Hi de hi peeps. Hope you are all well? The apartment search continues apace, but no viewings taking place yet. I have started a new tactic today. Use the link provided on the listing emailed to us to do the initial enquiry, then immediately do a follow-up email directly with the person at the Agency listed asking for a face-to-face meeting. We shall see what happens!
Here is another question for you to ponder over and provide valuable feedback:
Phill turns 68 next month (where has the last 25 years gone!). He is currently receiving a full UK pension paid into our French bank account. He also has a UK S1 which he has not used as he is still working. He would like to retire soon, but still may have the occasional paid income coming in.
He also has over 40 trimesters of French social payments that entitles him to a reduced French pension.
I canât claim my UK pension until June 2030 and as you know, we sold the property in January where I ran a guest house for nine years, but I still need to be covered by the French health system.
Phillâs questions to ya all are:
1. If I retire, will the partial French pension cover my health cover, or do I need to use the UK S1?
2. Will Steve be covered for French health care under PUMA if I retire?
If I retire, will the partial French pension cover my health cover, or do I need to use the UK S1? You canât use the S1 if you have a French pension
Will Steve be covered for French health care under PUMA if I retire? Everyone who lives in France in a stable manner is entitles to be covered by PUMA. The only issue will be if you have unearned income over the threshold (around 25k I recall) then you will be asked to pay the cotisation subsidiaire. That doesnât include pension income.
Hi de hi. Thank you for your responses. Phill is now in contemplation mode
And Jane, we were both right, the Agent responded to my email immediately and said give him a call. Phill did, and we visited the apartment yesterday. It is the same size as the house we completed the sale of in January. Newly renovated, bright, two big bedrooms, storage room and a separate large kitchen with a terrace and only a 20-minute walk into the centre of Monty; but if one is feeling lazy there is a tram line just five minutes away. Now we must do the âpatienceâ thing and wait; aggggh!
Thank you for the responses. I just want to clarify a few things.
I have been claiming a full UK pension since May 2024.
I have ben issued an S1 by DWP which I havenât sent to Amelie.
I have over 40 trimesters of French social payments which entitles me to a partial pension.
This raises the questions:
As I have a French pension eligibility, do I have to claim it, and does it invalidate my S1 if I do or not?
Does my partial French pension cover my health care or do I have to pay social after retirement.
If I retire, does my PACS partner get health cover under PUMa - are there charges.
I am currently an auto-entrepreneur, can I deregister but still do occasional work? If so is there a mechanism for paying social on income without a SIREN?
Interesting that the DWP issued you with an S1. Did they ask about your career history and know that you have enough French trimesters to qualify?
The strict letter of the Social Security coordination agreements means that if you are entitled to a French pension you canât get an S1 whether or not you actually claim the French one.
People will no doubt pop up and say that this is not true for them, which I donât dispute but it is not how the process is set out. Perhaps they never made contact with French pension authority and didnât flag an entitlement up with the UK - no idea but it shouldnât really happen.
The minimum trimesters for a French pension is I believe 1 if you are salaried, but 10 otherwise. And 9 of less you can get your money back.
Anyone resident here can be in PUMA. Whether you have to pay will depend on amount and type of income. But it is pretty good value!
And no, you canât continue your professional work unless correctly set up to do so. You can do the odd non-professional bit of work, or be a volunteer fireman or things like that, but it is quite limited. See next link
Just to say this is not the first time Iâve heard of people being wrongly issued with S1s. As I mentioned in another post, friends of mine were sent them automatically, without even asking.
That was about 5 years ago though and another friend going through the process now specifically had to request one. And answer the relevant questions truthfully.
My husband has a few French trimestres and he certainly wonât be applying for or using an S1 when his UK state pension kicks in.
As regards the PUMA tax, next November he will receive his first bill for the CSM (PUMA tax).
You can do some research yourself to see how this is calculated. The CSM is administered and collected by URSSAF.
Once someone in PUMA starts drawing their French pension, they will be exempt from the CSM.
So even if the French pension is very small, it may be worth claiming it just to get an exemption from the CSM.
There is a lot of uncertainty around the CSM and whether for example a person would be exempt from the CSM if their spouse were drawing a French pension or if the spouse were exempt on any other grounds. I have never seen anything on a gouv.fr or URSSAF site to confirm this. So I suggest you pop along to your local URSSAF office and put the question to them. Also, if it IS true, does it also apply to PACSed couples?
It would be good if you could report back, assuming you can get any sense out of them.
Oh, and donât swanning off to Thailand or wherever for the winter before the CSM bill arrives. Rumour has it it can only be sent by post. Which sounds completely nuts in 2026 but there you go.
PACSâd couples are treated as though they are married except with inheritance issues and also spouse pension rights which only goes to married people. You have to be careful with the impĂŽts and being PACSâd, two of my sonâs French family got fined heavy the year before last for declaring as a PACSâd couple at one address but were actually living in their own separate flats, apparently the paperwork trail found them out so they had to pay quite a bit of what they had been allowed as one family unit.
Detection - and communication between agencies- is improving all the time. Which is precisely why I wouldnât be tempted to make wrongful use of an S1.
Indeed. One of the âopportunitiesâ AI will bring is looking out for anomalies that help the tax offices. I suspect they will not point out thise which help the taxpayer or am I just a bit cynical?
I forgot to add. There is a school of thought that the CSM is tax deductible. With the deduction to be claimed in Box 6DD of the main tax form No. 2042.
The tax authorities are actually coming to my place of work this week and will be taking questions. Iâve already submitted this particular question in advance so if they answer it, I will report back.
Thank you for your replies. They are most informative. I wonât go the S1 route.
One question remains, if I claim my French pension can I also work as an auto-entrepreneur for a few years at a low income level - maybe one non-zero trimester return per year? I read somewhere that URSSAF can close accounts after a number of zero returns.
This is stretching my knowledge, so triple check with better experienced people.
If you just stop earning money that causes problems in terms of health cover, and after 2 years you will be âradiatedâ, ie closed down. But this is very different from arriving at retirement age and taking your pension, and then deciding to continue some work via a specific âcumul-emploi-retraiteâ scheme. Each regime and caisse will offer something a bit different in terms of details. And these schemes then result in a second pension of some sort.
Maybe France Services would be a place to start the inquiry?
