Posted to the UK? The India-UK deal that switches off your National Insurance

The short version: from 15 July 2026, an Indian employee posted to the UK stops paying into two social-security systems at once. For years they paid twice, UK National Insurance out of the UK payroll while Indian provident fund carried on at home, one salary funding two retirement systems for a posting that was only ever temporary.

What fixed it is the India-UK Double Contributions Convention, the DCC, which arrived with the wider India-UK trade agreement (CETA). Under it, a worker posted between the two countries stays covered by their home social-security system and is exempt from the host country's contributions, for a stay expected to last up to 60 months, five years. For an Indian employee seconded to the UK, Indian provident fund continues and UK National Insurance does not apply. One boundary to note: the relief is not retrospective, so if you were already on a UK assignment before 15 July 2026, that existing posting is not covered.

The exemption is not automatic. To switch off UK National Insurance you have to prove you remain covered in India, and the document that proves it is the Certificate of Coverage (CoC). For an Indian posted worker it is obtained in India, through the EPFO's International Workers portal, using your UAN and with your employer's attestation, ideally before the assignment starts.

Once you hand the certificate to the UK employer, the UK National Insurance deduction stops, both the employee National Insurance (a main rate of 8%) and the employer National Insurance (15%). It covers the period of the posting up to the five-year limit. The relief is reciprocal: a UK worker posted to India applies on the UK side, through HMRC form CA9107, to stay in UK National Insurance and skip Indian provident fund. Apply early, because until the certificate is in hand UK payroll has nothing on file to support the exemption and will keep deducting.

The DCC stops you paying twice. It does not give you a UK pension. This is the point that gets lost, because the label social-security agreement makes people expect it to work like India's agreements with Germany or the Netherlands, where your years in each country can be added together toward a benefit. The DCC deliberately does not do that. It is detachment-only: it prevents double contributions and nothing more.

So the UK years you spend under a Certificate of Coverage build no UK National Insurance record and no UK State Pension. That matters less than it sounds: the full new UK State Pension needs 35 qualifying years and you need at least 10 to get any, which a three or five-year posting was never going to reach. In exchange, you keep building your Indian provident fund instead of pouring money into a UK system you would never draw from. For how contributions and refunds work across India's other social-security agreements, see the Certificate of Coverage page.

Keep the two systems apart, because different rules decide them. The DCC and the Certificate of Coverage deal only with social security, National Insurance and provident fund. They say nothing about where your salary is taxed as income.

That question turns on your residential status and the India-UK income-tax treaty, not the DCC. Once your posting makes you UK-resident and non-resident in India, your UK salary is generally outside the Indian income-tax net, but the year you move is usually a split one that needs care. The Certificate of Coverage is also not the same as a Tax Residency Certificate or Form 10F, which belong to the income-tax treaty, not to social security. If your posting also raises an income-tax double-charge on the same salary, that is a separate problem, and the deputation double-tax page covers it.

Arjun is a software engineer whose Indian employer posts him to London for three years on a salary of about 70,000 pounds. He stays on Indian provident fund. Without the DCC, UK National Insurance would also apply: at 2026-27 rates that is roughly 3,400 pounds a year from Arjun as the employee, and about 9,750 pounds a year from his employer, so more than 13,000 pounds a year going into a UK system he will never draw a pension from.

Because the DCC is now in force, Arjun applies through the EPFO for a Certificate of Coverage before he leaves, confirming he stays covered in India for the assignment. He gives it to the UK employer, and the UK National Insurance stops, both his share and the employer's. Over the three-year posting that is roughly 40,000 pounds of contributions not paid into a scheme that would have given him nothing, while his Indian provident fund keeps building. The trade-off he accepts knowingly: those three UK years count toward no UK State Pension, which is fine because a three-year stay could never have reached the ten-year minimum anyway.