Voluntary early retirement allows workers with long contributions careers to stop working before their normal retirement age. Now, to access this type of retirement, Social Security requires that a series of requirements be met, such as that the resulting pension be higher than what would correspond to your family situation.
Article 208 of the General Social Security Law is what establishes the conditions, as well as the cuts, to access early retirement at the worker’s will. Among these conditions, it is required to have a minimum of 35 years of contributions, of which at least two must be within the last fifteen years. To compute these years, compulsory military service, substitute social benefit or compulsory female social service are taken into account, but taking into account that it is a maximum of one year.
Furthermore, it is necessary that the resulting pension after applying coefficients be higher than the minimum pension that would correspond to you based on your family situation upon reaching 65 years of age. Social Security has some minimum pensions that are revalued every year and that vary depending on the type, age and family situation. For this 2026, the amounts are the following:
| Retirement pension | With dependent spouse Euros/year |
Without spouse: single-person economic unit Euros/year |
With non-dependent spouse Euros/year |
|---|---|---|---|
| Owner 65 years old | 17,592.40 | 13,106.80 | 12,441.80 |
| Owner under 65 years of age | 17,592.40 | 12,262.60 | 11,590.60 |
| 65-year-old holder with severe disability | 26,385.80 | 19,660.20 | 18,662.00 |
| Total: derived from a common illness under 60 years of age | 9,662.80 | 9,662.80 | 9,580.20 |
| Partial work accident regime: holder aged 65 | 17,592.40 | 13,106.80 | 12,441.80 |
In this case, for example, if a person with a dependent spouse wants to retire at age 63 and has 38 years and 3 months of contributions, Social Security, after applying the calculation method, will apply the 21% cut for said advance. If after this the pension remains below 17,592.40 euros, this worker would not be able to retire. On the other hand, if it surpasses it, yes it could.
Cut for advancing the retirement age
Voluntary early retirement allows us to advance our age by a maximum of 24 months (2 years), but Social Security will apply a greater cut when we have fewer years of contributions and the more months we want to advance said age. The cuts range from 2.81% to 21%.
- For workers under 38 years and six months of contributions, the cuts will range from 5.5% to 3.26% of the pension.
- For workers between 38 years and six months of contributions and 41 years and six months of contributions, the cuts will range from 5.25% to 3.11% of the pension.
- For workers between 41 years and six months of contributions and 44 years and six months of contributions, the cuts will range from 5% to 2.96% of the pension.
- For workers over 44 years and six months of contributions, the cuts will range from 4.75% to 2.81% of the pension.
Furthermore, in the case of pensions whose resulting pension is higher than the maximum pension, Social Security will cover them and apply an extra cut in accordance with transitional provision 34 of Law 21/2021, as explained by the Social Security official, Alfonso Muñoz.