Polen
The rules for granting retirement benefits are defined in the Act on Retirements and Pensions Payable from the Social Insurance Fund dated December 17, 1998. This Act differentiates the terms for establishing the conditions required to obtain entitlement to a pension, depending on the insured person’s date of birth.
Persons born before 1st January, 1949, may exercise their entitlement to a retirement pension upon meeting two conditions: that they have reached the minimum retirement age, which is 60 years for women and 65 years for men, and that they have documented a contributory period (supplemented by a non-contributory period amounting to not more than 1/3 of the contributory period), which is 20 years for women and 25 years for men.
A woman of 60 years of age may also exercise her entitlement to a retirement pension if she can provide proof of contributory and non-contributory periods of at least 15 years in total, and a man of 65 years of age may exercise his entitlement if he can provide proof of contributory and non-contributory periods of at least 20 years in total. However, it is worth noting that there is no guarantee that these retirement pensions will reach the minimum retirement pension level, due to the period of paying social insurance contributions being shorter than required. If, after the calculation, it appears that the level of retirement pension will be lower than the minimum retirement pension, then the payment made will be equivalent to the calculated amount.
Only employees are permitted to retire at an earlier age. A woman who can provide proof of at least 30 years of eligible service for a retirement pension, or a 20-year qualifying period of service, may retire at 55 years of age if she has obtained a pension for total incapacity for work. A man with at least 25 years of eligible service for his retirement pension and a recognised total incapacity for work may obtain a retirement pension at 60 years of age.
The entitlement to earlier retirement is granted to workers who can provide proof of the required contributory and non-contributory periods, namely 20 years for women and 25 years for men, including at least 10 or 15 years of work under particular conditions or of a particular nature, respectively. Persons meeting the above criteria may retire at the age defined for specific vocational groups set out in the relevant regulation.
The aforementioned terms for obtaining entitlement to earlier retirement also apply to persons born between 1949 and 1968 who meet the required criteria before the end of 2007 and have not joined the Open Pension Fund (OFE), or persons who apply for an assignment of moneys collected on the Open Pension Fund account by the Social Insurance Institution to the State Treasury revenue.
Persons born between 1949 and 1968 who met the required criteria regarding the contributory and non-contributory periods, including the period of work under particular conditions or of a particular nature, on January 1, 1999, may also obtain entitlement to earlier retirement. These persons will be able to retire earlier if they have not joined an Open Pension Fund and their employment contract has ended.
All persons born after December 31, 1968, and persons born between 1949 and 1968 who have joined an Open Pension Fund are covered by the reformed retirement scheme. The retirement entitlements of these persons are conditional on their reaching a minimum age of 60 years for women and 65 years for men.
The decision as to when to retire is up to each insured person who has reached the required minimum age, regardless of sex.
The terms for payment of retirement contributions are defined in the regulations of the Act on Social Insurance System.
The new retirement system applies in full to insured persons born after December 31, 1968, and provides for mandatory participation in the 1st and 2nd retirement scheme.
The 1st retirement scheme is governed by the Social Insurance Institution. Contributions transferred by an employer to the Social Insurance Institution are registered in the personal account of the insured person. Participation in the 2nd retirement scheme comprises part of the employee’s contribution (amounting to 7.3% of the base for calculation) which is forwarded to the Social Insurance Institution and later transferred to the Open Pension Fund indicated by the insured person.
Insured persons born after December 31, 1968 are obliged to split their contributions. Insured persons born between 1949 and 1968 may voluntarily join the Open Pension Fund.
The retirement insurance contributions of insured persons who have not joined the Open Pension Fund are transferred in full to the Social Insurance Institution.
The Office of Foreign Pensions and organisational units of the Social Insurance Institution, appointed by the Chairman of the Social Insurance Institution, perform the duties of granting retirement pensions to persons living in the territory of another European Union Member State, as well as persons living outside the EU linked with Poland by an international agreement regarding social insurance. The same principle applies to persons whose periods of insurance spent abroad were taken into account when determining their entitlement and the amount of their retirement, if the international agreements state so.
