One of the objectives of the pension reform committed to Brussels is to ensure that work races voluntar Baby Boomers without resorting to new increases from the legal age.
The Government has deployed since 2021 measures to favor retirement delay. The last package, approved in December 2024 and in force since April 1, introduced changes in active retirement, partial and delay. These are modalities that allow combining the collection of the pension with a salary, but that until now have had residual implementation in Spain, something anomalous if compared to the European environment.
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Eurostat places Spain among countries with more steep transitions from employment to retirement (the report can be consulted in this link). Only 4.9% of those who began collecting the retirement pension continued to work totally or partially, compared to 13% on the EU. Below are only Greece (4.2%) and Romania (1.7%). On the other hand, in Estonia more than half of the retirees continue to work at the beginning of their retirement and in Sweden it is 41.7%. The reasons differ: in the Baltic the economic need prevails and in the Nordics the enjoyment and social integration, factors that in Spain barely have weight.
To explain the Spanish exceptionality, two main reasons converge. The first is that pensions are relatively generous: the replacement rate, which measures the percentage of the last salary covered by the benefit, reaches 80%, the second highest in the OECD after Greece (information that can be consulted in this report). The second is that the regulation has historically discouraged these mixed formulas, until its reform in 2025. In fact, almost 45% of the few retirees who compatible do so for reasons other than necessity or enjoyment; Only 19.6% alleges economic need and 17.9% pleasure in continuing to work.
A reform that seeks greater flexibility
Active retirement (which was renovated under Royal Decree 11/2024 and Validado in January 2025) now allows pension and employment to be compatible after at least one year of delay on ordinary age, with increasing percentages of pension: 45% the first year, 55% the second, 65% the third, 80% the fourth and 100% from the fifth, with additional increases of 5% for each year. In addition, for the first time this incentive can be accumulated with the accessories of delayed retirement.
Partial retirement expands the possible advance to three years and hardens the conditions of the relief contract, which must be indefinite full time, while the delayed retirement adds a plus of 2% for each additional semester of delay from the second year. These measures are already producing effects: the average age of access to retirement is 65.2 years, early retirements have fallen to 28.6% of the new high and delayed have risen up to about 10%.
Reversible retirement, on the way
The government finalizes the reversible retirement, which will replace the failed flexible retirement of 2002 (only 3,174 beneficiaries in March 2025). This will allow to return to the labor market after retirement, with partial days between 40% and 80% and a complement of between 10% and 20% of the pension, according to dedication. For self -employed, with restrictions, compatibility will be 20%.
Official projections estimate that more than 30,000 retirees will be host to this modality between 2026 and 2030, which is equivalent to 1.8% of the new highs. The fiscal impact will be limited – among 185 and 285 million annual net savings in 2033 – but the objective is cultural: to open the door to more progressive retirements and approach Spain to European standards.
Sustainability under uncertainty
The Bank of Spain has warned that incentives to delay retirement have an uncertain and limited effect on spending if its use is not generalized. With an expense in pensions that exceeds 13,588 million euros per month and an average retirement pension of 1,506.46 euros in July 2025, any budget relief will be marginal in the short term.
Spain also starts an adverse social context. While in Sweden 36% of retirees who continue working do so because they enjoy, in Spain this reason barely reaches 18%. With one of the highest life hopes in Europe and a particularly generous public system, the appeal to continue working after retirement is still scarce.
For now, the country continues to be a rare Avis in the euro zone, where retirement almost always equals at the final end of working life and only one in 20 pensioners combines pension and work.