Amount of earnings-related pension

Your earnings-related pension is based on all your earnings from work and self-employment during your working life. You also earn pension for fringe benefits such as lunch, telephone and car benefits.

The longer you work and the later you retire, the higher your pension will be. Similarly, the higher your earnings or your income from self-employment are, the higher your pension will be.

Read more about the self-employed person’s pension amount

How your pension will grow

As an employee, you start earning pension funds as of age 17. As a self-employed person, you start earning pension funds as of age 18.

You accrue pension funds at a rate of

• 1.5% of your gross annual earnings, or
• 1.7% of your gross annual earnings if you are between 53 and 62 years old during the transition period from 2017 to 2025.

You can earn a pension up to the age when your insurance obligation ends. This “upper” age limit is five years above your retirement age.

Increase for late retirement and life expectancy coefficient

If you retire after you have reached your retirement age, your pension will rise because of an increase due to late retirement.

Also the life expectancy coefficient affects your pension amount. The coefficient will reduce monthly pensions in line with how the average life expectancy continues to grow.

Pension for studies, periods of social security benefits and work abroad

In addition to work or self-employment, you earn pension funds during periods when:

• you are studying on a course that leads to, for example, a vocational basic qualification or a university degree;
• you are on social benefits such as the:
  • parental allowance,
  • sickness allowance, and
  • earnings-related unemployment allowance.
• you care for your own children under the age of 3 at home.

For most work done abroad, you will also earn pension funds. Before going abroad, find out how your pension insurance is to be arranged in the country in which you will work.

No pension for work done off the books

You will accrue pension funds only for work for which you pay income tax. If you work off the books, it means that your employer does not pay pension insurance contributions. As a result, your future pension will be smaller.

Your share of the earnings-related pension contribution is listed on your pay slip. Check your pension record to make sure that your employer has also paid its share of the contribution and that you have accrued pension funds correctly.

No pension for military or non-military service

Pension does not accrue for periods of military or non-military service.

How pension funds accrued before 2017

Between the years 2005 and 2016, you accrued pension funds at the following rates: 

• 1.5% of your annual gross wages if you were between 18 and 52 years old,
• 1.9% of your annual gross wages if you were between 53 and 62 years old, and
• 4.5% of your annual gross wages if you were between 63 and 67  years old.

Until the end of 2004, you accrued pension funds at the following rates:

• 1.5% before you turned 60 years, and
• 2.5% after you turned 60 years.

Before 2005, you started to accrue pension funds after you turned 23 years. Between the years 2005 and 2016, you accrued pension funds after you turned 18. The former age limits will affect the pensions of many for a long time since earnings-related pension acts do not apply retroactively.

Updated 20.1.2023