Voluntary early retirement is the modality that allows workers to advance their retirement age up to two years with respect to their ordinary age, provided that they have contributed a minimum of 35 years and in exchange for cutting their pension for life. These reducing coefficients depend on the total years of contributions and the months advanced with respect to the ordinary age. According to the table of reducing coefficients for voluntary early retirement, with less than 38 and a half years of contributions, advancing it by 24 months subtracts 21% of the pension and advancing it by 20 months, 11%.
As this modality carries a penalty, Alfonso Muñoz Cuenca, a Social Security official, has uploaded a video to YouTube where he gives some advice before requesting the withdrawal. The first thing is to look closely at the date because “it can make you earn hundreds of euros more or less per month throughout your retirement.”
The first advice is for those who want to retire early and are collecting contributory unemployment benefits. “You may want to wait and exhaust your unemployment benefit first,” Muñoz recommends. This is so, since while unemployment is being collected, the SEPE continues to pay Social Security contributions on the regulatory basis, which is the average of the last 180 days (article 270.1 of the General Social Security Law). “Even if you are unemployed, you continue to accumulate contributions that can be important for the calculation of your future pension,” he points out.
The second piece of advice has to do with the date on which you decide to end your working life. All contributory pensions are revalued each year, on January 1, with the average CPI, so for the civil servant, if the ordinary age is a few months away, it may be interesting to retire in December. “December can become a particularly interesting month for those who are a few months away from their ordinary retirement,” especially with the high CPI, something that has already been explained in detail along with the four-month jump in the coefficients.
Twenty months ahead instead of twenty-four
The third tip is to play with the months ahead of the normal age and not automatically use the maximum advance. “If you request retirement 2 years before, a 21% penalty may be applied. But if you do so 4 months later, that is, 1 year and 8 months before your ordinary age, the penalty that would be applied may be 11%, almost half,” he explains.
In the table with the reducing coefficients and that appears in article 208.2 of the LGSS, the cuts are greater the fewer years the contributions have been made. For long careers (from 38 years and six months to 41 years and six months), the cut goes from 19% to 10.5%, and with 44 and a half years or more, from 13% to 9.2%.
Added to this is another piece of advice that, more than a recommendation, is an obligation, since to access voluntary early retirement, in addition to having 35 years of contributions, it is necessary that the resulting pension (after applying the reducing coefficients) be higher than the minimum pension in force for your family situation. The minimum retirement pension with a dependent spouse is set at 1,256.60 euros per month in 2026 (in 14 payments), according to the annex to Royal Decree 241/2026. This is one of the reasons why you may be denied voluntary early retirement.
Let’s take the example of a worker who has 36 years of contributions, a dependent spouse and a pension of 1,450 euros before the cut. If you request the pension with an advance over the ordinary age of 24 months, you would have 1,145.50 euros left and it would be denied. Now, if you wait four months the coefficient drops to 11% and would leave it at 1,290.50 euros, above the minimum (the penalty drops almost in half for four months).
Not all layoffs allow involuntary early retirement
The fifth and last piece of advice is about involuntary early retirement, which allows the ordinary age to be advanced up to a maximum of 48 months (4 years). Explain that not any dismissal is valid. “There are people who think that because they have been fired they can retire up to four years earlier and that is not necessarily the case.”
Article 207.1.d) only admits assessed causes, including collective dismissal, objective dismissal, termination by judicial resolution in a contest, death, retirement or disability of the employer and force majeure, but not disciplinary dismissal.
“The important thing is to know exactly what was the cause of termination of our contract,” he summarizes. In the collective dismissal and the objective, it is also necessary to prove that the compensation was collected (or that it was claimed in court), so it is advisable to keep “the dismissal letter, the settlement and the bank justification of the collection of the compensation.” Finding another job later, he clarifies, does not necessarily lose the right to involuntary employment.
Ignacio Solsona, lawyer: “If before the end of the year you can request an early retirement under good conditions, go ahead, but do not make a hasty decision for fear of a future change that we do not even know if it will come”
Maribel Doctor, pensioner with 44 and a half years of contributions: “They unfairly cut my pension every month”
“The difference of a few months can change the reducing coefficient and, therefore, the amount of our retirement for life,” concludes Alfonso Muñoz Cuenca.