Gobierno de España. Ministerio de Inclusión, Seguridad Social y Migraciones. Secretaría de Estado de la Seguridad Social y Pensiones - Dirección General de Ordenación de la Seguridad Social
Administración Presupuestaria

Types of retirement

Civil servant retirement may be:

  • Forced, when they reach the legally established age
  • Declaration of permanent disability/incapacity with respect to the exercise of the functions corresponding to the department or rank
  • Voluntary, at the request of the civil servant

OBLIGATORY RETIREMENT DUE TO AGE

The compulsory retirement of a civil servant takes effect automatically upon his or her 65th birthday, subject to the following exceptions

  • Officials of university faculties: at age 70, with the option of retiring at the end of the academic year in which the official reaches that age.
  • Magistrates, Judges, Attorneys and Lawyers of the Administration of Justice are forced to retire at 70.
  • Property registrars joining before 1-1-2015: at age 70.

Civil servants of the State Public Administration and organisations governed by public law or dependent thereon may choose to extend their time in active service until they turn seventy (maximum), in accordance with the following procedure:

  • The interested party begins the process via a written document addressed to the retirement body, which shall be recognised by the head of personnel of the centre where they are employed, and it should be presented at least two months prior to turning the age of compulsory retirement. Said request shall automatically mean the compulsory retirement procedure shall not begin or shall be suspended should it already have begun.
  • The corresponding organ shall issue a reasoned resolution within one month of the date of the request, which may only be negative when the applicant does not comply with the age requirements or the request was presented late, outside the time limit of two months, as previously indicated.
  • In any case, if no express decision has been communicated within 15 days of the date of turning the age of compulsory retirement, the interested party's request shall be considered to be accepted (positive administrative silence)

The civil servant may end the extension of active service by notifying the competent body of his planned compulsory retirement date due to age at least three months in advance of this date.

The extension of time in active service does not apply to civil servants of bodies and scales with specific retirement regulations.

RETIREMENT RETIREMENT DUE TO PERMANENT DISABILITY/INCAPACITY FOR SERVICE

This is declared ex-officio or on request when the individual concerned is affected by a "pathological, somatic or psychological injury or process that is stabilised and irreversible or of unlikely or uncertain irreversibility, that totally prevents the individual from performing the tasks of his or her Corps, Scale, post or career" (article 28.2.c) of the consolidated text of the Law on pensions for government officials.

The retirement pension for permanent disability/incapacity for service is calculated in the same way as the ordinary retirement pension, with the exception that when the former occurs while the civil servant is in active service or an equivalent situation, in addition to the years of service so far completed, the complete years remaining in order to reach retirement age are also considered as effective service in the Branch, Rank, location, job or category occupied at the moment of retirement.

However, from 1 January 2009, when the interested party can accredit fewer than twenty years of service at the time the event occurs and the disability does not make him/her incapacitated for any trade or profession, the ordinary retirement pension, calculated as indicated in the above paragraph, shall be reduced by 5% for each complete year of service remaining 20 years of service are completed, with a maximum of 25% for those who can prove 15 or fewer years of service. If, after the pension has been approved but before reaching retirement age, the illness or injuries of the applicant worsen so as to disable him/her for any profession or trade, he/she may request an increase in the pension up to 100% of the full pension that could have applied.

VOLUNTARY RETIREMENT

Public officials under the Passive Class System may retire voluntarily after the age of 60 years, provided that they acknowledge having provided 30 years of service to the State.

When, in order to complete the required thirty years of service, periods of contributions to other social security systems would need to be counted, in application of the rules on reciprocal calculation of payments between social security systems (Royal Decree 691/1991, de 12 April 1991), entitlement to the relevant pension will be conditional on the last five years of pensionable service being covered by the State Passive Class System, where retirement takes place after 1 January 2011. This requirement shall not apply to officials of the State Administration on active duty, special services, those on leave for family or childcare and those on leave due to gender violence who, after passing the entrance examinations and promotion procedures covered by the general regulations relating to the civil service, switch social welfare systems.

This rule shall also apply when, in order to complete the thirty years of service required, periods of insurance, residence or similar covered outside Spain derived from the application of bilateral agreements or community regulations on the coordination of social security systems have to be included, except when these periods correspond to activities that, if they had taken place in Spain, would have led to obligatory inclusion in the “Passive Classes” Regime.

Staff of the Cortes Generales (Spanish Parliament) may retire voluntarily when they turn 60 years old or if they acknowledge having provided 35 years of effective service to the State.

The procedure shall be initiated in writing by the interested party, indicating necessarily the desired date of retirement, presenting the document to the retirement department at least three months prior to the retirement date requested.

In addition to the voluntary retirement available for all civil servants with corresponding pensions (60 years old and 30 years of service to the state), civil servants of University Teaching Bodies, as well as Magistrates, Judges, Attorneys and Lawyers of the Administration of Justice, who are forced to retire at 70, can now retire from age 65, having provided at least 15 years of service to the State. For Magistrates, Judges, Attorneys and Lawyers of the Administration of Justice, this kind of voluntary retirement can be requested six months prior to the retirement date.