Can people living in the UK pay voluntary Turkish (Bağ-Kur) insurance premiums?

Who and where does this apply to?

This post is general information for anyone wondering about voluntary insurance in Türkiye (Bağ-Kur, Law 5510 article 4/b) while living in the UK. It is not an assessment of anyone's own case. It is based on official SGK pages as of October 2026.

Details

Two different things

• Voluntary insurance (isteğe bağlı sigorta): Regular premiums for future months. According to SGK, cover starts the day after the application reaches its records. If a month's premium is not paid within 12 months, the debt for that month can no longer be paid.
• Buying past periods abroad (yurt dışı borçlanma, Law 3201): Paying to count past years spent abroad. According to SGK, the application needs a hand-signed petition. Applications by email or fax are not taken into account.
• These two things are not the same.

What do the pages say about the UK?

• SGK's voluntary insurance page names people living in Türkiye, and Turkish citizens in countries without a social security agreement who were living in Türkiye. The section on application conditions does not mention the UK.
• SGK's agreements table shows a social security agreement between the UK and Türkiye.
• SGK's borrowing page says this: under the agreements with France, the UK, Sweden and Switzerland, paying voluntary insurance premiums in Türkiye is "possible" (mümkün) while living in those countries. So periods spent there that overlap with voluntary insurance cannot be bought.
• So the two pages frame the question differently. We found no official page that explains exactly how these conditions work in practice. Other conditions also apply, such as age, not being in compulsory insured work, and not receiving a pension from your own insurance.

Rates

• According to SGK pages, for 2026 the voluntary insurance premium is 33% of the chosen monthly earnings. For buying past periods, the amount is 45% of the chosen daily earnings. The lower and upper limits change every January. For current amounts see the voluntary insurance page and the borrowing page.

Points to watch

• According to SGK, a pension awarded through buying past periods is stopped when work abroad that is not short-term begins. It is also stopped when a residence-based social insurance or social assistance payment begins.
• On this SGK page (its address is dated 2024), the short-term work exception is written "as of now" only for Germany and Switzerland. The current position should be checked with SGK.
• According to the same page, people receiving such a pension who stay abroad for more than six months must hand in the requested documents within 3 months after the six months end. If they do not, the pension is stopped. We could not verify whether this rule applies to other pension types.
• We could not verify on official pages how working in the UK affects other types of pension.
• Health care (General Health Insurance, GSS) and the NHS in the UK are outside this post. We could not verify whether paying premiums gives any health cover in the UK.

What can you do?

This post does not say which option to choose. Questions that can be put in writing to SGK or to the London Labour and Social Security Counsellor's Office (Londra Çalışma ve Sosyal Güvenlik Müşavirliği):

1. On what conditions is a voluntary insurance application accepted while living in the UK?
2. What are the differences between voluntary insurance and buying past periods abroad, and what are the overlap rules?
3. Which types of pension are affected by working in the UK?
4. How does health care work in retirement, in the UK and on visits to Türkiye?
5. What are the current premium amounts and payment method?

For the office's current address, phone and email, see the Ministry of Labour and Social Security's overseas offices page. For SGK's own contact channels, see the contact section of the SGK website. A reply may take time. Keeping the written answer may help with later decisions.