen to meet the ROPS conditions and have notified HMRC. Australian superannuation funds and Irish occupational schemes are the clearest examples, and they make up the bulk of the list.
They are built for people who live and work in that country and intend to retire there, fall under its pensions regulator, and are taxed under its domestic rules. For a returning Australian or New Zealander this is usually the natural destination, and the same-country exclusion is met without any structuring.
The limitation is portability. Moving away later can leave you inside the Overseas Transfer Charge relevant period with a scheme that no longer matches where you live.
Independent International Schemes
These are trust-based arrangements in jurisdictions that market themselves to internationally mobile members, principally Malta, Gibraltar, the Isle of Man, Guernsey and Jersey. They accept members who do not live in the jurisdiction and hold a wide range of investments through an international platform.
A Non-Resident living outside the scheme’s jurisdiction now faces the full charge, so the tax case has to be made on what happens after the transfer rather than on the transfer itself.
Malta’s double tax treaty network is the feature most often cited in their favour. Whether it produces a better outcome depends on your country of residence, its treaty with Malta, and how it taxes foreign pension income. That is tax analysis, and we can work through it with you.
How to Set Up a QROPS Transfer
Regulated financial advice comes first, and it is a legal requirement, not a formality.
UK financial services legislation requires regulated financial advice before UK pension rights are transferred to a QROPS, and receiving schemes will not proceed without it. Where the benefits are safeguarded, such as a defined benefit pension, and worth more than £30,000, that advice must by law come from an FCA-authorised firm holding permission to advise on safeguarded transfers. A transfer arranged without that advice will not proceed properly, and a firm that offers to arrange one without it is a firm to walk away from.
Documents Required
Form APSS263 is the one with a statutory deadline attached, and the rest are identity, residence and scheme paperwork. Prepare them before you start, because the deadlines run from the date of your transfer request, not from the date you get organised.
- Form APSS263, member information: you must give your UK scheme administrator the information on this form within 60 days of your transfer request.
- Proof of identity and current address: passport, and a recent utility bill or bank statement showing your address in your country of residence.
- Evidence of tax residence: a certificate of residence or equivalent from the tax authority where you live, which supports any same-country exclusion claim.
- Your UK scheme paperwork: the annual benefit statement, scheme reference numbers and, for defined benefit schemes, the cash equivalent transfer value quotation.
- The receiving scheme’s application and its QROPS reference: together with confirmation of its current entry on HMRC’s notification list.
- The regulated adviser’s transfer advice: required for safeguarded benefits above £30,000, and requested by most receiving schemes in any event.
Spice Taxation can introduce you to qualified, regulated and trustworthy financial advisers who provide that advice. We receive no inducement and no reward of any kind for making an introduction. The point of the introduction is to put you into the best and safest pair of hands, and our own fee comes from you, for tax work, and from nobody else.
Our role sits alongside it, on the UK tax analysis: whether an exclusion is available, how much Overseas Transfer Allowance you have, where you stand on the five-year and 10-year tests, and what the 6 April 2027 Inheritance Tax change means for your estate. That analysis should be done before you commit, because most of it cannot be changed afterwards.
Other Key Considerations
- Your residence position drives almost everything. Establish your position under the Statutory Residence Test before you model anything else.
- A planned return to the UK changes the answer entirely. A realistic prospect of returning changes which of the tests below you will actually meet.
- The scheme must be a QROPS on the day the money moves. Status can be lost between your application and the transfer, and the consequences of transferring to a scheme that has lost status fall on you.
- Existing UK assets are unaffected. A pension transfer does not change your position on UK property or UK gains, which continue under their own rules. Our guides on UK property tax and capital gains tax cover those separately.
