Can you transfer your USS pension, and should you?

You can usually transfer a USS pension to another HMRC-registered scheme that accepts it, but the guaranteed part and savings pot follow different rules.

Whether you can transfer your USS pension turns on which part you hold and whether you are still paying in, USS explains. Moving the guaranteed part is hard to undo, so a no-cost phone appointment is a sensible first stop: leave your number in the form here and the FCA-authorised adviser who calls explains where USS fits. What USS is, and why it has two parts, is covered in is the USS pension final salary.

Can you transfer your USS pension out?

USS's transferring page says the destination can be any HMRC-registered scheme that allows it, such as a new employer's scheme or a personal pension. Whether a particular SIPP will take a USS transfer is for that provider to say, since USS makes it conditional on the new scheme agreeing.

What can move depends on your status. USS's table, read across, gives this:

The guaranteed part also has a time limit. For people who left on or after 1 Oct 2020 USS gives "Any time before NPA"; for those who left on or before 30 Sept 2020, "Any time until age 65". The savings pot can move at any time, even while you are still paying in. That matters, because USS points out you could move the savings alone and leave the Retirement Income Builder where it is, keeping the defined benefits you have built up.

How do I transfer my USS pension, and what is the transfer value?

You start by returning USS's Transfer out option form, and USS aims to send the information pack within three weeks of receiving it. The pack gives your transfer value, which USS's FAQ calls the cash equivalent transfer value, or CETV; what a pension transfer value is explains the term.

The two parts are valued differently. USS says the guaranteed part's value "will stay the same for a guarantee period of three months", while the Investment Builder figure is whatever the savings are worth on the day they move, so it can rise or fall. You get one free quote in any 12-month period, covering either part or both together; extra quotes are charged. USS makes no charge for the transfer itself, though the receiving scheme may. How USS arrives at the guaranteed part's figure is something an adviser can walk you through free if you fill in the enquiry form.

Expect it to take time: USS says "15 weeks or more depending on a number of things, like how responsive your new pension provider is". Its timeline adds a Member Discharge Form from you, a form for the new provider to complete, and checks on the receiving scheme and that your adviser is FCA registered. For requests received after 30 November 2021 the law requires further checks, which can add time; see how to transfer a pension, and signs to watch for are in how pension scams work.

The £30,000 advice rule for the defined benefit part

Before a transfer of safeguarded benefits like the Retirement Income Builder can go ahead, the law can require proof of regulated advice. Regulation 5(1) of SI 2015/742, in the text in force since 6 April 2018, says the trustees "are not required to carry out the check in section 48(1) of the Act if the transfer value of the member’s or survivor’s subsisting rights in respect of safeguarded benefits under the pension scheme is £30,000 or less on the valuation date." So the test is above £30,000; exactly £30,000 is outside it. The regulation's "transfer value" ignores reductions to initial cash equivalents, so it is the figure before any such reduction.

USS's wording varies. Its transfer-out page says "more than £30,000" in one section and "£30,000 or more" in another, and its timeline says "more than £30,000" where the move is to a defined contribution scheme. The regulation is what decides. USS gives no financial advice itself, and your adviser must complete an extra form in the transfer pack. What the adviser's confirmation must say is in the pension transfer advice requirement, and finding an adviser is covered in how to find a pension transfer specialist.

Should I transfer my USS pension?

For the guaranteed part, the regulators' starting point is to keep it. The FCA says "The FCA and The Pensions Regulator (TPR) believe it’s in most people’s best interests to keep their DB pension." It adds that a transfer cannot be reversed, and its list of risks includes giving up the guaranteed income for life, for you and your dependants, and a pot that may fall in value as well as rise.

USS makes a similar point: the Retirement Income Builder pays an income for life plus a one-off lump sum, and it asks members to weigh what they might miss out on by moving defined benefits out. It also lists life cover once you have stopped paying in, and possible support if ill health stops you working. A pot carries investment risk, so you could end up with less than you started with. Other schemes may also bring charges, admin costs or investment fees that USS does not take for running costs.

The savings pot is a different decision, with no guaranteed income given up, though USS still suggests comparing what each scheme offers when it comes to taking the money. Weighing USS against the State Pension and any other pots is a job for a single call with an FCA-authorised adviser, which the call-back form on this page arranges free. Leaving it in USS and claiming later is the other route; how to claim your USS pension and how much USS pension you will get cover that route.

Transferring a pension in to USS

USS accepts transfers in, but only into the savings pot, the Investment Builder, from an HMRC-registered scheme you have not started taking. "Members who are still paying in to USS can request to transfer in." A defined benefit pension moved in does not become a USS guaranteed pension: it goes to the Investment Builder, so "they’ll be separate from your Retirement Income Builder benefits and what you build up will be different to the scheme you’re transferring from."

USS makes no charge for transferring in, but investment management fees apply to the savings you move in. If the incoming safeguarded benefits are valued at more than £30,000, USS says the law requires appropriate independent advice from an adviser authorised by the FCA with permission to advise on pension transfers. Once USS has your forms and those from your previous scheme, it puts the process at "up to eight weeks or more". A Protected Pension Age on the old pension can be kept on the transferred benefits "provided certain conditions are met"; see whether you lose your protected pension age on transfer.

Can I transfer my USS pension abroad?

Ask the new scheme first. USS will only pay a transfer overseas to a scheme that is a Recognised Overseas Pension Scheme (ROPS), and it checks that status before completing. See moving a UK pension to another country; an overseas move also needs advice where you will live.

USS pension transfer questions

Can I transfer my USS pension to a SIPP?

A personal pension is among the destinations USS lists, if the new scheme allows it, so ask the SIPP provider. While you still pay in, only the savings pot can move; the guaranteed part has the age and leaving-date limits above.

Is there a charge to move my USS pension?

USS says it does not charge to transfer out or in, but a new scheme may charge, and one free quote is allowed in each 12 months. What transfers can cost is covered separately.

Can I move the guaranteed part while I am still paying in?

No. USS's table rules out a Retirement Income Builder transfer for contributing members; only Investment Builder savings can go.

Your next step

USS links MoneyHelper's guides on transferring defined benefit pensions, and its own guidance and financial advice page explains how to find an adviser. For figures that fit your own situation, leave your details in the form below; the FCA-authorised adviser who phones you charges nothing for that first talk. The FCA's page on pension scams shows how to check an offer.

Sources: USS member pages (transferring to another scheme, timeline to transferring out, transferring in to USS, timeline to transferring in, transfer FAQs), read 21 October 2026; legislation.gov.uk, SI 2015/742 regulation 5, read 21 October 2026; FCA, Considering a defined benefit pension transfer, updated 24 April 2025.