EU Regulations and Bilateral Social Security Agreements

1. Applications for pensions under the Community Regulations (RRCC) on social security must be submitted to the competent authority in the applicant’s country of residence, which in Spain is the Directorate-General for Social Security Organisation, where these relate to pensions payable to civil servants under the State Civil Service Pension Scheme.

Where the person concerned can provide evidence of successive periods of service under the State Civil Service Pension Scheme and of contributions to the Social Security System, responsibility shall lie with the body or administering organisation – the National Social Security Institute – to which the most recent contributions were made. If those final contributions were made simultaneously, the body responsible for processing and deciding on the pension in accordance with the Community Regulations will be the National Social Security Institute (INSS).

A request for the application of Community Regulations entails that any pensions to which a person may be entitled will be recognised and paid in accordance with the legislation of all the Member States in which periods of contribution or insurance have been credited. However, the claim for a pension payable by one of the countries may be deferred by indicating this in section 7 of the application for a retirement pension and section 8 of the application for a disability pension.

2. Requests for information on periods of insurance in other countries must be submitted to the competent institution in the country of residence using the form provided for that purpose. Through this procedure, the pension institution in the country of residence will liaise with the State or States in which the interested party claims to have worked or resided and will request the form relating to their insurance record.

In accordance with the EU Regulations on the coordination of social security systems, periods of insurance credited in the countries of the European Union, the European Economic Area, Switzerland and the United Kingdom may be taken into account, provided they do not overlap, for the purpose of establishing entitlement and/or calculating the pension.

Each State in which periods of contributions or insurance are recognised shall recognise and calculate the pension to which the claimant is entitled (in accordance with the date chosen by the claimant for each country), taking into account its domestic legislation and the relevant provisions of EU law.

Two different situations may arise:

a) If the interested party does not qualify for a pension based solely on contributions made in Spain (because they have not met the qualifying period), but would qualify if periods of contribution recorded in other European Union Member States were taken into account, the corresponding ”pro rata temporis pension” shall be indicated.

b) If the interested party is entitled to a pension based solely on contributions made in Spain (domestic pension), two calculations must be carried out:

1. Domestic pension: only for periods spent in Spain.
2. Pro rata temporis pension: calculated by aggregating and prorating the periods of contribution in Spain and in other countries.
   

Once these calculations have been carried out, the two amounts are compared and the person concerned is offered the higher of the two: either the domestic or the pro-rated pension. Both are compatible with the receipt of any pensions that have been – or may be in future – awarded by the competent institutions of other states.

Explanation of how the pro rata temporis pension is calculated:

1. The theoretical pension: this is calculated on the hypothetical basis that both the periods of insurance in Spain and those in other countries have been completed in accordance with Spanish legislation.

2. The pension to be received is the pro-rata pension: the ‘theoretical pension’ is calculated on a pro-rata basis, depending on the ratio between the number of days covered in Spain and the total number of days of insurance (both in and outside Spain), that is to say:

Pro-rata pension = Theoretical pension × (Number of days in Spain / Total number of days)

The Community Regulations apply to the coordination of Spain’s social security systems with those of the Member States of the European Union and the States party to the European Economic Area.

• Countries belonging to the European Union: Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Czechia, Croatia, Cyprus, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden.
  
• Countries belonging to the European Economic Area: Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway.
  
• The Swiss Confederation, pursuant to the Agreement concluded with the European Union on the free movement of persons
  
• The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, through the Trade and Cooperation Agreement, which has been provisionally applied since 1 January 2021 and came into force definitively on 1 May 2021.