QROPS Process
The mechanics run on statutory deadlines shared between you, your UK scheme administrator and the receiving scheme manager.
| Stage | Who acts | Deadline |
| Request the transfer from your UK scheme | You | Starts the clock |
| Tell you what information and written acknowledgement you must provide | UK scheme administrator | Within 30 days of your request |
| Return member information on form APSS263 | You | Within 60 days of the transfer request |
| Establish whether the Overseas Transfer Charge applies, deduct any charge, and test against your Overseas Transfer Allowance | UK scheme administrator | Before the transfer completes |
| Report the transfer to HMRC on the Managing Pension Schemes service | UK scheme administrator | Within 60 days of the transfer |
| Notify you whether the charge applies, the amount charged, and how much Overseas Transfer Allowance the transfer used | UK scheme administrator | Within 90 days |
| Provide details of the tax-relieved funds transferred to the receiving scheme manager | UK scheme administrator | Within 31 days |
| Report payments made to relevant members on form APSS253 | QROPS scheme manager | Within 90 days of each payment |
| Report a change to your address | QROPS scheme manager | Within 3 months of becoming aware |
| Report that the scheme has ceased to be a QROPS | QROPS scheme manager | Within 30 days of cessation |
The 60-day deadline on form APSS263 is the one members miss, and the consequence is disproportionate. Miss the 60-day deadline and the Overseas Transfer Charge applies, even where an exclusion condition would otherwise have removed it entirely.
How Long Does a QROPS Transfer Take?
Several months from first enquiry to arrival, and longer for a defined benefit pension. No official UK source publishes a typical duration, so treat any figure you are quoted as an estimate, but the statutory windows around it are fixed.
For a defined benefit pension, your scheme has roughly three months to produce the cash equivalent transfer value statement, and you then have three months from the guarantee date on it to apply. A new statement is available only once every 12 months, so letting a quotation lapse costs you a year. Once the application is in, the trustees have six months to complete, running from the guarantee date for defined benefit rights and from the application date for money purchase rights.
The 60-day deadline on form APSS263 runs alongside, and missing it does more than trigger the charge. HMRC’s manual states the transfer request itself can lapse, so the process restarts.
What makes those cases the slowest is the mandatory safeguarded benefits advice, which has to be obtained and evidenced before trustees will act.
What Does a QROPS Cost?
Scheme and Adviser Fees
No provider in this market publishes its fees openly, so you have to ask. Four categories arise on a QROPS transfer, set out below so you can check any quote against them.
The costs generally break into five categories: the receiving scheme’s establishment fee, its ongoing annual trustee and administration charge, the investment platform or product charge, the regulated adviser’s initial and ongoing fee and the acquisition costs of the underlying investments. Ask for every one of them in writing, as a fixed figure or a stated percentage, before you sign anything.
The tax charges are separate and are the ones we can quantify for you in advance.
Commercial QROPS material generally omits fees altogether, or describes them without figures. Treat an unwillingness to quote a total cost in writing as information about the provider.
Do You Pay to Set the Scheme Up?
Nothing, because you do not set one up. You join a scheme a trustee company already runs, so your cost is the fee to join and remain, plus the UK tax charge the transfer produces.
The provider carries that cost, covering local regulatory authorisation, trustee services and its reporting obligations to HMRC, and recovers it through the member fees you pay.
QROPS Scam Prevention
- An unexpected approach is the clearest warning sign. The FCA’s position is that a cold approach offering a free pension review is likely to be a scam, and that professional advice on pensions is not free.
- Check the firm on the FCA Register and the FCA Warning List or relevant equivalent in the country where you live before you give anyone your pension details. Many unauthorised firms falsely claim to be authorised.
- A firm offering to arrange a safeguarded benefits transfer above £30,000 without regulated transfer advice is acting outside the law. Do not proceed and report the approach.
- Unusual underlying investments are the standard pattern. Overseas property developments, forestry, storage units, care homes and biofuels appear repeatedly in cases the FCA has publicised.
- Pressure to decide quickly, courier delivery of documents, and offers of early access before age 57 (55 for some people) are all recognised scam markers.
- Presence on the HMRC notification list is not a safety check. Verify the scheme independently before you commit.
If a transfer has already gone to a scheme that turns out not to qualify, the UK tax consequence is the 40% unauthorised payments charge, or 55% where the surcharge applies, on top of whatever has been lost commercially. Speak to us early if you think this may have happened to you.
