A retiree who owed more than 94,000 euros to Social Security from his time as a self-employed person and businessman has seen how the pension he requested in 2022 has not been able to be collected until 2025. The Superior Court of Justice of Catalonia has confirmed that he is only entitled to it from April 4, 2025, the day he paid the last amount he owed, since the General Social Security Law requires being up to date with payments.
This man, born in 1956, had pending 23,281.77 euros of his self-employed contributions from 2008 to 2010 and another 71,406.83 euros of the contributions of the workers he had in his company, according to the ruling (available in the Judiciary and against which an appeal can be made to the Supreme Court). In June 2022 he asked to pay them in installments to be able to retire, but to grant it, Social Security required him to advance 25,000 euros in ten days, and since he did not do so, they denied the deferral.
The problem is that in September 2022 he requested retirement and was denied for two reasons: he was not up to date with the payment of contributions and, according to Social Security, he only had 451 days of contributions in the last 15 years, when 730 are needed, that is, two years. He requested it again on April 2, 2025, two days before paying off the debt, and was denied again due to the lack of days (now, 363 of 730).
The Court of Instance of Terrassa agreed with him in July 2025 and recognized his pension, with a regulatory base of 655.36 euros and 83.22%. He understood that he was in a situation assimilated to registration (the law treated him as if he were still registered even if he was no longer working), so those two years had to be found in the 15 years prior to the end of 2010, when he was still registered as self-employed. But it was only recognized from April 4, 2025, and the retiree appealed to collect it from August 7, 2022, understanding that the law allowed him to collect it three months before requesting it.
The Social Security denied him the pension, since, according to article 47 of the General Law of Social Security, it requires that a self-employed person be entitled to the contributory pension to be up to date with debts. If it is not, Social Security gives you 30 calendar days to pay (what is known as “invitation to payment”), and if you do so later, the pension is granted the same, but with effect from the 1st of the month following payment, according to article 28.2 of Decree 2530/1970 on the self-employed. In this case, the Terrassa court established it from the same day it was paid.
The pension begins when the debt is paid
The Superior Court of Justice endorses the decision of the Terrassa court, since Social Security also denied him the pension for not being up to date, and that debt was not settled until April 4, 2025. In addition, the retiree did not explain why the contributions he owed for his workers should not affect his pension, nor on what date he could have paid only his self-employed contributions to advance it.
Those born since March 1960 will have to wait until they are 67 to retire without a cut, two months longer than those in January and February, unless they retire in 2026 with 38 years and 3 months of contributions or in 2027 with 38 and a half
Retirees who will collect 6,719.20 euros at the end of November or more from Social Security
For the Chamber, “a prescribed fee is not payable”, that is, a debt that can no longer be claimed does not prevent the pension from being collected, but the retiree “nor does he allege any circumstance referring to the possible prescription of the owed fees.” In this way, he maintains the pension only from April 4, 2025, although he is not ordered to pay the costs (the expenses of the trial).