Retirement for self-employed: requirements, pension and more

I’m sure you know that self-employed people are entitled to a retirement pension, but you may not know how self-employed retirement works.

How many years does a self-employed person have to contribute to retirement?

The requirements to be able to access the retirement for the self-employed are the following: age 63 years old and have a quotation of 35 years in his working life, provided that two of them have been for the past 15 years prior to retirement.

Active retirement is what occurs when you are a pensioner and also continue to develop an economic activity or work for others. This case of active retirement has given rise to the increasingly frequent situation of active pensioners, as many self-employed want to continue with their business once retired. This option has been possible since 2013 and is not only possible for the self-employed, but also for all employees.

In order to benefit from this pension, self-employed persons must meet the following requirements:

• A pension can only be granted when the legal age is reached and 100 per cent of the required years have been paid. It is currently required to be 65 years, 36 years and 6 months of minimum contribution or 65 years and 6 months of age, with less than 36 years and 6 months of contribution.
• Retirements that have occurred in advance and those that are eligible for a bonus are not included.
• The work done can be part-time or full-time.
• The economic activity can be carried out on a self-employed or employed basis.

What does a self-employed person need to retire?

In addition to meeting the above requirements, in order to retire, the self-employed person must present all the documents required for the retirement benefit at the National Social Security Institute and this can be done in person, electronically or through postal mail. The required documentation is a photocopy of the DNI, the bank details to be able to direct the income and the family book if you are not single, divorced or widowed.

Once this is presented, the Social Security starts paying the pension monthly, in addition to two extraordinary payments. The self-employed person also receives a communication through which he / she is given a negative or affirmative answer through an SMS or registered letter.

It is important that the freelancer receives this answer within a maximum period of 90 days. If you do not receive it, you have a period of 30 days to be able to claim it through administrative channels. After this, Social Security has to respond within 45 days. If there is a negative response from the Social Security, the self-employed can appeal to the court and appeal this administrative decision.

In addition to all this, the self-employed can not have debts with Social Security.

If you want to know more about the subject, you may be interested in knowing if retirement is what most concerns the elderly.

In fact, it is a very worrying issue for the Spanish working population and, in particular, for the self-employed, since in many cases they have paid very little contributions and will receive very meager pensions in the future.

On average, the self-employed receive about 720 euros per month of pension because the usual thing is that the self-employed have contributed by the minimum base. 86% of the self-employed opt to pay taxes on the minimum base. Thus, when the self-employed contribute the minimum, they receive 41% less pension than salaried workers.

For this reason, advisors always recommend that the self-employed begin to raise the contribution of the Special Scheme for Self-employed Workers (RETA) as they approach retirement age or extend their working life as much as possible and even reconcile the collection of the pension with a part-time or full-time job.

According to recent data from the National Federation of Self-Employed Workers (ATA), there has been a considerable increase of up to almost 90 percent in the last 10 years of self-employed workers extending their working life beyond 65 years.