QROPS vs International SIPP
An International SIPP is a UK registered self-invested personal pension designed for members living abroad. It stays inside the UK pensions regime. A QROPS leaves it. The tax consequences differ at every stage.
| Feature | QROPS | International SIPP |
| Where the scheme is established | Outside the UK, on HMRC’s notification list | In the UK, a registered pension scheme |
| Overseas Transfer Charge on the way in | 25% unless an exclusion applies and allowance is available | None |
| Overseas Transfer Allowance used | Yes, up to £1,073,100 | No |
| Tested against the Lump Sum and Death Benefit Allowance | Once, at transfer, then outside UK testing | Yes, on each relevant event |
| UK tax on withdrawals | Falls away once the member payment provisions cease | UK rules apply throughout |
| Tax-free lump sum | Set by the receiving country’s rules | UK Lump Sum Allowance of £268,275 |
| Reversibility | Very limited, and often impossible | Full, remains a UK scheme |
| Inheritance Tax from 6 April 2027 | In charge for Long Term Residents wherever situated; outside the charge for everyone else, because the scheme is established overseas | In charge as UK-situated pension property |
For an individual who has been Non-Resident for years, intends to stay abroad, and lives in a country with a QROPS available, the exclusion conditions and residence tests are most likely satisfied. An International SIPP does not trigger the Overseas Transfer Charge at all, because the fund stays inside the UK registered regime. The choice is a regulated financial advice decision, and we set out the tax consequences of each so it can be made with the numbers in front of you.
QROPS Alternatives
- Leave the pension where it is. A UK registered scheme can generally pay benefits to a member living abroad, and a treaty claim on form DT-Individual is often the cheaper answer. Check the condition attached to the treaty first, as the next point explains.
- Consolidation inside the UK regime. Consolidating into a UK personal pension or International SIPP keeps the fund inside the UK registered regime, and avoids the Overseas Transfer Charge entirely. QROPS vs International SIPP above sets out the full comparison.
- Take benefits from the UK scheme under a treaty, and check the condition first. For example, Article 18 of the UK/Singapore treaty gives Singapore exclusive taxing rights over pensions and annuities, but only where the individual is subject to tax on that income in Singapore.
- Defer the decision until your residence position is settled. The 10-year rule rewards a long unbroken period of non-residence, and the Long Term Resident test rewards the same. If your plans are unsettled, a transfer made now buys benefits you may never become eligible to use.
- Fund a local retirement scheme instead of moving the UK one. Singapore’s Supplementary Retirement Scheme is open to foreigners, with an annual cap of S$35,700 against S$15,300 for a citizen or permanent resident, relief inside the overall S$80,000 personal cap, and 50% of withdrawals taxable. Hong Kong’s MPF becomes compulsory once an employment visa runs past 13 months, and the UAE federal Savings Scheme is a voluntary alternative to end of service gratuity. None is on HMRC’s notification list, so none can receive a UK pension transfer. They sit alongside your UK pension rather than replacing it, and how the UK would treat them on your return is worth settling before you fund one heavily.
Which of these fits depends on your residence history, your fund, the treaty between the UK and where you live, and whether you expect to return. Those are all knowable, and working them out is exactly what we do. Broader planning points sit in our guide to UK tax planning.
Your QROPS Checklist
- Confirm your UK residence position for the current and previous tax years. Everything else follows from it.
- Count your complete tax years of non-residence. You need 10 previous tax years for a post-2017 ring-fenced fund, or 5 for a pre-2017 fund.
- Check whether any exclusion condition is available to you. If you live in Singapore or the UAE, no QROPS exists in your country of residence, so the same-country exclusion cannot be met.
- Calculate the Overseas Transfer Charge in cash, at 25% of the transfer value. Look at that number before you look at any projection.
- Establish how much of your £1,073,100 Overseas Transfer Allowance remains, and check whether you hold a protection that raises it.
- Verify the receiving scheme’s current entry on HMRC’s notification list, and check it again on the day of the transfer.
- Obtain regulated financial advice from an FCA-authorised firm with permission to advise on safeguarded benefits where the transfer exceeds £30,000 of such benefits.
- Get every fee quoted in writing, from the receiving scheme, the platform and the adviser.
- Return form APSS263 to your UK scheme administrator within 60 days of your transfer request.
- Assess your Long Term Resident position against 6 April 2027, and model what your estate looks like on either side of that date.
- Diarise the end of the Overseas Transfer Charge relevant period, 5 April at least five tax years after the transfer, before any move that changes your country of residence.
Why Choose Spice Taxation for Help with QROPS?
