In Spain, workers with at least 15 years of contributions who decide to delay their ordinary retirement age (what is known as delayed retirement) receive an additional 4% in the pension for each full year, although they can also collect it at once in a single payment or a mixture of both. Danny De Smedt is a 66-year-old retiree from Belgium who wanted to delay his retirement age when he could retire, thinking that when he did, he would receive an extra 33,000 euros in his pension, but in the end he received 8,172.
According to an interview collected by the media 7sur7 Danny, from Hoboken (Antwerp), throughout his working life he worked as a computer scientist, while alternating with salaried contracts and stages as an independent consultant. His last position was as manager at Staples Belgium, where he earned 4,865 euros net per month.
Although he could have retired in 2023, he decided to continue working, since he calculated that for each year he worked more he would receive 11,000 euros more net in his account. This calculation would be done for three years, so in the end you would receive 33,000 euros.
Received a quarter of what was expected
What I did not expect is that, with the arrival of the new Government, a reform was approved that shortened the time for which this bonus could be accumulated. Despite the cut, he decided to move forward, since he saw it as a good option. “I told myself that 16,000 euros was still, despite everything, a good sum,” he says.
Danny retired on May 1, 2026, collecting a pension of 3,000 euros net, which is the household amount, which is paid to him because his wife does not have her own income. Now, the bonus of 33,000 euros that he expected to receive had not even reached a quarter of it. “In the end, I only received 8,172 euros in my account,” he laments.
Not satisfied, he asked the Federal Pension Service to look at his file again. “They answered me, rightly, that the service applies the law, but does not prepare it,” he says, and that is why his criticisms are above all against politicians. “I have fulfilled my part of the contract: I have continued working,” he insists, and asks himself: “I have respected my commitment. Don’t I have the right to expect public authorities to respect theirs?”
Apparently Danny was never entitled to that extra 33,000 euros, since to collect it it was necessary to have 43 years of contributions when reaching the first date on which he could retire, something he did not have. The supplement began to be added on July 1, 2024 for each full day worked full-time and stopped adding on December 31, 2025.
Workers with less than 43 years of career contributions were entitled to 13.10 euros net per day during the first year, and 26.19 euros afterwards. In the case of reaching 43, the amount increased to 39.29 euros per day. With the minimum, a retired person who had worked full-time all that time would receive 8,172.12 euros, which is the same amount that Danny received. That money received is not taxed in Belgium.
The professor of labor economics at the University of Ghent, Stijn Baert, explained that this “bonus” received in the pension was mainly for longer careers and that the Government reformed pensions to discourage early retirement and eliminated the old bonus.
That’s why Danny was only able to accumulate a year and a half, not the three he hoped to add. “The rules were modified halfway through,” admits the economist, although he recalls that the pension service is limited to applying the law. “I fear, therefore, that Danny has little chance of being proven right,” he points out.
Although Danny is already retired, he has returned to work and combines his pension with being an independent computer consultant. Although he does not seek compassion, he does point out that “the rules that are in force today may well change in a few years.”
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Since 2026, Belgium has followed another model, in which anyone who defers the pension beyond the legal age will be able to collect it, starting in 2027, with an increase of between 2% and 5% for each year, depending on the year of birth, as long as they have a 35-year career, among other requirements, according to the Federal Pension Service. It is a formula more similar to the Spanish one, whose additional percentage is included in the General Social Security Law.