Pension after 45 years: Bas promises you protection of legitimate expectations
Labor Minister Bärbel Bas has promised in the Bundestag that the penalty-free pension after 45 years of insurance contributions will not be abolished without a transition period. There will be protection of legitimate expectations, everyone can rely on that, she said during the budget debate on Friday, announcing transition periods. At the end of August, she had expressed openness to a period of about five years, a figure previously mentioned by the chair of the Pension Commission, Constanze Janda.
It is important to understand what this means. The so-called "pension at 63" is the old-age pension for those with a particularly long insurance history of 45 years. It is penalty-free, but it has long been impossible to receive it at 63: for the 1964 birth cohort and later, the retirement age is 65. On June 23, the Pension Commission recommended abolishing this pension and only allowing early retirement with deductions or through a new protective pension for health reasons. For the pension after 35 years, which is possible from age 63 with a deduction of up to 14.4 percent, it recommends a starting age of 64.
Nothing has been decided yet. So far, there is no ministerial draft, no cabinet decision, and no bill in the Bundestag. The ministry is working on a draft, the cabinet is expected to address it in the autumn, and the coalition aims to have the law finalized by the end of the year. Bas has promised a principle, not a deadline or a specific birth year.
Anyone born in 1966 or later should therefore no longer count on the penalty-free early pension. This calculation comes from media reports and not from a government document: it assumes a decision will be made this year and includes a five-year transition period.
Two things are worth doing now. Request a pension statement and an account clarification from the German Pension Insurance (Deutsche Rentenversicherung) so that your 45 years are documented before any potential deadline. And wait for the draft in the autumn, as that is where it will first be stated which birth cohorts will be protected.