Belgian pension age: 66 now, 67 from 2030

In Belgium, the state pension is due at 66. It will be due at 67 for pensions starting on or after 1 February 2030. Leaving earlier remains possible, from 60, provided you can show between 42 and 44 career years depending on the age you pick.

One statutory age, three schemes that share it, and a way of counting years that changes on 1 January 2027.

At what age is the pension due as of right?

Sixty-six.

The increase is set out in the Act of 10 August 2015 raising the statutory retirement age, and it works by the date the pension starts, not by date of birth. The Federal Pensions Service, the federal body that pays state pensions, publishes the three steps.

The third column deserves an explanation, because it appears nowhere in the law. A pension starts, as a rule, on the first day of the month following the one in which the age condition is met. Someone born on 31 December 1963 turns 66 on 31 December 2029, and their pension can start on 1 January 2030, the last day of the 66 step. Someone born on 2 January 1964 also turns 66, on 2 January 2030, but their pension would only start on 1 February 2030, the first day of the 67 step, so they will work a year longer for a two-day difference in birth date. The dividing line therefore falls at the calendar-year change between 1963 and 1964, even though the legal text never mentions a year of birth.

Can you leave before the statutory age?

Yes, and age alone is not enough: you need a matching career length.

These thresholds apply to employees, the self-employed and civil servants alike. Softer transitional rules remain for people born before 1958, and some categories of civil servants benefit from a coefficient that lengthens the career counted, notably in education, at HR Rail (the railway staff employer) and in so-called active services.

What counts as a career year?

Today, 104 days are enough. From 2027, 156 will be needed, and that threshold will apply retroactively to years already worked.

For the early-retirement career condition, paid days count, along with a long list of assimilated periods:

• unemployment paid by ONEM, the federal employment office, whether temporary or full;
• recognised illness and invalidity;
• maternity, birth, parental and adoption leave;
• time credit and thematic leave taken to care for a relative;
• military service;
• occupational accidents and occupational diseases.

Regularised study periods are the exception: they raise the amount of the pension, but they do not count towards the retirement date.

Three days a week for 45 years is exactly 7,020 days

The law passed on 28 May 2026 and published in the Belgian Official Gazette on 1 June adds a second condition, known as the double employment condition: 35 years each containing at least 156 days, and 7,020 days across the whole career.

Those two numbers are not independent. A full career is 45 years, and 45 times 156 gives 7,020 to the day. The day total therefore matches, exactly, a whole career worked three days a week. The annual threshold of 156 days is itself three days a week over fifty-two weeks, where the current 104 days were two.

The gap between the two conditions can be measured too. Thirty-five years of 156 days make 5,460 days; the 7,020 required sit 1,560 days higher, the equivalent of ten extra years at the same threshold. Meeting the first condition therefore says nothing about the second.

Does the malus move the retirement date?

No. It affects the amount, never the date.

Someone who meets the age and career conditions can leave on the planned date, whether or not the double employment condition is met. If it is not, the pension is cut by a percentage for each year of anticipation relative to the statutory age, prorated by month. That percentage depends on year of birth: nil up to 1960, 2% from 1961 to 1965, 4% from 1966 to 1974, and 5% from 1975 onwards. The measure applies to pensions starting on or after 1 January 2027.

A worked example makes the order of magnitude readable. Someone born in 1970 reaches the statutory age of 67 in 2037. If they leave at 63, in 2033, they anticipate by four full years, or 48 months, and their cohort rate is 4% per year: the reduction reaches 16%. On a gross pension of 1,500 euros a month, that is 240 euros less each month, and 2,880 euros over a twelve-payment year.

The same scale runs the other way beyond the statutory age, as a bonus, with rates of 2% to 5% per extra year worked and assimilated periods counted more strictly. The federal government presents the package as a measure meant to fund the system by lengthening careers. Trade unions and part of the opposition have announced their intention to bring the case before the Constitutional Court, VRT NWS reported on 29 May 2026. How that procedure will end cannot be anticipated here.

Do the self-employed and civil servants retire at the same age?

Same statutory age, same career thresholds, different counting.

For a self-employed person, a year counts if pension rights were built up for at least two quarters in a main occupation or assimilated, INASTI, the federal institute for the self-employed, specifies. For an employee or a civil servant, the count is in days. Some categories of civil servants also have their own age limit, higher for judges, lower for certain military personnel. The 2026 reform raises the retirement age for the armed forces and for SNCB train drivers, and gradually extends, by 2062, the reference period used to calculate the pension of appointed staff.

Do women still have a lower pension age?

No, and not since 1 January 2009. The Royal Decree of 23 December 1996 raised their age from 60 to 65 in three-year steps. Every later increase has applied without distinction.

What should you do in your situation?

Who sets the pension age?

The federal legislator, and nobody else. Statutory pensions are a federal competence, exercised by the Chamber of Representatives on a government bill; neither the Regions nor the Communities have any say, including over the pension scheme of teaching staff, which Article 127 of the Constitution likewise reserves to the federal level even though education itself is a Community matter.

The retirement age therefore appears in every election manifesto, and positions diverge sharply from one party to the next. The ranking and the comparator set out those positions theme by theme; the methodology explains how they are collected and recalls that the published scores describe a position on an axis, never a quality. For the detail of the costed proposals, the article on pensions in Belgian party manifestos compares them measure by measure, and the one on social security places the pensions branch within the wider system.

Sources: Federal Pensions Service, “When can I take my pension?”, statutory age steps, early-retirement conditions, transitional measures and preferential accrual rates; Act of 10 August 2015 raising the statutory retirement age, Justel database; INASTI, early retirement for the self-employed and counting by quarters; VRT NWS, 29 May 2026, adoption of the pension reform by the Chamber, bonus, malus, armed forces and railway staff, reference period for civil servants; RTBF, 31 July 2025, how the bonus and malus work and the rates by year of birth; CSC, trade-union briefing detailing the double employment condition, reserve days and balancing days; securitesociale.be, pension for physical unfitness for civil servants; FPS Public Health, Medex, temporary scheme in force since 1 January 2025; Guide social, Royal Decree of 23 December 1996 and the alignment completed in 2009; Belgian Constitution, Article 127, Belgian Senate.