Requirements

General rule: 

As from 01/01/2013, the age for claiming a retirement pension depends on the claimant's age and the contributions paid over his working life; he is required to have reached :

• 67 years of age or
• 65 years of age and 38 years and 6 months' contributions paid.

This will be the requirement, in any event, when claiming a pension without being in registered employment or in an equivalent situation.

The retirement ages and contribution periods referred in the previous paragraphs will be introduced gradually, as per the following table:

Exceptions:

The retirement age of 65 is retained for people to whom the legislation prior to 01/01/2013 is applicable, in compliance with temporary provision four of the LGSS.

The minimum age may be cut or brought forward only for workers in registered employment or in an equivalent situation to registered employment, in certain special cases:

• Early retirement as of 60 years of age because the worker is a member of a Mutual Insurance Society.
• Early retirement as of 61 years of age without the worker being a member of a Mutual Insurance Society.
• Partial retirement.
• Special retirement at the age of 64 for people to whom the legislation  prior to 01-01-2013 is applicable,  in compliance with temporary provision four of the LGSS.
• Retirement of employees covered by the Miners' Statute, airline flight personnel, railway workers, artists, workers in the bullfighting sector, fire-fighters and members of the Basque Country Police Force (Ertzaintza).
• Flexible retirement.
• Retirement of workers affected by a disability of or above 45% or 65%.

When applying reduction factors to the ordinary age of retirement, this will never give rise to the worker being eligible for a retirement pension at below 52 years of age; this limitation will not affect workers belonging to special systems (Coal Mining and Marine Workers) who, on 01/01/08, were acknowledged retirement age reduction factors and are subject to the previous legislation.

Calculation of the period contributed:

• The months will be calculated from date to date as from the date of birth. When there is no equivalent date in the month of expiry to the date on which calculation began, the age will be considered reached on the last day of the month.

• For the purposes of claiming a retirement pension on reaching the age applicable in each case, the contribution periods accredited by claimants and once added up all the days eligible for the calculation, excluding the proportional part of the extra salary payments, will be transformed into years and months using the following rules of equivalence:
  • Years are set at 365 days and
  • months are set at 30.41666 days.
• For calculating the number of years and months contributed, whole years and months will be taken, but not fractions of the same.

• To determine the contribution periods eligible for setting the age at which a retirement pension can be claimed, in addition to the days actually contributed by the worker, the following will also be taken into account:
  • The days that are considered actually contributed for, as established in art.237 of the LGSS, due to leaves of absence taken by workers, as per article 46.3 of the consolidated text of the Workers' Statute Act, passed by Royal Legislative Decree 2/2015 of 23 October.
  • The days that compute as contributed in terms of benefits for caring for children or fostered minors, as established under temporary provision fourteen of the LGSS and in article 6 of  |R.D. 1716/2012 of 28 December.
  • The assimilated contribution periods for childbirth which compute in favour of the female worker claiming the pension, as set forth in art. 235 of the LGSS.

Workers in registered employment or an equivalent situation:

• General contribution period: 15 years (5,475 days), as from 25/05/2010.

• Specific contribution period: 2 years must be within the 15 years immediately preceding the time of the causal event or the date on which contribution was no longer mandatory, if claiming a retirement pension from registered employment with no obligation to contribute.

Workers not in registered employment or an equivalent situation:

• General contribution period: 15 years (5,475 days), as from 25/05/2010.

• Specific contribution period: 2 years must be within the 15 years immediately preceding the time of the causal event.

For the purposes of accrediting the minimum contribution period:

• Only contributions actually paid or those deemed equivalent by law or regulations will compute.

• The proportional part corresponding from extra salary payments will not be taken into account.

In the case of workers on part-time contracts:

As from 04/08/2013, to accredit the periods required to be entitled to claim benefit, the following rules will apply:

1. The different periods during which the worker has been in registered employment on a part-time contract will be taken into account, whatever the number of hours worked on each one.
   
   For these purposes, the part-time factor is determined by the percentage of the comparable full-time hours worked that the worker works part-time, which will result in the number of days actually considered contributed in each period.
   
   To this figure we will add the number of days contributed full-time and this will give the total number of accredited days' contribution eligible for claiming benefits.
   
2. Once the number of accredited days contributed has been reached, the next step will be to calculate the overall part-time factor, this being the reached by calculating the percentage of the number of days worked and accredited as contributed as per letter a) above, over the total number of days that worker has been in registered employment during his working life.
   
3. The minimum contribution period required for part-time employees for each of the economic benefits they are entitled to, will be determined by applying the overall part-time factor referred to in letter b) to the general regulated period.
   
   In the cases in which entitlement to a particular benefit is contingent on part or all of the minimum contribution period falling within a set time window, the contribution period will be set by applying the overall part-time factor. The required contribution period will, in any event, have to fall within the generally stipulated time window for the particular benefit.

The provisions of the above paragraphs will also apply to  Social Security benefits that were denied prior to   4/8/2013  due to the applicant being unable to provide evidence of having completed the corresponding minimum contribution period. In the case of fulfilling the minimum period required as per the new legislation, the causal event will be considered from the date it originally occurred, notwithstanding that the financial consequences of the claim being admitted will only be backdated 3 months from when the new claim is made, limited in any event to 04/08/2013.

As an exception to this rule, all benefits being processed on 04-08-2013 will be regulated by the provisions of Law 1/2014, of 28 February, on the protection of part-time workers and other urgent economic and social measures, and will be recognised as effective from the date of the causal event of the benefit in question.

To this end, in the case of workers included in the special System for domestic employees, from 2012 until 2018, the hours that have effectively been worked in the System will be determined in accordance with the contribution basis referred to in temporary provision 16 of the LGSS, divided by an amount that corresponds to the minimum hourly basis of the General System set by the LPGE for each one of those years.

Access the assessment platform