A QROPS decision combines a regulated financial advice question with a UK tax question, and the two need different people. We do the tax side, properly, and we make sure the advice side is handled by someone qualified to do it.
- Accountants with over 30 years of experience: a practice built around British expats and internationally mobile clients, more than 80% of whom live outside the UK.
- Based in Singapore: we work in your time zone, and we deal daily with the problem that Singapore and the UAE have no QROPS on HMRC’s list, which removes the same-country exclusion for most expats here.
- Your UK residence position decides the outcome, and it is what we work out first: the exclusion conditions, the 10-year rule and the Long Term Resident test all turn on UK tax residence, and the Statutory Residence Test is the first thing we work through with almost every client.
- Fixed fees agreed in advance: you know the cost of the analysis before we start it.
- Genuinely independent: we hold no commercial relationships with financial advisers, insurers or property agents, and we receive no commission, inducement or reward from anyone in this market.
- We quantify the charge before you commit: we work out what the Overseas Transfer Charge costs you in pounds on your own fund, so that number is on the table before you decide. It is HMRC’s charge, not our fee, and ours is fixed and quoted separately.
Book a call and we will work through your residence position, the charge, the allowance and the 2027 Inheritance Tax change with your actual figures.
Disclaimer: Spice Taxation is not a regulated financial adviser, either in the UK or in Singapore. Nothing in this guide is a recommendation to transfer a pension, to keep one where it is, or to choose any particular scheme or jurisdiction. Regulated financial advice is required under UK financial services legislation before UK pension rights are transferred to a QROPS, and it must come from a firm authorised to give it.
FAQs
Will I Pay the 25% Overseas Transfer Charge if I live in Singapore or Dubai?
Almost certainly, yes. Neither Singapore nor the United Arab Emirates has a scheme on HMRC’s notification list, so the same-country residence exclusion cannot be met. Unless the receiving scheme is an occupational scheme of your employer, an overseas public service scheme you participate in, or the scheme of an international organisation that employs you, the charge applies at 25% of the transferred value.
What is the 10 Years Rule for the QROPS?
It is a residence test applied at the moment you take money out, not a lock-up on the fund. For money built up after 5 April 2017 you need 10 clear previous tax years of non-residence behind you, and you must be Non-Resident when the payment is made. Pre-2017 funds use five years instead. Main QROPS Rules above sets out both tests. Do not confuse either with the separate 10-year period during which your scheme manager still has to report payments to HMRC.
Can I Transfer a QROPS to a UK Pension Scheme?
Sometimes, but plan as though you cannot. Acceptance is entirely at the receiving UK scheme’s discretion, and defined benefit rights surrendered on the way out are gone for good.
Can I Transfer a QROPS to Another QROPS?
Yes, and the onward transfer is a chargeable event in its own right. It may attract the Overseas Transfer Charge at 25%, tested against the same exclusion conditions and the same allowance.
Can I Make a Partial QROPS Transfer?
Yes, where your UK scheme’s rules allow it. UK tax law lets part of your uncrystallised rights move while the rest stays put, and HMRC treats a split across more than one receiving scheme as a partial transfer too. Two limits matter. A pension already in payment cannot be partially transferred, and an attempt to do so is an unauthorised payment. A partial transfer can also reduce or forfeit a lump sum protection or pension age protection you hold. Each slice is tested separately against your Overseas Transfer Allowance, so moving £400,000 now uses £400,000 of the £1,073,100 and leaves the balance for later.
Can I Transfer More than One UK Pension to a QROPS?
Yes, and consolidation does less for your UK tax position than it looks. Each transfer creates its own ring-fenced fund with its own key date, and HMRC is explicit that a ring-fenced fund can hold only one transfer, so one member can have several inside a single QROPS. Three UK pensions moved in three different years produce three ring-fenced funds, three key dates and three separate five-year exposure windows, not one. Payments out are attributed to the fund with the earliest key date first, then forward in date order. Consolidation gives you one administrator and one statement. It does not give you one clock.
What is the Minimum Age to Open a QROPS?
There is no minimum age to open one or to transfer into one. The age constraint applies to taking money out.
Is There a Minimum Amount I Need to Have in My Fund Before I Can Transfer?
