PENSIONS IN SPAIN

Spain is one of the most appealing countries not only for tourists but also those that are planning their retirement. This is not surprising because the Spanish sun, people’s hospitality, delicious cuisine and accessibility of prices surely justify such a choice.

From January 1, 2019 the minimal age to retire is 6 years and 8 months but hey plan to increase this number up to 67 full years by 2027.

To retire one has to overcome as the age limit so 36 years and 9 months of work. In this case, the pension should be around 920 euros. There is also an option to retire after 15 years of work and social payments but in this case, you can count only on 50% of the pension. The suggested scheme is particularly convenient for all European Union citizens as the years that they have worked in any EU country are counted in Spain too. However, Spain also has special agreements about pensions with some other countries, such as many Latin American countries, Canada, Russia, South Korea, the USA, and Ukraine.

The Spanish retirement system is considered generous. The evidence of it lies, for instance, in the recent research done by BBVA that proved that during the years of the crisis, the purchasing capacity of the Spanish did not decrease significantly precisely thanks to the pensions. Currently, Spain is the second EU country (after Greece) according to the pension rate, its level usually constitutes 80% of the annual salary. Nonetheless, such generosity will soon become the thing of the past as in 2013, the Spanish government took the course on the gradual increase of the retirement age and the decrease of the pension checks.