Akira181

Thanks for the tip! I'll make an appointment and see what they say.   I've found out dual nationality is a little tricky in my case. It would be a Hong Kong Special Administrative Region passport I would be going for and they don't recognise dual nationality. I believe I would need to live there and renounce my British citizenship to get one. Not exactly ideal and trying to cheat those rules have heavy consequences if caught.   I have a vague recollection that my grandparents from my fathers side were Irish (they all died when I was young so not sure) but it's still EU so kinda useless in this case. Might be worth pursuing if Brexit makes travel to the EU inconvenient though.

Thanks for the tip, I haven't spoken German for almost a decade so will see how that goes!   I'm unsure if I can find my insurance number after all this time. Will need to have a dig around, I have scans of some old payslips. Hopefully it's on there!   Jeez, I'm somewhat accident prone so don't see me making it to 97 to be honest (although the UK will have you working till 97 before your pension at this rate). I was hoping the company contributions would have made the pension better value but doesn't sound like it's anything significant. Still better than nothing I guess.   I'll see how the dual nationality route goes but I'm doubtful that will pan out.

I lived and worked full time in Cologne from 3rd November 2008 to 28th February 2013 and was on Arbeitslosengeld from March 2013 and deregistered with the Arbeitsagentur on 14th Jan 2014. I left Cologne, done some travelling, then moved back to the UK and have been working here since.   I understand that I cannot claim back my contributions since I was there pre-Brexit but I just found out that you only need a minimum of 5 years contributions to qualify for the pension. I believe Arbeitslosengeld makes contributions, which would put my around the 5 year mark if I remember the dates correctly. If my memory is wrong, I might be a month or two short. Is it possible to check and make a voluntary contribution to top it up?   I technically have dual nationality but do not have the passport (I'm checking to see what it would take to get it). Is this a better route than going for the minimum pension?   Thanks in advance!