advance retirement without penalties

If you reached the age of 60 and have a long contributory career, ask for early retirement without cuts. Know the conditions.

At long contributory careers are, since 2017, more protected. The rule is that anyone who is at least 60 years old and has 48 years of discounts, or 46 years of discounts if they started working when they were less than 17 years old, can retire before the legal age to access the old-age pension ( which, in 2023, is 66 years and 4 months).

In any of these situations, Social Security does not penalize the anticipation of the retirement age, nor introduces the cut via the sustainability factor.

Long contributory careers: how does this scheme work?

Faced with a regime that was extremely penalizing, the regime of long contributory careers has the following objectives:

• Protect and value those who have many years of discounts, in order to improve the retirement conditions of all future pensioners;
• Promoting the extension of active life;
• Making the Social Security system sustainable in the long term;
• Simplify the early retirement allocation system and make it more transparent.

Under this regime, early retirement is no longer subject to a double penalty, given that the sustainability factor is no longer appliedwhich reduced the amount of the pension whatever the distance to the normal retirement age, be it one month or six years.

The personal retirement age

The regime of long contributory careers allows the definition of a personal retirement age. That is, an age for accessing retirement entirely different and lower than the legal age in force.

In practice, each pensioner has their own retirement age, which depends only on their age and the years of their contributory career.

But how is the “personal” retirement age determined? The table provided by Social Security informs that:

• With 46 years of discounts, you can apply for retirement under this regime at 64 years and 7 months;
• With 47 years of discounts, at 64 years and 3 months old;
• With 48 years of discounts, at 63 years and 11 months;
• With 49 years of discounts, at 63 years and 7 months;
• With 50 years of discounts, at 63 years and 3 months;
• With 51 years of discounts, at 62 years and 11 months.

Also according to Social Security, the normal age of access to the pension (66 years and 4 months in 2023) is reduced by four months for each year beyond 40 in the contributory career. It is from this age onwards that you will not incur any pension penalty.

Article originally published in July 2019. Last updated in January 2023.