Early retirement due to involuntary termination at work

Workers who meet the following requirements may access this form of early retirement:

• They are no more than four years younger than the age required in the case in hand, without these conditions resulting in the application of age reductions that workers in certain occupational sectors may enjoy as a result of performing particularly distressing, toxic, dangerous or unhealthy work, or as regards persons with a degree of disability between 45% and 65%. 
• They have active contributor status or assimilated situation:
  
• They are registered at job centres as job seekers for a period of at least six months immediately prior to the date on which the retirement request is made.

• They are able to demonstrate that they have made contributions for at least:

  • 33 years, without the proportional part for special payments being taken into account for this purpose. For this exclusive purpose, only the period of compulsory military service or the replacement social service or the compulsory social service for women will be counted, with a maximum limit of one year. 
  • At least two years of the contribution period must have been within the 15 years immediately prior to earning the entitlement or at the moment when the contribution obligation terminated, if the early retirement pension is applied while affiliated or assimilated to inscription without the requirement to pay contributions.
  • In the case of workers included in the special System for employed agricultural workers, for the purposes of accrediting the minimum period of effective contributions (33 years) at least 6 of the last 10 years of contributions must correspond to periods of effective work in this special system. To this end, periods during which contributory unemployment benefits were received under this special system will also be counted.
  • In the case of part-time workers and those with permanent-discontinuous contracts, in order to accredit the minimum contribution period of 33 years, the rules established in article 247 of the revised text of the General Law on Social Security, approved by Royal Legislative Decree 8/2015, of 30 October, shall be applied. Consequently, in the case of part-time workers, account shall be taken of the different periods during which the worker has been registered with a part-time contract, regardless of the length of the working day in each of these periods. In the case of permanent-discontinuous workers, the entire period during which the worker has been registered with a permanent-discontinuous employment contract will be calculated, and multiplied by the coefficient of 1.5, without the total number of days that can be calculated annually by the worker exceeding the number of calendar days in each year.

• The employment termination is due to one of the following causes:

1. Collective redundancies on economic, technical, organisational or production grounds according to article 51 of the Workers’ Statute (ET).
2. Objective dismissal on objective grounds, according to Article 52 of the ET.
3. The termination of the contract by judicial decision, in the cases contemplated in the revised text of the Act on Insolvency approved by Royal Legislative Decree 1/2020, of 5 May.
4. The death, retirement or disability of the individual employer, notwithstanding the provisions of article 44 of the ET, or the termination of the legal personality of the contractor.
5. Termination of the employment contract due to force majeure justified by the working authority according to the provisions of article 51.7 of the ET.
6. Termination of the contract at the employee's will for the causes set out in Articles 40.1 (geographical mobility), 41.3 (substantial modification of working conditions)  and 50 (breaches by the employer) of the ET.
7. The termination of the contract at the worker's will for being a victim of sex-based violence or sexual violence as provided for in Article 49.1.m) of the ET.
   

In the instances set out under letters a, b and f, the worker must also accredit, that he/she has received the corresponding compensation as a result of the termination of the employment contract or that he/she has lodged a lawsuit claiming said compensation or challenging the termination decision.

Receipt of compensation will be accredited by means of an incoming bank transfer document or equivalent supporting document.

The amount of the pension resulting from applying to the base rate the general percentage corresponding to the months that contributions were made will be reduced by applying, for each month or fraction of a month, the time the worker has still to work to reach the legal retirement age at the time of the causal event, which in each case results from the application of the coefficients calculated using the  table of reduction coefficients , depending on the accredited contribution period and the months in advance.

With the sole purpose of establishing the aforementioned legal retirement age, this will be considered as the age the worker would have reached had they continued making contributions during the period between the causal event and reaching the legal retirement age applicable in each case.

To calculate the contribution periods, only complete periods will be considered, with fractions of periods not being considered as equal thereto.

Limits of amounts:

Having applied the aforementioned reduction coefficients, the resulting amount of the pension may not exceed the amount resulting from reducing the maximum pension limit by 0.50% for each quarter or fraction of a quarter taken early.
The coefficient of 0.50% referred to in the previous paragraph shall not apply in the following cases:

1. For retirement taken under the provisions of section 1, point 2 of the fourth transitory provision of the General Law on Social Security (workers who were members of Mutual Insurance Societies on 1 January 1967).

2. In cases of early retirement on grounds of activity or in the event of disability, in relation to occupational groups or activities whose work is of an exceptionally arduous, toxic, dangerous or unhealthy nature, or concerns persons with disabilities.