The new flexible retirement rules, which allow pensioners to return to work as self-employed and combine this activity with part of the pension, have been in effect since this Friday. The royal decree, published in the Official State Gazette (BOE) in May, extends this modality to self-employment. Until now, retirees could only benefit from it if they returned to work as employees.
Read more Illa promises decisions in the new political course that “will determine the next decade”
From today, pensioners who want to return to the labor market through self-employment can do so with one condition: not having been registered as self-employed during the three years prior to their retirement. In this case, they will retain the right to receive 25% of the pension.
Retirees who want to work as self-employed must not have been self-employed during the last three years
For retirees who decide to continue working as employees, the regulation allows combining the pension with part-time employment, with a workday between 33% and 80% of a full-time worker. Until now, the limit was between 25% and 75%. As before, the pension will be reduced according to the working hours: the more hours worked, the lower the benefit.
Additionally, to encourage this formula, if flexible retirement is accessed at least six months after leaving the labor market, the pensioner can benefit from an additional percentage of the pension. Thus, those who work between 55% and 80% of the workday will add 25% more benefit, while those who work between 33% and less than 55% can receive an extra 15%.
Finally, the reform also introduces improvements in the delay supplement, which applies to those who continue working once they have reached the ordinary retirement age and delay collecting the pension. This group can choose between receiving an additional 4% pension for each year of delay, receiving a lump sum payment, or combining both formulas. It is precisely this last option that incorporates changes: when at least two years of delay have accumulated, full semesters will also be taken into account, allowing the incentive to be adjusted upwards in certain cases.
With these new rules, the pension reform initiated in 2021 and agreed with social agents is completed. This package of measures aimed, among other objectives, to encourage more people to delay retirement age and promote this type of scheme. According to data from the Ministry of Inclusion, Social Security and Migrations, workers who decide to delay their retirement beyond the ordinary age increased from 4.8% in 2021 to 10.9% in 2025. Early retirements exceeded 43% in 2018 but are currently around 30%.
The self-employed organization UPTA denounced this Friday that the new regulation to combine the pension with employment leaves the self-employed “at a clear disadvantage” compared to employees, since one of the conditions is not having worked as self-employed during the last three years. For the entity, it is “especially serious” that a reform intended to expand the possibilities of combining retirement and work introduces precisely a “barrier” that greatly hinders access.
The self-employed organization UPTA denounces that this new regulation leaves the group “at a clear disadvantage”
For UPTA, this requirement creates a “hardly understandable” situation, since a self-employed person who reaches retirement age after decades of activity cannot go directly from working in their business to flexible retirement. “It makes no sense to legally open flexible retirement to self-employment and, at the same time, close the door to those who reach retirement as self-employed,” they complain.
