Free consulate packs: where a pension from the home country sits, for people living abroad

A consulate can now hand someone a single printed page that says where the pension record from their working years back home sits. We made a free one page PDF for each of the 20 largest migration corridors between the 41 countries we research, 22 files in all, on our consulate packs page. Each pack names the institution in the country the person worked in, says where its free route stops for someone abroad, prints one deadline from our register with its official source and read date, and links to our free check.

Which corridors have a pack?

We ranked every pair of countries we research by the number of people born in the first and living in the second, using the OECD International Migration Database, stocks of foreign-born population by country of birth (DF_MIG_POPF, measure B14, both sexes), read on 14 October 2026, latest year for each pair. The 20 largest are:

• Worked in Mexico, living in the United States: English PDF, Spanish PDF. People born in Mexico living in the United States: 12,383,867 (2024).
• Worked in India, living in the United States: English PDF. People born in India living in the United States: 3,646,811 (2024).
• Worked in the Philippines, living in the United States: English PDF. People born in the Philippines living in the United States: 1,846,151 (2024).
• Worked in Turkey, living in Germany: English PDF. People born in Turkey living in Germany: 1,388,000 (2024).
• Worked in Vietnam, living in the United States: English PDF. People born in Vietnam living in the United States: 1,269,267 (2024).
• Worked in the United Kingdom, living in Australia: English PDF. People born in the United Kingdom living in Australia: 1,148,870 (2024).
• Worked in India, living in Australia: English PDF. People born in India living in Australia: 916,330 (2024).
• Worked in South Korea, living in the United States: English PDF. People born in South Korea living in the United States: 914,813 (2024).
• Worked in Romania, living in Italy: English PDF. People born in Romania living in Italy: 898,293 (2024).
• Worked in India, living in Canada: English PDF. People born in India living in Canada: 898,050 (2021).
• Worked in Romania, living in Germany: English PDF. People born in Romania living in Germany: 898,000 (2024).
• Worked in India, living in the United Kingdom: English PDF. People born in India living in the United Kingdom: 896,000 (2021).
• Worked in Brazil, living in the United States: English PDF. People born in Brazil living in the United States: 840,403 (2024).
• Worked in the United States, living in Mexico: English PDF. People born in the United States living in Mexico: 751,363 (2020).
• Worked in the Philippines, living in Canada: English PDF. People born in the Philippines living in Canada: 719,580 (2021).
• Worked in Canada, living in the United States: English PDF, French PDF. People born in Canada living in the United States: 623,617 (2024).
• Worked in New Zealand, living in Australia: English PDF. People born in New Zealand living in Australia: 617,960 (2024).
• Worked in the United Kingdom, living in the United States: English PDF. People born in the United Kingdom living in the United States: 616,641 (2024).
• Worked in Portugal, living in France: English PDF. People born in Portugal living in France: 584,557 (2024).
• Worked in Romania, living in Spain: English PDF. People born in Romania living in Spain: 532,456 (2024).

Countries the database does not report as a place of residence are not in the ranking, so corridors into them have no pack yet.

What is on a pack?

Four things, each read from our own data when the site is built. The official record or portal in the country the person worked in, from our government pension portals directory, with the date we verified it. Where its free route stops for someone who lives abroad, in the same words our free results email uses: we state the barrier, not a way around it. One row from our Cross-Border Pension Deadline Register, with its official source and the date we read it, and a link to every deadline we hold for that country. And the link to our free check.

There are no telephone numbers, no postal routes and no staff names on a pack. The free check link carries the country and the corridor name only, so we can count which packs are used; it carries nothing about the person who opens it.

Which languages?

Every pack is in English. Where we already hold a translation table for the home language of the country the person worked in, we publish a second version: Mexico to the United States (Spanish) and Canada to the United States (French). The labels are translated; the sourced facts stay in English, exactly as we hold them, and the translated page says so. We do not machine translate a sourced fact.

Is a pack advice?

No. We identify and research; we do not give advice. A pack says where to look and what the official sources say, with dates. Whether a pension exists in a person's name is a question for the free check and for our reports.

Sources

OECD, International Migration Database, stocks of foreign-born population by country of birth (DF_MIG_POPF, measure B14, both sexes), https://sdmx.oecd.org/public/rest/dataflow/OECD.ELS.IMD/DSD_MIG_F@DF_MIG_POPF/latest, read 14 October 2026. Our government pension portals directory, each entry with the date we verified it. Our Cross-Border Pension Deadline Register, each row with its official source, re-checked on 24 September 2026. The date each fact was read is printed on every pack.