To access the retirement pension, the General Social Security Law establishes that you must meet three requirements, which are the generic deficiency, the specific deficiency and being registered or assimilated to registration in Social Security (although there are exceptions to the latter). Failure to comply with one of these conditions, such as the specific deficiency, may mean that Social Security denies the retirement pension, even if we have more than 40 years of contributions.
Social Security explains that the generic deficiency is the total number of years of contributions, which in addition to meeting one of these conditions, helps us determine which pension we will collect, since they are used to determine the regulatory base.
On the other hand, for the specific deficiency a couple of aspects must be taken into account.
Specific deficiency
According to article 205.1.b of the General Social Security Law, the specific requirement is that, within the years contributed throughout life, at least two years (24 months) are located within the last fifteen years prior to retirement. This time is calculated taking as a reference the so-called causative event, which is the exact moment in which the right to receive the benefit arises.
However, the date of the causative event varies depending on the particular situation of each worker. Generally, if the worker is active, the causative event is when he stops working. On the other hand, for those who are in a situation similar to registration, such as unemployment (be careful, you must be collecting the benefit), or for those who are not registered in the system, the day on which the retirement application is formally submitted is usually taken as a reference.
It must be taken into account that there is a rule for those who access the pension from a situation similar to discharge where there is no current obligation to contribute, as is the case for those who are covered by special agreements or leave situations. In these cases, the 15 years of margin are not counted from when retirement is requested, but rather the period is calculated backwards from the exact moment in which the worker’s obligation to contribute ended.
The right to pension is not lost
In the event that Social Security denies the retirement pension for not meeting the specific deficiency, you must know that the right to the benefit is not lost. That is, we can request later and as long as we meet all the requirements, since the right to recognition of the retirement pension is imprescriptible. In other words, not There is a maximum age to stop working in Spain.
Example to understand the specific deficiency
To understand it better, let’s give an example in which a worker has 35 years of contributions and leaves his job at 50 years old. After more than 10 years, you get a job with a temporary contract at age 63 and work for exactly two years until you turn 65. If you request your retirement at age 67, Social Security will review the margin of the last fifteen years, which in your case includes the period from 52 to 67 years. As your last two years of work fall within that period, you will meet the specific waiting period and will be able to collect your contributory pension without problems.
On the contrary, if a worker accumulates 42 years of age, but permanently stopped working when he turned 51 years of age. Upon reaching the age of 67 and requesting retirement, you would not meet the specific deficiency, since from the ages of 52 to 67 there is not a single day of contributions. In this situation, Social Security would deny the pension for not maintaining a recent connection with the system.