Which EU country requires the shortest working period before being eligible for old age pension?

[ertyu]

What the title says. To the best of my knowledge, this information hasn't been systematized. I'm not necessarily looking for earliest onset but rather least amount of work years put in to claim basic eligibility. I think a lot of my general anxiety stems from the fact that because of working in a bunch of bullshit countries that don't have tax treaties with each other, im uneligible for old age pension and this makes me really afraid of what happens if my stash fails. I've been thinking I might enjoy being an airport janitor in western europe, or some such. Just me, the toilets, and my cart

[Seppia]

In Italy, and I suspect in many Western European countries, you become eligible for a minimal pension when you reach a certain age, regardless of working years.
In Italy this was setup because (especially in the south) many people worked all their life in informal jobs and would otherwise be left with no protection once they reached old age.

[ertyu]

In Italy, and I suspect in many Western European countries, you become eligible for a minimal pension when you reach a certain age, regardless of working years.

Sure, but I assume that for this to apply, you need to become a citizen, which isn't necessarily easier than working for 5-10 years as an airport janitor (occupation arbitrary)

[Seppia]

Your assumption is incorrect. You just need to live in Italy for 10 years legally.

Also, if you make zero or similar in Italy you can ask for the “social chèque” which is basically a $500 per month free money.
For that you just need to be legally resident in Italy and not be abroad for more than 29 days consecutively.
https://www.inps.it/prestazioni-servizi/assegno-sociale

Not that I encourage these forms of free riding, but just FYI

[ertyu]

Yeah, I wouldn't just free-load on the social systems. But this is good information, thank you, I will check out the website you linked

[DutchGirl]

Not in the Netherlands. Official retirement age is 66 years and 7 months currently, but is slowly rising. (And you won't get your state pension before that age). You build up 2% of the pension per year that you live in the Netherlands (so you don't need to work, but you need to live here), starting at age 17.

[chenda]

In the UK you need to work at least 10 years paying national insurance contributions to get any form of state pension at 68, and 30 years to get the full state pension, which is currently ~ £10 000 per year. If your working years are more than 10 but less than 30 the pension will be pro rataed.

https://www.gov.uk/new-state-pension

[loutfard]

Belgium:
- retirement age: 67 standard , or 63 after having worked for 42 years
- no need to have worked to receive some kind of pension. You also build up a pension when unemployed.
- guaranteed minimum pension: 30 years required, 20 for government employees

Note that if less scrupulous, you could work for a limited time here and get fired. Unemployment benefits are unlimited in time here. You'd also get higher pension benefits than many self-employed people based upon having been unemployed. Collecting unemployment benefits requires zero days of work history for residents, and until recently one day for many immigrants. Needless to say, this was very actively exploited.

[Stahlmann]

ertyu, change of mind from our last discussion?

I would worry that with resource depletion there will be more cutting benefits or rise in nationalism, because "our people first". Producing excuses is always possible. On the other hand, at least Polish forced labourers received some pension for working in III Reich during WWII.

Adding more nuances, I heard that receiving unemployment benefits (yes, different thing than pension) from Netherlands is only possible if you stay here after changes introduced to cut off smart Eastern Europeans (I mean the case in which you "worked in" for their system; not some kind abuse). EDIT: after rethinking, being unemployed means being ready to find new job, now it makes more sense, but... from Stahlmann humanitarian perspective on the worls, it would be nice to receive 1-2 month of not being forced to work, especially after emotionally hard lay-off. Any comments on this? Jean suggested that "milking the system" is perceived as "some how socially acceptable" in France.

I talked myslef enough, you can now back to your regular programming. I hope we won't derail and have discussion in way presented here viewtopic.php?p=261321#p261321.

EDIT2: coming back to ertyu - don't you work on some contracts (I mean not employment one)? I think in first case your pension account is receiving lower amounts of contributions each month - I suppose at least). I know that Western Euorpean countries tend to force the second one (which is rather good from my socialist side), but here come hard working Easterns Europeans to play... I know that there are many who do/aspire to put savings into investments, but with age mentally stability tends to be way more important for "average Joe"). Yes, I know most, people here won't say they aren't the Joe

[shelob]

In Germany, you become eligible for the state pension scheme after contributing for a minimum of 5 years. The amount paid out depends on what you contributed each month and how many years you contributed it for, so after five years the amount won't be much.

There is also a voluntary contribution scheme for self employed people, expats etc. I'll have ~3 years when I move to the UK later this year, so I intend to make the miminum contributions (100€/month, which increases the pension by 5€/month) until I meet the 5 year eligibility criterion. (I'll be eligible for more than 25€/month because the first three years are calculated based on my Navy salary, but I still don't expect it to exceed 100€ or so unless I make further contributions. This mostly makes sense for me because only ~2400€ are needed to meet the eligibility criterion.)

If you're formally employed, the employer pays 50% of the contribution. Also, I'm not sure who is eligible for the voluntary contribution scheme.

