Pension records do not follow you when you move country. Employers merge, rebrand, or close. Providers change names. Governments do not share data across borders. And nobody writes to tell you the money is still there.
This is not a reflection of how organised you are. These are system failures, not personal ones. Every search we run adds to a proprietary employer-to-provider database across all 41 countries, so every search before yours makes yours faster.
It just sits. Waiting.
If you have worked in more than one country, even briefly, there is a strong chance you have money waiting.
Only 4 of the 47 systems on our scoreboard publish an unclaimed pension figure, so the real total is higher. The bulk of it sits with the original providers, waiting for someone to ask.
There is no cross-border database of pension entitlements. Each country operates its own disconnected system.
A pension provider you remember from 2008 may have been acquired three times since. The fund still exists, under a different name.
Providers legally must try to contact you. But if they have your address from 2011, those letters are going nowhere.
Companies close, merge, or restructure. Pension obligations are transferred, but not always to somewhere obvious.
Unlike bank accounts, pensions do not automatically transfer or consolidate when you leave a country.
If you have worked in United Kingdom, Netherlands, Ireland, Germany, Switzerland, Canada, New Zealand, South Africa, Australia, Hong Kong, Japan, UAE, Vietnam, France, Spain, Italy, Belgium, Luxembourg, Sweden, Denmark, Norway, India, Malaysia, Singapore, South Korea, Indonesia, Philippines, Liechtenstein, Bulgaria, Iceland, Latvia, Romania, Austria, Portugal, Turkey, Mexico, Brazil, Chile, Israel, Slovenia and United States, the pension system almost certainly holds something in your name.
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Cross-border careers often produce three to five overlooked pension entitlements per person. Common categories include: workplace pensions from employers acquired or wound up after the individual left; defined-benefit schemes transferred to successor administrators or insurance buyouts; superannuation or provident-fund balances inactive long enough to have been transferred to government holding accounts; and pension contributions made during short employment periods that the individual did not realise vested.
The structural reasons entitlements stay unclaimed when people move on.
| Country | Why pensions get lost here |
|---|---|
| United Kingdom | Multiple employers, provider consolidation, old addresses |
| Ireland | Occupational schemes; many smaller employers now dissolved or bought out |
| Netherlands | Employer-linked funds; expats rarely receive final pension statements |
| Germany | Deutsche Rentenversicherung contributions left behind when expats depart without claiming or transferring |
| Switzerland | Pillar 2 vested-benefit accounts auto-transferred to the Stiftung Auffangeinrichtung when leavers do not nominate a destination |
| France | Up to 42 separate régimes; small short-career entitlements often never consolidated via Info Retraite |
| Spain | Seguridad Social contributions from short stints often unclaimed; planes de pensiones from former employers go untracked |
| Italy | INPS contributions across multiple gestioni; TFR balances from former employers commonly overlooked |
| Belgium | Sigedis/MyPension records exist but expats rarely log in after leaving; second-pillar group insurance often dormant |
| Luxembourg | High cross-border worker turnover; CNAP entitlements left behind on departure |
| Sweden | Premiepension and occupational ITP/SAF-LO balances often retained after expats move abroad |
| Denmark | ATP and labour-market pensions stay live after departure; PensionsInfo requires MitID expats lose access to |
| Norway | Folketrygden entitlements and private pensjonskapitalbevis from former employers often untracked after emigration |
| Canada | Dormant pension legislation varies by province; LIRAs from former employers easily forgotten |
| United Arab Emirates | End-of-service gratuity and DEWS/GPSSA balances frequently unclaimed at departure |
| India | EPF accounts from multiple employers often left un-merged; UAN consolidation incomplete for expats |
| Vietnam | Social insurance lump-sum entitlements for departing foreign workers commonly unclaimed within the statutory window |
| Malaysia | EPF balances retained by foreign workers; claim process requires in-country steps |
| Singapore | CPF and Medisave balances retained after departure, often without the member's knowledge |
| Hong Kong | Multiple MPF employer accounts common; ORSO scheme entitlements often unclaimed |
| Japan | Nenkin contributions from short stays, the Lump-sum Withdrawal Payment is rarely claimed within the 2-year deadline |
| Australia | Mandatory super often split across multiple funds; ATO reunification incomplete |
| New Zealand | KiwiSaver accounts retained after departure; short-term workers often forget to consolidate |
| South Africa | Preservation funds; many members lose track on emigration |
Most expats who have worked in two or more countries have entitlements they have never identified. Even short contracts of 12–18 months can create them.
Takes 3–5 minutes. Tell us where you have worked, for how long, and your personal details.
The Information Request Authority is a document you sign. It records your permission for pension providers and registries to share information about your records with us. It gives us no control over your pension and no ability to move, claim or change anything.
We search national registries, employer records, provider databases and cross-border treaty data across your selected countries, and identify the scheme administrators that hold records for you.
You receive an automated identification report within 24 to 48 hours listing the identified administrators, their contact details, and the specific information to request from each. You contact them yourself.
We write a complete information request for every fund we identify, ready to send, with the verified contact route, what that administrator will ask you for, the reference to quote, and the follow up text with the date to send it.
Within five working days of your intake form, or ten for Global, you receive your Action Pack setting out every administrator we identified and how to reach each one, together with your prepared requests. You send them. On Enhanced and Global, send us anything an administrator asks, refuses or ignores, and we tell you exactly what to send next. Yours to keep regardless of what you decide next.
We find it. You decide. We recommend speaking to an independent financial adviser regulated in your country before taking any action.
We do not provide financial advice. We do not recommend specific financial products or providers. We are research and administrative assistance only.
Fixed fee. No success fees. No commission. Full refund if we find nothing material.
There is no official cross-border pension database. There never has been. Every search we complete maps another employer to another pension provider across our 41 countries. At scale, this becomes the data infrastructure that any global payroll platform, neobank or financial institution needs to offer retirement services to an international workforce.
The consumer search funds the build. The infrastructure is the destination.
Every search you run makes the next one faster, for you and for everyone who comes after.
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