I had exactly this issue about 2 years ago. When creating the account, it insisted on credit checking me. It said that I had no recent credit history, true in the UK, so the check failed and they could not create the Gov Gateway account for me. Tried again about 10 months ago, and no credit check was required, and it was very easy to do.
If you are working in France you can pay class 2 contributions at approx £150 per year. I have 6 years to make up and 6 years until I can claim it. At the lower cost it’s well worth it.
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My second comment above might explain.
I wouldn’t accuse the DWP of having midadvised me (twice), now would I?
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That’s useful to know. I currently have 28 trimestres in France. Assuming I’ll have to work until I’m 64, that’s 15 years so another 60 trimestres bringing me up to 88.
Does the class of contribution make a difference in any way?
“ Hard to get through” thats an understatement. I rang for days on end over several weeks. Frequently you just get cut off, the rest of the time you just wait. The longest I waited was 40 minutes. When I rang twice in October, I got through straight away. More than half the staff are working from home still. The whole pensions forecast department is a shambles. Hence why they have extended the cut off date now.
I don’t think there is a problem with the department dealing with pensions claims.
It is the cut off date for topping up NI contributions that has caused the pensions forecast dept to be inundated and as most of them have not returned to the office (still!) after covid, they are unable to cope with the demand
I don’t believe so - the only criteria is that you are contributing in France by paying into their system. I will only have about half the trimetsres I need to get the full whack in France - by topping up my Uk pension I should get the full payout in the uk and a partial amount in France. You need to apply to pay towards your UK pension but it is defo worth it in the long run! I believe you may be able to download the form you need to complete from the gov.uk website - You have to send it by post but once in the system you get a letter each year asking for the amount to pay which you can then do with internet banking.
I’m talking about France, have been here since 89. Not always in employment, studying and traveling don’t count for retirement.
I’m probably a bit younger than you. With this new reform, I could retire when I’m 63 and 9 months, but need 170 trimestres and or have paid in for 42 years et 6 months to have the full retirement package or retire when I’m 63 and 6 months and have a much smaller retirement payout, with a décote which would seriously give me less.
So I thought maybe I could buy a few years in the UK to get the trimesters but now I realize the financial benefits won’t add up.
I didn’t think it worked like that. As I understand it my credits in the UK don’t count towards my trimestres in France, sadly.
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The 24 UK years that were added to my French pension scheme years via Carsat trigger my French pension were earned before the year 2000
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and I didn’t need the extra UK years which I have recently paid for to trigger the French pension.So I don’t know if it would work for you.
However my ex husband (French)worked most of his life in France but he did work 8years in the UK;He had enough trimestres to claim his pension via Carsat Pole I nternational Nantes to retire at 62 by using those 8 years.
He claimed the UK part of his pension at 66 and those 8 years were made upto 10 by the UK (in the letter to him they talked of an insurance that made up the years)So he is being paid a UK pension by the UK pension service as if he had worked 10 years.
So you may be able to do the same.
I registered with Carsat Pole International a good few years before I could claim my French pension ,sending off a list of when I had worked in the UK etc
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Of course Wozza if you had already worked more than 10 years in the UK this would not be applicable
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Thanks all,
I’ve looked into this a bit further and I don’t tick / if any of the right boxes having mostly worked seasonally in the UK.
That is correct. Carsat would not take any earned pension rights from the UK towards my french collection of trimestres and I have had to claim(will claimCarsat this summer) from both countries. They explained that as the two systems are not compatible in any way, it is too complicated to transfer the UK pension accumulated to the french system which works in trimestres and not years as the UK does. I add that this is from last year when I got involved in Carsat claim papers but have deferred it to next year to get a lot more than they offered starting this month as a new pensioner.
Has anyone had any luck in getting through to Future Pensions on the Government Gateway helpline. Managed to find the information relating to missing contributions on my record but can’t find out how to make a payment. Now on day 5 of trying. Though the cut off date has been extended to July.
I did and it was tortuous, but got there in the end. I tried the paper route first in 2017 to get the form, which I got and returned in 2018 and when I hadn’t had a response after nearly a year i used the phone.
So first off I had to get the precise years missing that would actually make a difference (not all do) and what each year would cost. It was one of these numbers
+44 191 218 3600 future pensions. or
+44 191 318 7777 DWP overseas pensions
Having got that I then spent another few days of my life trying to get tbe reference number from HMRC to pay it
+44 300 200 3500 HMRC NI queries
And paid it, and had to wait months for it to be credited ro my account.
If you are a risk taker my reference was my NI number + IC + surname (5 letters) + first initial and paid it to HMRC NI receipts, A/C 3094 4793. Sort code 20 20 48
The best time to phone would be as soon as lines open or towards end of business. Personally, I would wait until this tax year ends as they will be inundated with other queries.
I contacted them back in January to get details of my missing years and the very helpful woman told me HMRC now require everyone resident abroad, whether permanent or temporary, to complete form CF83 (downloadable from government website Social Security abroad: NI38 - GOV.UK) despite most of the questions applying to folks who want to continue paying their contributions while abroad and not to those who just want to pay their missing years.
Thinking she must be mistaken ( 
), I phoned HMRC and after 3 hours of phoning, getting cut off, phoning again and getting cut off again and so on, I finally managed to speak to someone who confirmed what Future Pensions had told me and admitted it makes no sense but if the gods on high demand it …!
She suggested attaching a letter to the completed form giving exact details of everything Future Pensions had said - dates, amounts, total to pay, and state clearly that all I want is payment details to pay the amount outstanding. Do not complete the Direct Debit part of the form!
Now, if HMRC/Pensions still have you as living in the UK, continue as is and HMRC should give you the payment details over the phone 
Thank you for that. Very helpful. Might try the letter advice to avoid long telephone waiting times.
Only problem is that only 4 months to go. So do letter, but once sent amd a few weeks have passed start phoning too perhaps.