Spanish retirement pension

Does anyone know how many years you have to work in Spain to get the FULL retirement pension and what that amount is?

Is there a website where you can get info about this (in english or spanish)

Believe it is 15 years to qualify for a pension.

15 years for a 50% pension but 35 years for FULL 100% pension. The full Spanish state pension is now over 800 euros pm, much higher than the full UK state pension.

Hi no you only need to contribute for one year now

Believe you need 35 years of contributions to get a FULL Spanish state pension.  Retirement age at present is 65, but you can retire from 60/61 onwards with a reduction.

The amount you will get is calculated on the last 15 years of your working life (but they are talking about making this the last 20 years)

The government does have a website giving information.  If you Google it I´m sure it will come up as an option.

Hope this helps a bit.

I haven't got time to trawl through it all right now, but I think you may find the info you're after here

Hope this helps? If so, maybe you can post a synopsis here later for the rest of us!

MexMaya, one year? Dream on chuck! The Spanish pension qualifications and age of retirement are currently under review so maybe it will change to one year............but somehow I doubt it.

www.intlben.com/country-profiles/spain-employee-benefits-state-mandatory-private-pension

There may be some truth in it - any contributions may count towards some sort of pension. Have a look at this site also.

No I am not dreaming, this site will not let me post the link but google for EUlisses - it tells you all the new EU rules on pensions if you contributed in more than one EU country, its the spanish element I am missing......

I have contributed to Spain for several years and before that the UK but EUlissess is not clear on how much pension you can get and it does not seem possible to get a pension forecast from both countries.

Contributions paid in some countries may count towards a state retirement pension in another. So, if you have not paid enough contributions in one country to qualify for a state pension the contributions paid in another could be used to qualify for a state pension in another country. I don't know of anywhere where one years worth of contributions is enough to qualify for anything unless it is used in conjuction with contributions paid in another country.

Your entitlement to a FULL pension will depend on the qualifying requirements of the country you are claiming in. As I previously posted currently in Spain it is 35 years for a FULL pension, in the UK it is 30 years. Before a pension forecast can be given they will have to know full details of where you were living and dates etc. Depending on how long  you have been contributing in Spain it may be more benficial to have those contributed added to your UK contributions and claim a UK pension (or vice versa) but obviously it depends on your individual circumstances.

But under the new rules it seems you are not able to do this Poppyseed?  Have you looked at EUlisses?  It says categoically that you must draw the relevant proportions from the country in which you contributed. If I add my contributions together then I am almost at 35 years contributions in total within the EU.   Is it 35 years in Spain on basic seg social contributions or should you pay enhanced contributions to actually qualify for the full pension?  It seems also there are variations in Regions?

http://ec.europa.eu/employment_social/social_security_schemes/eulisses/jetspeed/portal/media-type/html/language/en/user/anon/page/socialsecurity.psml/js_panename/step2?id=106&mode=1&name=Adding together periods of cover

Yes that was the link I tried to post but this forum would not let me?  Am I doing something wrong?

So if I have 35 years combined then does that mean I get the equivalent of a full spanish pension (worth more) if I am living in spain or do they only add on enough contrubituions from the UK to make it up to the minimum requirement (15 years worth)? Or is it proportionate to the country I contributed in?  I don´t understand how I can work out how much pension I should receive from which country.........

My sister inlaw has contacted DHSS in the UK last month as she has been working for eight years here in Spain to ask whether the contributions paid could be combined with her previous UK contributions to top up the UK pension the answer was NO, you now have to apply for the pension from what ever country you have paid into the system and contributions cannot be combined.

My sister inlaw has contacted DHSS in the UK last month as she has been working for eight years here in Spain to ask whether the contributions paid could be combined with her previous UK contributions to top up the UK pension the answer was NO, you now have to apply for the pension from what ever country you have paid into the system and contributions cannot be combined.

This is my understanding of how it works.  I asked The social security dept in Gibraltar and they said I would get separate pensions from Gib, Spain and the UK.

From the Pensions Service website

http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/Pensionsandretirementplanning/StatePension/Basicstatepension/DG_10026714

Making State Pension contributions if you work abroad

If you're working abroad, you may be able to pay into the State Pension scheme of the country where you're working. You can do this in EEA countries and some others, such as Canada and New Zealand, where there are special arrangements.

Depending on how long you work abroad, you can have your contributions credited to your UK State Pension or you could receive two pensions - one from the UK and one from the country where you lived and worked. This will be decided when you reach State Pension age, taking into account where you live.

Hi Poppyseed, thank you for taking time to post so many helpful links on here, but its all this conflicting info that makes me confused as they contradict one another.....I have been told the EUlisses info is the latest and thus most correct as it came in in last 18 months........but it seems maybe even government bodies are not clear!

