Maximum pension

The higher your income, the higher your pension. But your gross pension amount is limited.

Employee pension

The employee pension is limited because we use your gross wages for the calculation of your pension amount, insofar these do not exceed the wage ceiling: if you earn more than the wage ceiling in a certain year, your pension amount for that year is calculated on the basis of the wage ceiling.

Please note: some employees who work for an employer that can be considered to be a civil service (e.g. the National Bank) fall within the limits of the absolute maximum for civil service pensions.

Civil service pension

The civil service pension is limited by 2 maximums.

The relative maximum

Your civil service pension cannot exceed 3/4 of your reference pay. You have incomplete years of service? In that case, we will reduce the amount of the relative maximum.

The absolute maximum

If you receive a civil service pension or a supplementary pension from a public sector employer, the total amount of your pensions may not exceed the absolute maximum of 46 882,74 EUR a year (at the threshold index of 138,01). Indexed, this amount to 99 499,24 euros gross a year (from 1.2.2025 at the index figure 2,1223) or 8 291,60 euros gross a month.

From 1 July 2025 until 31 December 2029, the absolute maximum is no longer indexed. If within this period, the threshold index is exceeded more than five times, the absolute maximum will again be indexed as of the sixth time the threshold index is exceeded. Find out more about the indexation.

Which pensions are taken into account for the calculation of the absolute maximum?

All Belgian pensions:

retirement and survivor's pensions as a civil servant,
retirement and survivor's pensions as an employee,
retirement and survivor's pensions as a self-employed worker,
parliamentary pensions and mandataries’ pensions,
pensions at the expense of the NSSO - service for Overseas Social Security,
supplementary pensions built up by a public sector employer (National Bank of Belgium, intermunicipal utility companies, ...).

Since 1 July 2025, we also take the following into account:

foreign retirement and survivor's pensions,
international and supranational pensions (EU, NATO, UN, ...).

Which pensions are not taken into account?

Additional benefits that are meant to supplement a statutory employee pension are exempted, except if these were built up by a public sector employer (National Bank of Belgium, intermunicipal utility companies, ...).

Limitation

If the total amount of your pensions exceeds the ceiling, we apply a reduction to limit the total amount to the absolute maximum amount.

Self-employed worker pension

The self-employed worker pension is also limited by an income ceiling. Find out more about the maximum income on the NISSE websiteOpens in a new window.