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Benefits included in the Agreement

General information

The Agreement applies to the following contributory Social Security benefits:

  • Financial disability benefits
  • Financial old age benefits
  • Financial survival benefits
  • Financial benefits for work-related injuries and occupational diseases

Regarding these benefits, remember that:

To gain entitlement to these benefits, the periods of insurance, contributions and employment completed in any other State Party can be added together, as long as these periods do not overlap.

Contributory financial benefits can be collected regardless of whether the interested party is resident or is currently located in the territory of another State Party.

Each State Party shall pay its own benefits directly to the beneficiary. However, the amounts that are higher than the owed amounts paid by another State Party may be deducted from the amount of benefits owed by a State Party to a beneficiary. This deduction may take place in accordance with the conditions and limits set forth in the legislation of the State Party carrying out the  deduction, as if it were an excess amount that said State Party had paid. 

The persons who meet the requirements of the legislation of several States Parties for entitlement to a contributory pension, can collect it from each of these countries.

Disability, Old Age and Survival

Each State Party will examine each pension application separately in the following way:

  • Each State Party will examine and grant the benefits that, where appropriate, correspond to the interested party, taking into account only the periods of insurance, contributions and employment completed in that State Party.

Only in the event in which taking into account exclusively the accredited periods of insurance, contributions or employment in the State Party in question, the entitlement to the benefits is not reached, may these benefits be granted by adding together the periods of insurance, contributions or employment completed in other States Parties. In this case, the pension will not be for the whole amount but a proportion of the periods of insurance, contributions or employment completed in the State Party granting it and the sum of all the periods completed in the States Parties (actual or prorated pension).

However, there is the possibility that even when the interested party is entitled to a pension from a State Party without needing to resort to adding together periods, they can request that the decision on their entitlement to said benefit is made by adding together the periods completed under the legislation of other States Parties. This application must be made separately in each country and will not be linked to other States Parties.

  • There is an exception for cases in which the total length of the periods of accredited insurance, contributions or employment completed under the legislation of a State Party is less than one year and which, by themselves do not give entitlement to a pension from that country. In these cases, the competent institution of said State Party shall not grant any benefits, although the aforementioned periods will be taken into account, if necessary, by the competent institutions of the other States Parties for the granting of the entitlement and the calculation of the pension amount in accordance with its own legislation.

    If the periods accredited in each of the States Parties do not total one year, but adding these periods together makes it possible to gain entitlement to benefits in one or more States Parties, said periods shall be added together, but the amount of the benefits granted will be prorated.

The recognition and calculation of the pension will take into account:

  • If the legislation of one of the States Parties requires a maximum length of periods of insurance, contributions or employment for a full benefit to be granted, the amount of which is dependent on the periods of insurance, contributions or employment, when adding them up, the competent institution in that State Party will take into account only the aforementioned maximum period instead of the total length of the added periods.

  • If, when adding up the periods, obligatory periods of insurance are accredited in a State Party that overlap with voluntary insurance periods completed under the legislation of another State Party, both the theoretical amount and the actual amount of the benefit will be calculated, taking into account exclusively the obligatory periods of insurance. However, the actual amount of the benefit shall be increased by the competent institution of the State Party in which the periods of voluntary insurance were completed according to the amount corresponding to said periods, in accordance with its national legislation.

  • The institution of the State Party that calculates the pension will consider the worker to be subject to its legislation, if this person is insured in the other country or receives a benefit from another State Party based on its own periods of insurance. For granting survival pensions, the fact that the deceased was insured or collected a pension from another State Party will be taken into account where necessary.

  • If, for a benefit to be granted, the legislation of a State Party requires that some periods of insurance, contributions or employment have been completed immediately prior to the triggering event of said benefit, this requirement will be considered to have been met if the interested party can prove that they took place in the period immediately prior to the granting of the benefit in another State Party.

  • If the legislation of one of the States Parties contains pension reduction, suspension or cancellation clauses for pensioners who work, these will be applicable even if the work was carried out in the territory of another State Party.

  • If the legislation of a State Party provides for the right for certain benefits to be granted upon completion of periods of insurance, contributions or employment in a specific job or profession, when granting these benefits, only the periods of insurance completed in another State Party while carrying out a similar job or profession will be taken into account.

  • If it was necessary to add together periods of insurance from the other States Parties in order to grant a Spanish pension, the theoretical Spanish pension will be calculated using the actual contribution bases of the person for the years immediately prior to the payment of the last contribution paid to the Spanish Social Security. If, during the period of reference to be taken into account for the calculation of the pension amount, the periods of insurance completed under the legislation of other States Parties have to be calculated, the contribution base in Spain for these periods will be that which is closest at the time, updated according to the Consumer Price Index.

    The pension amount obtained from this calculation will be increased according to the amount of the revaluations calculated for each subsequent year for pensions of the same kind.

  • In the case of a Spanish Social Security retirement pension that considers a total of periods completed under the legislation of other States Parties, this total shall also be used to determine the age of entitlement to the pension.

Specific Provisions for  Schemes Based on Savings and Capitalisation

In those States Parties with schemes based on savings and capitalisation, the persons affiliated to a Pension Fund Administrator will finance their pensions in the relevant State Party with the accumulated balance of their individual capitalisation account and under the terms set forth in the legislation of said State Party.

However, if the balance of the interested party's individual account is not sufficient to finance a pension of at least the same amount as the minimum pension guaranteed by the State Party in which the pension is being paid, the periods completed in other States Parties can be added together, in the appropriate proportion, in order to access the minimum pension.

Workers who are affiliated to a pension capitalisation scheme in a State Party may, as long as this is authorised by the national legislation of the State Party, continue to make contributions to the aforementioned pension scheme during the time they are residing in another State Party, without prejudice to also meeting their obligation, as the case may be, of making contributions in the latter State Party.

The States Parties in which individual capitalisation schemes are in force can set up funds transfer mechanisms in order to receive disability, old age and death benefits.

Work-Related Injuries and Occupational Diseases

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

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