[DutchGirl]

Belgium:
- retirement age: 67 standard , or 63 after having worked for 42 years

I do like that people who have worked for 42 years can retire at age 63 in Belgium!
I'm guessing people who start working at age 18-20 are mostly in low-paying fields with lots of manual labor or repetitive work, so they probably should be able to retire at a slightly younger age than people like me who spent half of their twenties in university and then the next 40 years on some cushioned chair (at least while working).


By the way, loutfard: Is it also true with that rule in Belgium that if you start working at age 22, keep working and thus reach 42 years at age 64, you can stop at age 64? Or 23 start, 65 end?

[Jean]

I just want to highly encourage you to exploit those unfair system in order to make them disapear faster.

[Seppia]

In France you have a thing called RMI, which is again free money.
https://www.rmi-fr.com/

I disagree with Jean, unfortunately I think using these will not lead to their disappearance but just an increase of taxes in the poor people who actually work for a living.

at least thats what has consistently happened in italy thorughout the years

[chenda]

Presumably one has to be resident in said countries for a qualifying period before being eligible to claim.

[Ego]

Presumably one has to be resident in said countries for a qualifying period before being eligible to claim.

Way back in the sixties people who worked for a company from their home country X but where working in country Y would have to pay Social Security in both countries. Another common problem was that people would work for some years in country X and some in country Y, paying only the local Social Security payments in each country, which would leave them unqualified for Social Security in both.

As a result the US began pushing for detached worker territoriality rules so that they only paid in one country and then their credits could be transferred between countries so that all work qualified toward whichever Social Security system the worker chose to live under in retirement. It created interesting arbitrage opportunities. I would check to see if your country has a detached worker territoriality agreement with the country where you intend to clean airports. Here is the general outline of the US agreements.

https://www.ssa.gov/policy/docs/ssb/v78n4/v78n4p1.html

[jacob]

Denmark: https://lifeindenmark.borger.dk/pension/state-pension

Summary: Based on my guess of the OP stats (see link for more details), age 69 (and rising) and at least 10 years of residence (with at least 5 years BEFORE retiring). No working requirement. The state pension is roughly $1000/month before tax regardless of lifetime income. Everybody gets the same. This is about the same as the stipend for a university student.

Add: Just for fun. When I left Switzerland after four years in grad school, it turned out that I actually earned the right to a small Swiss pension. When the time comes I can apparently go to the embassy and collect something like $5/month based on the system they're using/used, IIRC.

[jacob]

In terms of Plan Bs and "treaty-collisions", a few years ago we seriously considered leaving the US. The problem back then was that I didn't qualify for a Danish pension anymore (the minimum residence rule was 30 years which I would no longer be able to meet); and whereas I did qualify for a US pension, the DK-US treaty (what Ego talks about above) is such that I would only be able to collect US SS if I lived in either DK or US. This again posed a problem because DW is not an EU citizen and---again the rules have subsequently changed---was unable to emigrate to DK. DW on the other hand would be on a different treaty and thus able to collect her SS anywhere [else] in the world.

Since then governments and rules have changed. My takeaway is that insofar one's situation is sufficiently complicated, it's very easy to fall through the cracks of [knee] jerk-type legislation. On the Danish side, it wasn't remedied until a high profile expat with connections made some noise. Until then it was just a few hundred people in total who were screwed. People currently falling through the cracks of legislation and bureaucracy are expat Brits who didn't get their papers in order now that the Brexit deadlines and extensions are coming through. Basically, if you're a minority of a minority in a given country, you can't really count on "the system".

I'm more concerned about this type of problem than I am about "stash" problems. This is likely due to me feeling in control of the latter whereas the former can be rather arbitrary and even deliberately cruel from time to time depending on where the political winds are blowing.

[liberty]

@jacob Do you get the full minimum payment if you live there for only 10 years? In Norway the pensions are reduced if you live there a shorter period (example: 10 years gives 25%), and I think that applies also for the minimum rates too (minimum rate * 0.25 if you live there for 10 years etc). But this might be different in Denmark.

[jacob]

@liberty - I don't know. A quick google says no. You only get the full amount if you've lived there for 40 years after age 15. I don't know if this is a linear calculation or whether the base amount is zero or how that goes.

I suppose this confirms OP's concerns. It's not a good idea to collect random state pensions from around the world.

[Ego]

I'm more concerned about this type of problem than I am about "stash" problems. This is likely due to me feeling in control of the latter whereas the former can be rather arbitrary and even deliberately cruel from time to time depending on where the political winds are blowing.

Agreed. The rise in refugees worldwide creates something of a binge/purge mentality in destination countries where they welcome "outsiders" and then swing the pendulum back in the other direction when they tire of the obligations involved. Completely understandable but it is possible to get caught up in the unintended consequences.

If I were the OP I would watch for jobs with the 2024 Olympics and ride the kumbaya wave to get settled in France as it is the Western European country with the least-bad demographics. Their younger population will allow them to continue paying promised pensions into the future and may allow them to avoid some of the arbitrary rules that @Jacob talks about above.

Olympic Job Board:
https://rejoindre.paris2024.org/go/M%C3 ... ction=desc