The last Council of Ministers of last year approved a royal decree that reforms the different retirement modalities that will bring new developments from next April. Seeks improve the compatibility of salary and pension collection with incentives for delaysoftening the complete exit from the labor market. One of the great novelties of the pact between the Government and the social agents is the end of the requirement of the full contribution career to access active retirement, softening its access. Thus, private sector workers will be able to access this modality with only 15 years of contributionsthe minimum required to receive a contributory retirement pension, instead of the more than 38 previously required.
Employees and the self-employed will be able to access it. Flexibility especially improves access for women, who have generally less extensive careers than men. Those who access the contributory pension with a minimum of 15 years of accredited contributions (180 monthly payments) are entitled to 50% of their regulatory base, defined by the contributions they have contributed to Social Security. Thus, active retirement will be a new tool to improve retirement income of those employed in the private sector and extend the average retirement age, which now slightly exceeds 65 years.
The collection of the pension compatible with the salary or income from work will be estimated based on the time that the worker delays his retirement, so that each year of delay in active retirement will increase the percentage to be applied to the receipt of the pension. . After the first year in the active modality, the worker will receive 45% of the retirement pension, a percentage that will amount to the full pension (100%) if access to it occurs after five or more years.
The legislation that will expire in April allows the full pension to be collected along with work income for those self-employed with permanent workers under their responsibility. The reform reduces to 75% the compatible pension percentage for self-employed professionals with a permanent employee with 18 months of seniority in their charge. A self-employed person who hires a permanent employee with whom he or she has not had an employment relationship in the two years prior to the start of his or her active retirement may receive this percentage.
Incentives and relief on your fees
The new active retirement will be compatible with prizes or bonuses that encourage delaysomething that did not happen before because it was incompatible. Social Security offers two prizes that can be combined: a percentage improvement in the pension, a cash check ranging from 5,000 to 12,000 euros, or a mix of both. The reform maintains the incentive of an extra 4% on the pension during the first year, although – as a novelty – it is more flexible from the second year onwards: it will offer 2% every six months as a financial supplement.
Workers in active retirement have a sensitive bonus of your installmentssince they stop contributing for common contingencies (those that pay pensions). The self-employed contribute for temporary disability and work accidents (approximately 4.5%) and for the so-called solidarity contribution, established for 2025 at 9%, explained by the Association of Self-Employed Workers (ATA). A similar situation occurs with employees, who are deducted 9% from their payroll as a solidarity concept for being part of the active retirement.
Evolution of retirements by modality
The latest Social Security reforms seek to increase the retirement age to try to mitigate spending. In addition to the aforementioned incentives for delayed retirement, the Executive has continued to tighten early retirement with greater requirements through the access age, years of contributions and cuts to the pension.
Early retirements have fallen to 29%, when before they were almost half of the system’s registrations. And delayed retirements have doubled to around 9%. Although the balance seems positive, employees are not joining as much as expected and their delayed retirements represent only 6.1%, a slight increase, and It is the self-employed who are truly joining active retirement (26.4%, double that before the Escrivá reform).
The penalties went from applying a minimum cut of 1.6% and a maximum of 16% in the pension to ranging between 2.8% and 21%, depending on the contribution career proven by the worker and the years of advancement. Cuts were not an obstacle for the self-employed before, nor have they been after the tightening because a small percentage of them left early. They were 16%, and now that percentage has dropped to 14%.
Tweaks in partial retirement
The reform, in turn, tweaked the regulation of early partial retirement as of April 1. This modality will now allow the exit from the labor market to be brought forward three years, instead of two, with adaptation of the work day. For those who have not reached the ordinary retirement age, the legislation establishes requirements such as a maximum age 3 years younger than the ordinary age, 33 years of contributions, 6 years of seniority in the company and the execution of a replacement contract. Whoever advances the maximum (3 years) will only be able to reduce their working hours by up to 33% in the first year.
Regarding partial retirement in the industry, a very widespread and specific formula for the sector, the reform introduces the obligation for companies and workers to contribute 80% of the contribution base that would correspond to the partial retiree in their full-time position. . The relievers who replace them must be permanent, full-time and will be protected from layoffs two years after the end of the partial retirement.
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