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Official information and services: belgium.be Belgian Federal Public Services

Pension penalty

From 2027 onwards, the penalty will be introduced for those who retire early and don't meet the career conditions to avoid the penalty.  

 

What is the pension penalty?  

The penalty is a reduction of your gross pension amount if you retire early and don’t meet the career conditions. 

  • You will retire at the statutory retirement age? The pension penalty will not be applied to your pension.  
  • If you are penalised, this is final. This means your pension will remain reduced, even after you reach the statutory retirement age.  

 What are the conditions to avoid the penalty?

To retire early without being penalised, you must meet 2 conditions:  

  • a career of 35 years of at least 156 days each that count towards the penalty conditions 
    and 
  • 7,020 days throughout your entire career that count towards the penalty conditions 

You are self-employed? Please visit the NISSE website for more information on the penalty conditions.  

Even if you meet the career and age requirements to retire early, you can be penalised if you don’t meet the 2 abovementioned conditions. 

 

In the following cases, the penalty will not be applied:  

  • If you can already retire before 1 February 2027, even if you postpone your retirement.  

  • If you worked in a special scheme as an employee and can already retire in that scheme before 1 February 2027. In this case, any other pensions that take effect at a later time will not be penalised either.  
    Please note: you can only retire after 1 February 2027 in this special scheme and you don't meet the conditions? In that case, the penalty will be applied to all your pensions.  

  • If you retire as a soldier at your own request or at the age limit.  

  • If you retire as a civil servant on the basis of a transitional measure for HR Rail rolling personnel. 

  • If you are a civil servant and fall ill for 365 days after your 63rd birthday, reach your earliest retirement date, and consequently are retired ex officio.   

  • If you are a civil servant and entered into a gradual early retirement arrangement before 31 January 2025. 

  • If you are a civil servant and obtained agreement to enter into a gradual early retirement arrangement before 31 January 2025. 

Which days are taken into account for the penalty career conditions? 

  • Effectively worked days  
  • Care leave (including thematic leave, justified time credit, etc.) 
  • Maternity leave (pregnancy leave and maternity leave, including breastfeeding breaks and suspension to protect your health and safety) 
  • Shared parental leave (for fathers and co-parents), adoption leave and foster parent leave 
  • Military service 
  • Temporary unemployment (a type of unemployment whereby the employee remains bound by an employment contract, such as temporary unemployment, force majeure etc.)  
  • Unemployment periods for dockworkers, fish sorters, fish unloaders, fishermen at sea and art workers 
  • Lockout days 
  • Days on which you performed your duties as a judge in social affairs or in the commission for the application of social legislation 
  • Union assignment periods 
  • Days of preventive custody without sentence 
  • Effectively worked days and some assimilated periods in a country with which Belgium has concluded an agreement on social security 

In our overview, you can check which career periods are or aren’t taken into account. 

 

Are there years when you are just short of 156 days? 

We can supplement these years by:  

 

Spare days 

Years in which a few days are missing to reach the required 156 days can be supplemented with at most 5 spare days in total. 

In this manner, we can: 

  • supplement one year in which you have 151 days with your 5 spare days. 
  • supplement at most 5 years in which you have 155 days with 1 day each. 

You don’t have to do anything yourself. We automatically use these spare days in the most advantageous way. 

These 5 spare days: 

  • don’t count towards the condition of 7,020 worked days in your entire career. 
  • aren’t taken into account for the calculation of your pension amount. 
We also use spare days to make your career meet the early retirement conditions. Because the early retirement conditions differ from the penalty conditions, these spare days can be used in a different manner depending on the measure in question.      

 

 

Balance days: protective measure for part-time employment with fluctuating timetables 

This measure was taken to protect civilians who worked half-time with fluctuating timetables and who, due to these fluctuations, narrowly fail to reach 156 days in some years or overshoot these 156 days in other years. 

How will this work in practice? 

A year in which you have worked between 150 and 162 days, is considered to be half-time employment. 

For every consecutive period in which you worked half-time, we will check whether we can transfer effectively worked days from the year in which you overshot 156 days to the years in which you narrowly failed to reach 156 days. These days are called ‘balance days’. 

The balance days are used to balance out years that narrowly overshoot or fail to reach 156 days, within the same period of half-time employment.  

  • You don’t have to do anything yourself. We automatically apply this protective measure when calculating your retirement date. 
  • Just as is the case for the spare days, we automatically use the balance days in the most advantageous way. 
  • You’re entitled to this protective measure? We first use the balance days. Only then do we use the 5 spare days.   

We also use balance days to make your career meet the early retirement conditions. Because the early retirement conditions differ from the penalty conditions, these balance days can be used in a different manner depending on the measure in question.   

