Welcome to Australia Blog

French pension

You worked in France and you are looking for information on your French pension… What are you entitled to?

The following site allows you to get a simulation of your pension:
In French http://www.info-retraite.fr/ or English version by Google

The “French National Pension” organisation web-site will allow you to register and obtain all the information about your payments and entitlements:
In French http://www.cnav.fr/ or English version by Google

Finally if you had a private pension, the “French Complementary Pension” organisation web-site can be found here:
In French http://www.agirc.fr/ or English version by Google

For information, retirement age in France is 60.

Settling in Australia

Looking at the Australian immigration statistics for the past 10 years, it appears that the Net Permanent Migration is slightly below 50% of the total Settler Arrival Numbers.

It seems that people who immigrate in Australia do not always intend to stay permanently. To me there is also a category of people who intended to stay but changed their mind after a while.

Immigrating permanently to any country is no easy achievement and requires total commitment.

Australia being such a remote country, with so much space, can lead to feelings of isolation from the rest of the world… be sure you integrate this factor into your immigration plans.

On the other hand, immigration has contributed 1 million people every 10 years to the Australian population over the past 60 years.

For more interesting staistics on immigration to Australia, have a look at this web-site:

http://www.immi.gov.au/media/fact-sheets/02key.htm

Transfer Your UK Pensions

For immigrants from the UK, it is possible to transfer personal and company retirement pensions to Australia. Though there is a cost attached to it, and there are taxation, Superannuation and Centerlink issues that need to be considered.
Typically, in order to take advantage of the tax concessions available, this has to be done in the first 6 months of residency.
The process can take up to 4 months to complete.

It is also possible to continue making voluntary contributions to your UK state pension, once living in Australia, if you haven’t paid in for enough years.
It is recommended however to make the calculations first, as it is unlikely to be worth it, unless you have only few years missing.
Indeed the conversion and transfer of AU$ into Pounds for the payments will incure a fee from the bank, and the same applies in the other direction when the pension is paid to you.
Currently it goes roughly like this: a voluntary contribution of £380 per year will get you a State pension of £392.73 per month at age 65.
However it needs to be compared to an Australian Superannuation Fund which should return around 8% average per year on the same amount money invested.

Also be aware that the state retirement age, which is set to be 65 for men and women by 2020, will rise to 66 between 2024 and 2026, to 67 between 2034 and 2036 and to 68 between 2044 and 2046…

Useful Resources:
UK Pension schemes FAQ
UK Pension Fund transfer to Australia
Retirment age will rise

Experience everything French in Brisbane

Learning French in Australia