NI17A - A guide to Maternity Benefits
Maternity Allowance (MA)
If you are going abroad or have been abroad
The UK has special arrangements with certain other countries that may help you to get MA if you are going abroad or if you have recently been abroad and returned to the UK.
These rules may apply to you if the country concerned is a country within the European Economic Area, or Switzerland, or is a country with whom the UK has a two-way agreement on maternity benefits. These two-way agreements are with Barbados, Guernsey, Israel, Jersey, Turkey and Yugoslavia. Currently, the agreement with the former Yugoslavia is applied separately by the rebublics of Bosnia-Hercegovina, Croatia, Montenegro, Serbia and the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia.
If you return to the UK after working in any country of the world for your UK employer, other rules may help you to get MA.
You can find out more information on how to get MA if you are going abroad from or coming to the UK by writing to:
International Pension Centre
Department for Work and Pensions
Tyneview Park,
Benton,
Newcastle-upon-Tyne
NE98 1BA
Phone: 0191 218 7777
(or 44 191 218 7777 when calling from abroad)
Fax: 0191 218 3836
E-mail: TVP.internationalqueries@thepensionservice.gsi.gov.uk
Or you can find out more on GOV.UK
- Britons Living Abroad (GOV.UK)
If you are already getting MA in the UK and intend moving abroad you must tell the office where you claimed the date you will leave the UK and what your address will be.
Service Families
If you qualify for MA but you cannot get it because you have accompanied your husband overseas to a country where MA cannot be paid to you, you may get an ex-gratia payment from the Ministry of Defence. This payment is the equivalent of the MA you would have got. Apply through your husband’s pay office.
