Social Security

General Information:

The Agreement applies to the following:

For Spain

To the following contributory benefits from the Social Security System:

• Economic benefits for temporary disability due to common illnesses and non-work-related injuries
• Economic benefits for maternity
• Benefits for permanent disability, old age, death and survival
• Economic benefits for family protection
• Economic benefits for work-related injuries and occupational disease

For Paraguay

To the laws regulating Social Security for:

• Economic benefits for temporary disability due to common illnesses and non-work-related injuries
• Economic benefits for maternity
• Economic benefits for disability, old age, death and survival
• Economic benefits for work-related injuries and occupational disease.

For these benefits, you must be aware that

• To get the contributive benefits included in the Agreement, periods of insurance fulfilled in Spain and Paraguay can be added together, if they do not overlap.
• Contributive economic benefits, except those for temporary disability due to common or occupational diseases or accidents, whether work-related or not, can be collected regardless of where the interested is resident in or is currently in Spain or Paraguay.
• Each country pays its own benefits directly to the recipient. However, if the amount corresponding to similar benefit payments is higher than that owed by the Social Security of the other country, it can be deducted from the first payments of the pension granted.
• Those who meet the requirements of the legislation of both countries to be entitled to a contributive pension can collect it from both.

Temporary disability and maternity

Economic benefits for these contingencies are granted by the country where the recipient is insured, taking into account, if necessary, any periods of insurance in the other country, if they do not overlap.

Disability, old age, death and survival

Each country will examine each application for benefits separately in the following way:

• It will check whether the interested party is entitled to the benefit, taking into account only its own periods of insurance, not those of the other country.

• Likewise, the benefit will be calculated by adding together its own periods of insurance and those of the other country (theoretical pension). In this case, the benefit will not be for the whole amount but a proportion of the periods of insurance in the country granting it and the sum of the periods for Spain and Paraguay (prorated pension).

There is an exception for cases in which the total length of  the periods of accredited insurance in one of the two countries is less than one year and therefore there is no entitlement to a pension from that country. They will be accepted by the other country as being its own period, but without applying the “prorrata temporis” clause

• The benefits calculated as shown in the previous sections will be compared and each country will recognise and pay the benefit that is most favourable to the interested party.

To recognise and calculate the pension, the following will be taken into account:

• The Institution that calculates the pension will consider that the worker is subject to its legislation if that person is insured in the other country or is receiving a benefit from that country that is identical or different but was originated by the recipient themselves. To grant survival pensions, the fact that the deceased was insured or was retired and/or a pensioner in accordance with the legislation of the other country will be taken into account.

• If, for a benefit to be recognised, it is a requirement that some periods of insurance have been accrued before the causal event of said benefit, this requirement will be considered to have been met if the interested party can prove that the insurance periods were in the period immediately prior to the recognition of the benefit by the other country .

• If the legislation of one of the signatory countries contains pension reduction, suspension or cancellation clauses for pensioners who work, these will be applicable even if the work was carried out in the other country.

• If it was necessary to add in periods of insurance in Paraguay to recognise a Spanish pension, the pension will be calculated using the actual contribution bases of the insured person in Spain for the years immediately prior to the payment of the last contribution paid to the Spanish Social Security. The amount obtained from this calculation will be increased by the annual revaluations made for the same type of benefit up to the date of the causal event.

• To receive benefits in certain special schemes (for example, Sea Workers and Coal Mining) only the periods in the other country that were spent in the same profession or employment will be taken into account.

Work-related injuries and occupational disease

The benefit will be determined by the country whose legislation the worker is subject to on the date when the accident occurred or the disease was contracted.