HMRC sets no minimum transfer value. The £30,000 figure that circulates is a different thing: it is the threshold above which transferring safeguarded benefits, such as a defined benefit pension, requires advice from an FCA-authorised firm with the relevant permission. Receiving schemes commonly set their own minimum investment amounts, which are commercial terms rather than tax rules.
What Kind of Pension Scheme is Eligible to be Transferred to a QROPS?
Uncrystallised benefits in any UK registered scheme: personal pensions, SIPPs, and most private occupational schemes on either a defined benefit or defined contribution basis. Benefits in payment move only like-for-like and in full. Two categories are out altogether, the State Pension and the unfunded public service schemes.
How do I Transfer a Pension Plan from the UK to Another Country?
Obtain regulated financial advice first, because it is required before UK pension rights are transferred. QROPS Process above sets out each step, from checking the scheme’s current entry on HMRC’s notification list to what your administrator must report.
Does the 6 April 2027 Inheritance Tax Change Reach a QROPS?
Only if you are a Long Term Resident on the date of the chargeable event. If you are, it reaches the fund wherever the scheme sits. If you are not, an overseas-established scheme is outside the charge, and holding UK assets inside it makes no difference. Inheritance Tax and QROPS from 6 April 2027 above sets out the Finance Act 2026 situs rule that produces this result.
References
Finance Act 2026, c. 11. Part 2: Pension interests. legislation.gov.uk. https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2026/11/part/2/crossheading/pension-interests
Financial Conduct Authority. (2026). Pension scams. FCA. https://www.fca.org.uk/consumers/pension-scams
HM Revenue & Customs. (2024). Abolition of the lifetime allowance (LTA). GOV.UK. https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/abolition-of-the-lifetime-allowance-from-6-april-2024/abolition-of-the-lifetime-allowance-lta
HM Revenue & Customs. (2025). Technical note: Inheritance Tax on pensions. GOV.UK. https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/inheritance-tax-on-pensions-technical-note/technical-note-inheritance-tax-on-pensions
HM Revenue & Customs. (2026). Check the recognised overseas pension schemes notification list. GOV.UK. https://www.gov.uk/guidance/check-the-recognised-overseas-pension-schemes-notification-list
HM Revenue & Customs. (2026). Inheritance Tax if you’re a long-term UK resident. GOV.UK. https://www.gov.uk/guidance/inheritance-tax-if-youre-a-long-term-uk-resident
HM Revenue & Customs. (2026). Overseas pensions: pension transfers. GOV.UK. https://www.gov.uk/guidance/overseas-pensions-pension-transfers
HM Revenue & Customs. (2026). PTM102200: Transfers to a QROPS: essential principles of the overseas transfer charge. Pensions Tax Manual, GOV.UK. https://www.gov.uk/hmrc-internal-manuals/pensions-tax-manual/ptm102200
HM Revenue & Customs. (2026). PTM102300: Transfers to a QROPS: when the overseas transfer charge doesn’t apply, the exclusion conditions. Pensions Tax Manual, GOV.UK. https://www.gov.uk/hmrc-internal-manuals/pensions-tax-manual/ptm102300
HM Revenue & Customs. (2026). PTM112700: Qualifying recognised overseas pension schemes (QROPS): reports to be made to HMRC automatically. Pensions Tax Manual, GOV.UK. https://www.gov.uk/hmrc-internal-manuals/pensions-tax-manual/ptm112700
HM Revenue & Customs. (2026). PTM113210: International: UK tax charges on non UK schemes: member payment charges. Pensions Tax Manual, GOV.UK. https://www.gov.uk/hmrc-internal-manuals/pensions-tax-manual/ptm113210
HM Revenue & Customs. (2026). PTM134100: Unauthorised payments: the unauthorised payments charge and surcharge. Pensions Tax Manual, GOV.UK. https://www.gov.uk/hmrc-internal-manuals/pensions-tax-manual/ptm134100
HM Treasury & HM Revenue & Customs. (2024). Reducing tax-free overseas transfers of tax relieved UK pensions. GOV.UK. https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/changes-to-rules-for-overseas-pensions-and-scheme-administrators/reducing-tax-free-overseas-transfers-of-tax-relieved-uk-pensions