To access early retirement, Social Security requires having a minimum number of years of contributions and a certain age. This modality is intended for people with long contribution careers. To calculate the minimum access age requirement, Social Security uses the “shadow contributions” mechanism, which allows projecting the years that a worker would have contributed if he had continued to be active from the date of the causative event (cessation or application) until what would be his ordinary retirement age.
Shadow contributions are regulated in article 207.2 (forced early retirement) and 208.2 (early retirement at the worker’s will) of the General Social Security Law. It is a mechanism that acts as a kind of fictitious projection of the years that a worker would have contributed. That is, they are not real contributions, but a calculation that Social Security uses exclusively for the purposes of determining the ordinary legal reference retirement age for the advance.
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How “shadow quotes” work
To understand the game of shadow contributions, we must be clear about how the ordinary retirement age works in Spain, which as we already know, there are two retirement ages, according to Law 27/2011. On the one hand, an age set at 65 years for those with long contribution careers, which by 2025 should be 38 years and 3 months or more. On the other hand, there is the progressive age, which in 2025 will be 66 years and 8 months for the rest, and which will reach 67 years in 2027. Thus, the contribution projection mechanism would work as follows.
In the case of early retirement with “Shadow Contributions” in favor, let’s think of a worker of 63 years and 3 months who wants to retire early voluntarily, which allows him a maximum of 2 years in advance. If you prove 36 and a half years of contributions at the time of termination, the system, instead of setting your ordinary reference age at 66 years and 8 months, adds the “shadow contributions” (the fictitious years from 63 years and 3 months to 66 years and 8 months, that is, 3 years and 5 months).
The Projected Total Quote is 39 years and 11 months. Given that this projection exceeds the 38 years and 3 months of contribution required, its reference age becomes 65 years. Applying the maximum of two years in advance, this person could retire at age 63.
In the case of involuntary early retirement with “shadow contributions” against (or limitation of the advance), it would be practically the same, but taking into account that in this case the maximum advance would be 4 years. Remember for this modality it is necessary to have 33 years of contributions.
This sum of “hypothetical” years is valid for both voluntary and involuntary and partial early retirement, as stated in Social Security regulations.
It cannot be used to increase the regulatory base or the years of contributions
Just as this mechanism allows us to add “hypothetical years of contributions” for the purposes of determining the retirement age, it cannot be used either to increase the regulatory base or to add years of contributions that increase the percentage to which one is entitled to said base. That is, it is valid to determine our retirement age if we wanted to retire early.