The UK pensions dashboard will not show your pensions from abroad

Pensions dashboards will let people see their UK pensions, including the UK State Pension, in one place online. They will not show a pension you built up while working in another country, because the rules only bring UK schemes into scope. If part of your working life was spent abroad, those years need a separate search.

When must UK schemes connect to pensions dashboards?

UK pension schemes in scope are connecting now, and the legal deadline is 31 October 2026. The Department for Work and Pensions says the Pensions Dashboards Regulations 2022, as amended, "introduced a single “connection deadline” of 31 October 2026" for relevant occupational schemes, and the Financial Conduct Authority made a matching change for personal and stakeholder pension providers (Source: gov.uk, DWP guidance on connection: the staged timetable, read 13 October 2026).

That same DWP guidance sets out a staged timetable, with the largest schemes and providers asked to connect first. Schemes connect over time according to their size and type.

The Pensions Regulator (TPR) supervises occupational schemes against these duties. Its guidance tells trustees that "We expect schemes to connect in line with the timeline set out in this guidance" (Source: The Pensions Regulator, when your scheme needs to connect with dashboards, read 13 October 2026). In April 2026 TPR wrote that "If schemes aren’t connected by 31 October 2026, they can expect to hear from us" (Source: The Pensions Regulator blog, 23 April 2026, read 13 October 2026).

This is a deadline for pension schemes, not for you. Nothing in it asks savers to do anything by that date.

When can the public use the pensions dashboard?

No confirmed public launch date appears on the gov.uk and TPR pages we read on 13 October 2026. TPR says the dashboard on the MoneyHelper website, run by the Money and Pensions Service, "will be the first to be available to the public" (Source: The Pensions Regulator, pensions dashboards guidance overview, read 13 October 2026). Its April 2026 blog reported that testing with a small number of consumers had begun.

What will the pensions dashboard show?

DWP describes dashboards as a way for people to "see their pensions information, including their State Pension, for free in one place online" (Source: gov.uk, DWP staged timetable, read 13 October 2026). TPR adds that dashboards will not show pensions that are already being paid.

The schemes that must connect are UK schemes. The Pensions Dashboards Regulations 2022 apply to trustees and managers of relevant occupational pension schemes with 100 or more relevant members, and they do not apply "if the pension scheme has its main administration outside of Great Britain" (Source: legislation.gov.uk, the Pensions Dashboards Regulations 2022, regulation 3, read 13 October 2026). TPR puts it plainly for occupational schemes: if a scheme's main administration is based outside the UK, it is not in scope.

So a dashboard can be a very good map of your UK pensions. A Dutch sector fund, a German company pension or Australian superannuation is simply not part of the system it searches.

Will the pensions dashboard show my pension from an EU country?

No. A workplace or state pension built up in the Netherlands, Germany, France, Ireland, Spain or any other EU country is held by a scheme or authority in that country, and those are outside the UK dashboards.

Each country has its own records and its own rules about who can look them up, and many of those routes assume you still have a local address or a local digital identity. Our country pages explain what typically exists and why the official route can be hard to use from outside: see the Netherlands, Germany, France and Ireland. Some countries also have dated rules that matter for leavers, which we list on our deadline pages, for example the Netherlands and Germany.

Will the pensions dashboard show my pension from Australia, Canada, the US or Asia?

No. Superannuation in Australia, a Canadian workplace plan, a US employer plan, a Hong Kong MPF account or Japanese pension records all sit with schemes and authorities in those countries. None of them is a UK scheme, so none of them connects to UK dashboards.

Our pages for Australia, Canada, the United States, Hong Kong and Japan set out what usually exists there, and the deadline pages for Australia, Canada and Japan list the dated rules we have sourced.

I live abroad now but worked in the UK. Will dashboards help me?

Possibly, for the UK part. Your UK workplace and personal pensions sit with UK schemes, which are the ones connecting, and dashboards are designed to include the UK State Pension. Whether you can sign in from abroad is a separate question, and we do not yet have an official answer to point to.

In the meantime, the existing gov.uk services still work for UK pensions, and our page on finding a UK pension while living abroad covers the UK side in more detail. The Check your State Pension forecast service tells you how much State Pension you could get and when, though it asks you to sign in and may ask you to prove your identity. The Find pension contact details service gives contact details for a workplace or personal scheme, but gov.uk notes that it "will not tell you whether you have a pension, or what its value is" (Source: gov.uk, read 13 October 2026). If you also worked in the country you now live in, gov.uk's guide State Pension if you retire abroad suggests contacting the pension authority where you live, which "may be able to notify state pension schemes in the countries you’ve lived or worked in" (read 13 October 2026).

Can I use the dashboard to find a deceased parent's pension abroad?

Not for the foreign part. Dashboards are built to show people their own pensions, and a pension held abroad is outside them whoever is searching. TPR also notes that dashboards will not show pensions already being paid, which is often the position with an older parent.

If you are dealing with a parent's estate and they worked in another country, the questions are which schemes existed for their years there, and who holds those records now. Our estate search page explains how we approach a pension search for someone who has died.

Frequently asked questions

Do I have to do anything by 31 October 2026? No. The 31 October 2026 date is the legal deadline for UK pension schemes in scope to connect to the dashboards system. It is not a deadline for savers.

Is there a confirmed date when I can use a pensions dashboard? We did not find one on the official pages we read on 13 October 2026. TPR says the MoneyHelper dashboard will be the first available to the public, and that testing with consumers had begun by April 2026.

Will the pensions dashboard show my State Pension? DWP says dashboards will show people their pensions information, including their State Pension. That is the UK State Pension. State pensions from other countries are run by those countries.

Will every UK workplace pension appear? Not necessarily. The regulations apply to relevant occupational schemes with 100 or more relevant members, and smaller schemes can connect voluntarily. Pensions already being paid will not be shown.

Will a pension from a job abroad with a British employer appear? It depends on where the scheme is run, not who the employer was. A scheme with its main administration outside Great Britain is outside the regulations, even if the employer was British.

What you can do now

If you worked in more than one country, our free pension check asks where you worked and when, and tells you in writing which countries are likely to hold something and why. It is identification and awareness only, and it gives no financial advice. If you want us to research named schemes and who holds the records today, you can see what each report includes on our order page.

If you prefer to ask an AI assistant, our connector lets Claude and other assistants answer from the same sourced research. For what national pension authorities have told us in writing, quoted and dated, see our answers page.