Eligibility for a full German state pension

How many years does an EU member have to work in Germany to receive a full retirement/Senior Citizen pension?
If someone worked so many years in another EU country and also in Germany would both countries contributions be calculated to give a pro rata sum or how does it work? Would be really grateful if anyone can answer this please.

I got this from the German pension website

Ich bin belgischer Staatsbürger mit Wohnsitz in Belgien. Ich habe 10 Jahre in der deutschen und 25 Jahre in der belgischen Rentenversicherung zurückgelegt. Von wem erhalte ich später meine Rente?
Eine von einem Staat gezahlte Gesamtrente aus allen Versicherungszeiten ist nicht vorgesehen. Jeder Staat, also in Ihrem Fall Belgien und Deutschland, zahlt eine gesonderte Rente. Nach Erreichen des Rentenalters werden Sie demnach zwei verschiedene Altersrenten beziehen.

Quick and dirty translation (it's from the FAQ's) Maybe it answers your question.

I am a Belgian citizen residing in Belgium. I eat frites and waffles. I have paid into the German pension for 10 years and the Belgian one for 25. From which one will I collect my pension later?

There is no unified pension whereby one pension is paid by one State from payments made into various systems. Every State, - in your case Belgium and Germany - will pay its own pension. After you have reached pensionable age, you will receive two different old-age pensions.

Try this Rentenrechner

Basically the pension you receive is simply calcualted from your contributions. The more you earnt and thus put into the system, the more you get back.

1. If this is true it could be advantageous - if the German pension scheme decided to lower pension rates the have no handle over the Belgian pension.
2. If this is true it could be dissadvantageous - if the Belgian scheme drops its rates faster than the German one - and if Belgian scheme is not index-linked.
3. I am not so sure it is true though - I understood that the pension rights ARE transferred & you'd just get a German one.

In my case my 11 years working in UK (before I started to earn in Germany with a German employer) were for a British University & they opted out of the UK state pension scheme & have their own. this is NOT transferable to the German scheme - which is probably a good thing as at least that University pension is inflation-indexed & out of influence of German authorities...

Thank you all so much for that and kind of you to look it up for me. It can be so confusing when one has worked in so many different places and the other point is that in Ireland and Germany the State Pension is paid five years later than in Ireland. Also, I have a friend who was assessed as Disabled before she left Germany and was receiving a small allowance as well as working the limited amount of hours permitted within the capabilities of her disability. She was told categorically by the BFA that she would continue to receive this amount until such time as she reached pensionable age, providing she was able to supply medial evidence every two years that her condition hadn't changed, or should we say hadn't improved. In actual fact she is unable to sit, walk or stand for more than a few minutes owing to spinal pain. After two years had passed since her arrival home, she sent the medical evidence required and filled in numerous forms etc, and now after five years she is still waiting to know why her claim is not being dealt with and has received no further payments. It all sounds so complex and of course is made doubly difficult when one has to complete official forms in German, especially when one has become unaccustomed to using the language. Anyway, as a word of warning, anyone who intends leaving Germany would benefit greatly from making absolutely sure of their rights and get all the info in writing before leaving for home. I too will no doubt have to fill in numerous forms when the time to claim this pension comes round and I am not really looking forward to it to be honest. Thanks to all again.

The introduction of the occasional paragraph would improve readability...


Its called Rentenauskunft.

I obtained one just over a year ago to deal with evidence for my German pension rights - given that in Germany studying time counts & school after a certain age. Good idea to gather evidence whilst memories not too dim & people who may have taught you are still alive. I managed to get a confirmation of school attendance from my UK old school - in fact headmaster wrote the letter in German!

IN some cases it will make a lot of sense to employ the services of a specialized lawyer/solicitor when fighting for pension rights. I would strongly recommend for your friend to do just that. From your description it sounds like she became "Erwerbsunfähig" or is lving in a status of "Volle Erwerbsminderung", meaning she can not even work for at least 3 hours per day any job at all. While the people born before 1961 are quite well (in a manner) covered by governement pension, this is much worse for people being born after 1961.

Since the legal matters behind these regulations are fuzzy and complex, a good recommendation from a non-expert in this particular law is hard to come by. For instance says the law that she would have had to pay at least 36 month of contributions (i.e. deductions from gross salary) into the social welfare system within the last 5 years before applying for this kind of pension and this fact needs to be checked in order to see if she has a claim at all.

http://ec.europa.eu/employment_social/soci...e/homepage.psml

some info on the european commissions website about pension coordination.

afaiu, if you worked e.g. 10 years in uk, and 30 years in Germany you should get 3/4 of a German pension and 1/4 of a uk pension.