Student Loan Living Abroad: Repaying from Argentina

If you will live in Argentina for more than three months, tell the Student Loans Company (SLC) before you leave and submit an overseas income assessment. Your UK student loan continues: SLC uses the Argentina threshold for your repayment plan and the income evidence you supply, then collects payments directly rather than through UK PAYE. If you earn below the relevant threshold you can be assessed at £0, but you still have to respond and renew your evidence.

What changes when you move

In Britain, your employer normally deducts student loan repayments through Pay As You Earn (PAYE). Argentine payroll does not do this. SLC, not your Argentine employer or ARCA (Argentina's tax agency), sets and collects your overseas payments. This also applies if you work remotely for a British company while living in Argentina: do not assume a UK payslip proves SLC is receiving the right amount. Check whether any PAYE deductions actually continue, and disclose them to SLC so the same earnings are not assessed twice.

SLC publishes separate overseas earnings thresholds and fixed monthly repayments for each plan and country. The threshold is an annual figure in pounds, not the Argentine minimum wage. It can change each tax year, as can the conversion rate SLC uses. Find Argentina in your plan's current overseas thresholds table on the GOV.UK living-outside-the-UK page before budgeting; do not reuse an old UK threshold or convert your salary at a card, cash or blue-dollar rate.

Check your plan in your online student loan account. Do not infer it solely from your graduation date: where and when you studied, and which nation funded you, matter. If you have two loan types, ask SLC for the calculation on each.

Submit your overseas assessment

1. Before departure: sign in to your student loan account and update your contact and overseas address details. Tell SLC that you expect to be outside the UK for more than three months. Keep access to the email address and UK phone number used for account verification, or change them before you lose access.
2. Complete the overseas income assessment: use the SLC process linked from GOV.UK's living-abroad guidance. State where you will live, your plan and your income situation. SLC will ask for supporting evidence and may request a form or online submission according to your account. Do not send documents to a guessed address.
3. Provide proof: for employment, prepare a contract and recent payslips showing gross earnings and pay frequency; for self-employment, accounts, tax returns or invoices and bank records; for no earnings, the declaration and supporting evidence SLC requests. If documents are in Spanish, ask SLC what translation it accepts before paying for one. Tell SLC about other income it asks you to declare, including UK income.
4. Read the decision: check the threshold, conversion, start date and monthly amount against your evidence. Ask SLC to correct a mistaken income period or currency rather than simply stopping payment. Set up the direct-payment method SLC offers, retaining its reference and the GBP receipt.
5. Renew on time: SLC generally assesses overseas income for 12 months and asks for fresh evidence. Set a reminder ahead of the renewal date and report a significant income change or return to the UK. If you do not respond, a fixed repayment can replace your income-based amount.

There is no Argentine government fee to notify SLC. Your actual transfer cost depends on your payment method and bank: compare the GBP amount delivered to SLC, not just the transfer fee. A UK bank account is convenient but not a legal requirement for having a student loan or contacting SLC. For funding pounds from Argentina, see sending money between the UK and Argentina and banking as a UK mover.

Worked calculation: salary in pesos

Suppose you are a Plan 2 borrower paid ARS 3,000,000 gross per month in Buenos Aires, or ARS 36,000,000 a year (illustration, September 2026). To make the arithmetic visible, assume SLC's conversion for this example is ARS 2,000 to £1 and its applicable Argentina threshold is £15,000 a year. These two assumed inputs are not published September 2026 SLC rates. Your converted annual earnings would be £18,000; the excess is £3,000; 9% is £270 a year, or £22.50 a month. If you also owe a postgraduate loan, calculate its 6% charge against its own threshold separately.

Argentina's September 2026 official rate is around ARS 1,545 per US$1, but that dollar rate cannot establish your SLC sterling conversion. An Argentine employer might pay a thirteenth-month salary (*aguinaldo*, statutory extra salary) or bonuses: use the pay evidence and assessment period SLC requests rather than quietly multiplying a single low month by 12. If SLC's actual conversion, threshold or assessment of your income differs, so does the payment. The cost-of-living comparison in Argentina and the UK is a separate budgeting exercise, not a student-loan threshold.

If your income falls or SLC says you owe arrears

Unemployed does not mean uncontactable. Give SLC evidence of your circumstances so it can assess a nil or reduced income-based payment where appropriate. If inflation, a job change or a peso devaluation changes what you earn in sterling, ask for a reassessment and provide dated evidence. Do not replace SLC's assessment with a calculation using a rate you found online.

If you miss an assessment or payments, contact SLC promptly for an arrears statement showing which periods and amounts it claims. Explain any period in which UK payroll made deductions and provide payslips. Negotiate how to clear arrears separately from the current overseas instalment; a later £0 assessment does not necessarily erase earlier missed amounts. Interest can continue while you are abroad. Moving country does not itself trigger write-off, and potential write-off rules differ by plan and start date. Do not treat limited practical cross-border collection as permission to ignore a legal repayment obligation.

Common traps are using the UK threshold for an Argentine salary; treating US dollars paid into an Argentine account as exempt income; allowing UK login credentials to lapse; assuming a local employer deducts a UK loan; and paying without a reference, so a transfer cannot be matched. Save SLC decisions, payslips and receipts with the assessment year.

This page is for borrowers with a UK student loan who are moving to or already living in Argentina. It does not cover Argentine university fees or visa eligibility; if the question is permission to study there, start with the student visa guide. If you are moving back to Britain, tell SLC your return date and read the UK return checklist so PAYE deductions and any overseas balance are reconciled.