The Spanish state pension: retirement age in 2026 and 2027, and the 15-year minimum

The age

Article 205 of the General Social Security Act sets the ordinary retirement age at 67, or 65 for people who have contributed for 38 years and 6 months. Those are the end points of a transition that began in 2013 and is set out year by year in the Act's seventh transitional provision.

For 2026 the table says: 65 with 38 years and 3 months of contributions or more; otherwise 66 years and 10 months. From 2027 the transition ends: 65 with 38 years and 6 months or more; otherwise 67.

Contribution time is counted in whole years and months, and the proportional part of the two extra payments each year does not count towards it. A career that looks like 38 years and 5 months on paper may not reach the threshold.

The fifteen years

To receive a contributory retirement pension at all you need at least fifteen years of contributions, and at least two of them must fall within the fifteen years immediately before you retire. If you are not registered with Social Security when you retire — having stopped work some years before, for example — you can still claim, as long as you meet the age and contribution conditions.

Someone who arrives in Spain at fifty and works here until the ordinary age will usually reach fifteen years. Someone who arrives at sixty will usually not, from Spanish contributions alone.

Years worked in other countries

Periods contributed in other EU countries, and in countries with which Spain has a social security agreement, are dealt with under those rules rather than under the Spanish Act alone, and they can help you reach the minimum. Ask the National Social Security Institute, INSS, how your own periods abroad are treated before you plan around them. Each country then pays its own share of a pension.

Retiring early, or later

The Act allows early retirement, voluntary or involuntary, with reductions in the pension for each quarter before the ordinary age, and it rewards working past it. Both have their own conditions of age and contributions. They are not covered here because the figures depend on the individual career; the Social Security pension simulator does that calculation with your real data.

Pensions and residence

A Spanish contributory pension is earned by contributions, not by nationality: the conditions above are the same for everyone.

A pension from another country, received while living in Spain, is a different matter: it is not a Spanish pension, and for tax purposes it depends on your tax residence and on the agreement between Spain and that country.