 

Kris worked half-time during two periods: 

Years Worked days
1980 312
1981 312
1982 157
1983 157
1984 153
1985 160
1986 153
1987 312
1988 275
1989 152
1990 159
1991 154
1992 157
1993 156
1994 130
1995 312

 

For every period, we count the number of days overshooting 156 days. We thus obtain the following result:  

  • 6 days in the period from 1982 up to and including 1986 (1 in 1982, 1 in 1983 and 4 in 1985) 
  • 4 days in the period from 1989 up to and including 1993 (3 in 1990 and 1 in 1992) 

We use these balance days to supplement the years within this period in which you fail to reach 156 days:  

With the 6 balance days from the 1st period, we can:  

  • supplement the year 1984 by 3 days to make it reach 156 days 
  • supplement the year 1986 by 3 days to make it reach 156 days 

With the 4 balance days from the 2nd period, we can:  

  • supplement the year 1991 by 2 days to make it reach 156 days 
  • supplement the year 1989 by the remaining 2 days to make it reach 154 days. 

Result:  

The year 1989 is 2 balance days short of 156 days.  

We will thus add 2 spare days to make it reach 156 days.  

Thanks to the balance days and spare days, we can take these 4 years into account for the penalty career condition.  

 

How much is the penalty?  

Your gross pension is reduced by a certain percentage for every year you retire before your statutory retirement age. In other words, the earlier you retire, the higher the pension penalty deducted from your pension. The percentage per year depends on your year of birth: 

You were born Penalty per year you stop working before your statutory retirement age 
In or before 1960  0% 
Between 1961 and 1965  2% 
Between 1966 and 1974  4% 
In or after 1975 5% 

This reduction: 

  • is applied in proportion to the number of months you retire before your statutory retirement date. 
  • is final. This means your pension will remain reduced, even after you reach the statutory retirement age.  

Jef retires 4 years before his statutory retirement age and is entitled to 1,800 euros gross. He has: 

  • a career of 36 years of at least 156 effectively worked days 
  • 6,580 effectively worked days in his entire career out of the 7,020 required days. 

He only meets 1 of the 2 conditions and will therefore be penalised. 

He was born in 1975. Consequently, his penalty rate per year amounts to 5%. His pension will be reduced by 20% (4 years before statutory retirement x 5%).  

His pension thus amounts to 1,440 EUR gross (1,800 EUR - 360 EUR (= 20% of 1 800 EUR)). 

Robert retires 10 years before his statutory retirement age and is entitled to 1,900 euros gross. 

He has:  

  • a career of 40 years of at least 156 days 
  • 6,240 effectively worked days in his entire career out of the 7,020 required days. 

He only meets 1 of the 2 conditions and will therefore be penalised. 

He was born in 1974. His penalty rate per year amounts to 4%. His pension will be reduced by 3.33% (4 % /12 *10 months) 

 

You have built up several pensions and these have different start dates? 

  • Pensions you can take up before 2027 are always exempt from the penalty. 
  • For pensions you can only take up from 2027 onwards, we check at the pensions’ start dates whether you meet the conditions to be exempt from the penalty. 

Anita can retire as a civil servant in 2025. 
In 2027, she will be 65 and able to retire as an employee. At that time, she doesn’t meet both conditions - a career of at least 35 years of 156 worked days each and 7,020 worked days across her entire career - to be exempt from the penalty. 

If Anita retires in both schemes in 2027, she will: 

  • not be penalised on her pension as a civil servant,  
  • be penalised on her pension as an employee. 

If Anita retires in 2028 at her statutory retirement age in both schemes, she will receive both pensions without a penalty. 

How can I check whether I meet the conditions? 

Under the feature ‘Plan my pension’ on mypension.be, you will find the page “How does the reform affect me”. On this page, you will find a penalty meter.   

In some situations, the meter isn’t available, for example when: 
  • the career details are missing 
  • the calculation can’t be made 

 

What does the penalty meter show? 

The meter shows, on the basis of the details we have today, the number of days and years in your career that count towards the conditions to not be penalised.  

2 boxes have been ticked (V)? In this case, you already meet the conditions. 

You see 1 or 2 crosses (X)? In that case, you don’t have enough days or years to meet that condition yet. 

Frequently asked questions 

No, if you can already retire before 2027, you won’t be penalised, regardless of whether you postpone your retirement or not. 

  • If you postpone your pension until your statutory retirement date, you will not be penalised. 
  • If you are only a few years or days short of meeting both conditions, you can postpone your retirement and continue working until you meet the conditions to get no or a reduced penalty. 

The days that count towards early retirement differ from the days that are taken into account for the penalty.  

Our overview clearly shows which days count towards early retirement and which count against the penalty.  

Example:  

Nicole is 63 years old on 1.7.2027 and has a career of 42 years of at least 156 days each that count towards early retirement. Consequently, Nicole can retire early on 1.7.2027.  

Some periods aren't taken into account for the penalty and she only has: 

  • a career of 30 years of at least 156 days each  
  • 4,784 days across her entire career 

Nicole doesn’t meet the penalty conditions. Consequently, her pension will be reduced if she retires early. 

Your late spouse’s penalty doesn’t impact your survivor's pension. We calculate your survivor's pension on the basis of your late spouse's pension minus the penalty.