Don´t know if this helps - but as I understand it you need 35 years contributions to qualify for a full Spanish state pension, including contributions made in EU countries. 

The amount of pension you will receive depends on the contributions made during the last 15 years before the minimum retirement age (at present 65, early retirement possible with appropriate reductions from 60).  Men and women have the same retirement age. This favours people in civil service type jobs who have good pay scales and so receive higher salaries, with higher contributions paid, during the latter part of their working life.  It does not favour the poor souls who lose their jobs in their 50´s with little hope of getting well paid work again before retirement.  So they are talking about making the calcuation period for the amount of  the pension to be received over the last 20 years.  I think this is fairer to everybody.

Unlike some other countries at present the pension you receive here is more or less earnings related.  The 15 years is not a minimum period of employment but the period over which they look at the contributions made to calculate the amount of your pension. 

Therefore, the pensions here are usually higher than English pensions.  Private pension schemes are not common at all here, but that will change in the future as the government feel they cannot afford  to offer such ´generous´ pensions forever!  They also plan to raise the retirement age to 67. 

The basic non-contributive pension is rather low at only 399 euros per month.

However, I´m not sure what happens if you do not have the full 15 years of Spanish contributions necessary for the calculation, but mainly contributions in other EU countries during this time!  It seems you might have to take separate pensions from separate countries in this situation?

This pension theme is a really interesting point to get clarified, as it´s going to affect us all one day!!

Sorry - meant to say all the people who are asking how their contributions will affect their future pensions.  Not everybody who is reading this forum!

Thank you Moonbeam and I agree, it would be good to have some real clarity!  Would you happen to know how they calculate it for people paying self employed autonomo in Spain then as my payments do not change each month and thus my contributions are not affected by my salary.  I have always paid autonomo in Spain

What will happen is that they will calculate it on the contributions you make yourself as an autonomo. 

Some autonomos make only the legal minimum contributions necessary, then hike them up to the maximum for the last 15 years before retirement age.  From 50 onwards if you intend to retire at 65.  This could be a bit dodgy now as it is very likely that the period of calculation for contributions will change to a 20 year period.  So the period to look at is from 45 onwards.

The one good point is that being an autonomo you yourself can decide how much you want to contribute - it is not just based on your earnings.  In theory you could earn a relatively low salary, but decide to make quite high contributions for a good pension.  There is a maximum you can contribute each month and a maximum pension you can receive each month.  Unless you are a fat cat politician!

However, it should be ´within reason´ - if you only declare your earnings as 100 euros each month and then make the maximum contributions it could redflag Hacienda!!!!  So you would need to be prepared to be able to explain how you are able to do this without them digging around for black money.

I´m not sure what the maximum autonomo contributions are at the moment - perhaps around 400 euros per month for 2010?

Hope this helps. 

Would like to say that I´m new to this website and have found that it´s a really friendly informative site!

Hi MexMaya

Forgot to mention that the 400 or so euros is probably the maximum contribution only after the age of 50.  Before this age you can contribute a lot more, depending on earnings to contribution ratio of course.    The minimum of about 200 or so euros doesn´t change much, only the maximum.  This is to stop autonomas just ´buying´ a pension in the latter years when the calculations are so important.

However, if you are a politician you only need to contribute for 7 years to get a nice fat pension!!!

Anyone got any news on the new changes to the Spanish pension system.  I have just over 15 yrs contributions in Spain and 22 years in UK.  I will be 65 in 2013.  Have been told that Spanish pension age to rise to 67.  Does this apply to everyone as from now or is there a staggered change?  As someone else mentioned, even the Seguridad Social and the British authorities can not agree on the correct situation.  Claiming my wife's UK State Pension last year was a nightmare.  UK sent her a form to claim it then said that she had to claim in Spain.  Seg Soc. provided a form that requested lot of irrelevant info for UK pension e.g children's NIE numbers, salaries in UK employment etc.  All possibly needed for Spanish pension application but this was a form in Spanish to claim a standard UK pension.  Next problem will be when my wife wants to add her 15 years contributions in Spain to her already claimed UK pension

When my brother who lives in Germany was coming up to retirement he went to the German soc.sec. office . When they asked in what other countries he had paid & he replied the UK they did it all for him. He receives a full German pension & a Uk pension for the 12 years he paid in their.

As you are retiring after the rule change in 2010 you  only need 30 years contributions for a full UK pension. You'll receive               22 / 30ths of a full UK pension. Just over 73%. For the Spanish pension ,unless they've changed it , you'll receive a 50% pension + however many years over 15 as a % of the other half.

Unless you've got a country that's willing to do the claiming for you , like the Germans, you're better off claiming each pension from each country yourself without involving the other countries.