How to contact the Student Loans Company from abroad

SLC gives one number to people outside the UK for the everyday things - checking your balance, updating your details, asking about a repayment: +44 141 243 3660, Monday to Friday, 8am to 6pm UK time.

There is a second number for one specific situation: being behind on your repayments because you have been abroad. That is +44 141 243 3970, Monday to Thursday, 8am to 7pm and Friday, 8am to 5.30pm, closed on UK bank holidays. If arrears have built up on your account, this is the line that deals with them. We have not called this one.

The UK-facing numbers are 0300 100 0611 for England, Scotland and Northern Ireland and 0300 100 0370 for Wales, both Monday to Friday, 8am to 6pm. They are worth knowing if someone is calling on your behalf from inside the UK, but from abroad you want the +44 141 numbers above.

Whichever you call, have your customer reference number with you. SLC asks for it on the phone and on any letter you send.

If you leave the UK for more than 3 months - travelling, moving overseas, a long posting - you must tell the Student Loans Company. You do it by updating your employment details online; it is a specific form, not a general change of address.

You are expected to keep repaying while you are away, unless you can show that your overseas income is below the repayment threshold. Proof means something like a recent bank statement.

If you say nothing, arrears build up on your account and you have to pay them back on top of your regular repayments. And when you come back after more than 3 months away, tell SLC again - otherwise you keep repaying at the rate for the country you were living in, which can mean paying more than you need to and being charged a higher interest rate.

Before dialling from another time zone, check whether your question is one the online account answers by itself. Signed in, you can check your balance and how much interest you are paying, make an extra repayment, set up and amend Direct Debits, see which repayment plan you are on, print proof of it for an employer, and update your contact and bank details.

There is also webchat with an adviser inside the account, Monday to Friday, 8am to 7pm - an hour longer than the phone lines. Webchat advisers cannot update bank details or take repayments, but those are both things you can do yourself in the account.

SLC writes the international numbers with the country code already in front: +44 141 243 3660 and +44 141 243 3970. 141 is the Glasgow area code.

A call about arrears is rarely a short one, and a roaming SIM makes it worse. Browzerphone dials the same +44 number from a browser tab, charged per minute at the rate for the United Kingdom, with no SIM card and nothing installed.

On a laptop you can have your online account open in one tab and the call in another. Check the per-minute rate to the United Kingdom before you dial.