Specialists in Pension Transfers to Australia
Award-winning service
Over 100 years combined experience
Dual licensed with offices in the UK & Australia
In-depth knowledge of pensions and QROPS legislations
Rated 5 stars on Google reviews
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We'll talk you through and help you understand a summary of your options.
Why bdhSterling?
We are an award-winning firm of Chartered Financial Planners with offices in London, Perth, Sydney and Melbourne. Our primary purpose is to help Australian and British citizens with their retirement planning and we specialise in advising those with assets in both jurisdiction on how to structure their wealth most effectively. We are widely recognised as the leading specialists in UK pension transfers to Australia.
Don't just take our word for it...
Frequently Asked Questions
- Defined Contribution (DC) Pension Schemes, including company and personal pension and drawdown arrangements
- Private Sector Defined Benefit (DB) Schemes
- Funded Public Sector DB Schemes
- The UK State Pension
- Annuities purchased with a life insurance company
- Company Pension already in payment
- Unfunded Public Sector Defined Benefit Schemes
Transferring could be more tax effective – In Australia, from age 60, all retirement income and lump sums drawn from Super will be entirely free of tax. Pensions drawn from UK schemes are taxed at your marginal tax rate (MTR), which can be up to 47%.
We will only recommend a transfer if we believe it is the most suitable option and in your best interests.
You can transfer to a receiving superfund only if it is a Qualifying Recognised Overseas Pension Scheme (QROPS). bdhSterling can assist in identifying if your current scheme qualifies or if an alternative fund will be required.
There are restrictions on what you can invest in with a UK sourced pension in Australia. These restrictions match those that are applied to the funds when they are in the UK. Therefore, the QROPS funds are unable to invest in residential property directly, however it may be possible to release funds upon reaching age 55 for property purchase.
There are rules in place by HMRC around how long your funds must remain within a QROPS fund before you can transfer these to a non-QROPS. bdhSterling can identify this for you as part of the analysis we conduct, and this will vary based on you as an individual, and your situation.
Typically, from the first contact you make with bdhSterling to when the first funds are transferred into your QROPS this full process can take anywhere between 3-12 months, where the average time taken is 6 months. This can vary depending on several external factors, such as, how long it takes for the UK pensions scheme to disinvest your funds and transfer these to your receiving scheme.
Following the transfer of your UK pension funds to Australia you will be able to access your funds when you meet a condition of release here in Australia, which can be when you meet preservation age, or when you reach age 65. It is also worth noting that as part of the transfer strategy you may be able to access some of the funds during this process, and this is something we can detail in our analysis.
You can transfer your UK pension to Australia once you reach age 55. In the interim, we can manage your money in a UK pension in AUD or GBP, and make sure that you are on track to reach your retirement goals.
In the UK we are regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA).
In Australia we are regulated by the Australian Securities Investment Commission (ASIC).
