SGK: buying back your years abroad from the UK

What borçlanma does

Yurtdışı borçlanması lets a Turkish citizen (and, on certain conditions, a former citizen) pay contributions retrospectively for periods spent abroad so that those periods count as insured time in Türkiye. Two kinds of period qualify: time in paid work or self-employment abroad, and time spent abroad as a housewife (ev hanımı) after the age of 18. The UK is a country with which Türkiye has a social security convention, in force since 1961, and that matters for how evidence is gathered and for the option of combining UK and Turkish insurance records when a pension is claimed. Buying back years does not give you a UK pension and does not affect your UK National Insurance record; it is a Turkish transaction that adds Turkish insured days. The SGK page describes the legal frame; this guide is the working sequence.

The sequence

Establish the periods you want to buy; obtain UK proof of them; where the proof is in English, have it translated in a form SGK accepts, or obtain a service certificate from the Çalışma Ataşeliği in London instead; file the application with SGK; receive the calculation; pay within three months; check that the days appear on your hizmet dökümü.

Proving the periods

• Employment: the HMRC National Insurance record showing contribution years (downloadable from your personal tax account), employer letters with dates, P60s and P45s. See HMRC documents and P60s and payslips.
• Self-employment: HMRC self-assessment records and Class 2 contribution history, Companies House records for directors.
• Housewife periods: SGK does not take employment evidence for these; it takes proof of residence abroad. The consulate’s note routes this through the Çalışma Ataşeliği, the labour attaché’s office in London, which issues an ikamet belgesi (residence certificate) on production of passports, tenancy or council tax records and similar.
• For all periods: passport pages, kimlik kartı, and the application form.

The alternative to translating employment records is the hizmet belgesi issued by the Çalışma Ataşeliği, which reviews your UK records and certifies the periods in Turkish. The attaché’s office has its own appointment system and its own list; for people with a long and tidy HMRC record it is often the simpler route, and it removes the translation cost. For people with gaps, several employers or self-employment, the translated HMRC record is more flexible because SGK sees the underlying detail.

The translation rule

SGK’s guidance on yurtdışı borçlanması asks for foreign-language documents to be accompanied by a Turkish translation notarised in Türkiye or certified by the Turkish consulate; a UK-style certified translation is not among the accepted forms. We produce the notarised version in Ankara: you send scans of the HMRC record, employer letters and P60s, we translate them into Turkish, have them notarised under the Turkish notary tariff and deliver the paper set to you, to a relative in Türkiye or directly to the SGK office handling the file. The notarised translation service page explains the format. HMRC’s National Insurance record is an English document without a stamp or signature, and SGK offices have accepted the translated printout from the personal tax account to date; if an officer asks for something more, the Çalışma Ataşeliği route is the fallback.

What it costs in 2026

The cost is 45 per cent of a daily earnings figure that you choose between the minimum and the maximum insurable amount. For 2026 that gives a daily borçlanma amount between 495.45 TL and 4,459.05 TL, so a year at the minimum is roughly 178,000 TL and at the maximum about 1.6 million TL. Choosing a higher figure raises the eventual pension but not proportionately; a Turkish social security adviser can model it. The calculation is fixed on the date SGK issues it and must be paid within three months, in lira, to the account stated; paying late means a new calculation at the new year’s rate. Our translation costs are small by comparison: £6.50 per page for the translation plus the notary tariff of about £13.50 per page and a £5 handling fee, and £30 courier; an HMRC record with two employer letters is typically £60–90 all in. No UK VAT is charged.

Timing and conditions to know about

Applications can be filed at an SGK provincial directorate in person, through a representative with a power of attorney, or through e-Devlet for citizens who can log in; processing takes weeks to a few months depending on the office. Law 3201 attaches a condition to drawing a pension that rests on bought-back years, known in the law as kesin dönüş: broadly, that you are no longer in paid work abroad and are not receiving certain residence-based social benefits there. How that applies to a person who continues to live in the UK is a question for SGK or an adviser, not for us, and it is worth asking before you pay rather than after. Periods already counted under the UK–Türkiye convention are not bought twice.

Common mistakes

• Translating twenty years of payslips when the HMRC record shows the same years on two pages.
• Sending a UK agency’s certified translation, which SGK returns.
• Missing the three-month payment window and having the debt recalculated at a higher rate.
• Applying for housewife periods with employment evidence instead of the attaché’s residence certificate.
• Choosing the maximum daily figure without modelling what it buys.

What we do

We translate and notarise UK records for SGK in Ankara, and where you give a power of attorney to a relative we can translate the UK documents that the POA process needs as well. We do not calculate pensions or advise on whether borçlanma is worthwhile in your case.