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.