You can retire when you reach your retirement age. At the earliest, your old-age pension can be paid out from the beginning of the month following the month in which you reach your retirement age. You can claim the pension from both the earnings-related pension scheme and the national pension scheme (Kela) at the same time.
As a rule, claim your old-age pension around one month before you want to retire.
Select your year and month of birth. The calculator will tell you when you can retire.
Fill out the online claim form. Get started by clicking the button “Log in to the pension application service”. You will be forwarded to your own pension provider’s application service.
Log in to the pension application service
If your own pension provider does not offer an online application service, you can fill out a paper from or print out a form (7001e) that you have filled out online.
Old-age pension claim form in Forms
Old-age pension can be granted only after you have resigned from your employment relationship
Before your old-age pension can begin, you must have stopped working. You have to resign from your job according to the terms of notice of your collective agreement. Agree with your employer when your last day of work will be.
If you had several parallel employment relationships at the time of retirement and not all of them ended when you retired, you can claim the pension that you have earned for that employment relationship when that employment relationship ends.
You can claim your old-age pension three months in retrospect, counted from the month before you submitted your claim. However, your employment relationship must have ended before your old-age pension begins.
If you are self-employed, you can claim your old-age pension and continue your self-employment. In that case, you will not be able to continue paying statutory pension insurance. If you wish, you may, but you do not have to, insure your continued work with voluntary pension insurance.
If you are claiming a pension from abroad, as well, you have to fill out and send Appendix U.
Retirement ages
The retirement ages rise gradually as of 2017. If you were born in 1960, you can retire at age 64 years and 6 months at the earliest. The retirement age of those born in 1961 is 64 years and 9 months. In other words, the retirement age rises steadily by 3 months per year until it is 65 years.
National pension retirement age
The retirement age under the national pension scheme is 65 years. If you qualify for a national pension, you can select to take it out early, before you turn 65. If you were born before 1962, you can choose to take the pension early, as of age 64. If you were born in 1962 or later, you cannot take out your national old-age pension early (before age 65).
If you take out your national old-age pension early, it will be permanently reduced by 0.4% for each month from when you start drawing the pension to the month after you turn 65. If you wait to take out your national old-age pension at age 65, it will not be reduced.
In the future, when the retirement age of the old-age pension of the earnings-related pension system is linked to life expectancy as of those born in 1965, the retirement age of the national old-age pension will correspond to that of the earnings-related old-age pension.
Claim the pension you have earned in retirement
If you have worked while drawing an old-age pension, you have earned new pension for that work. You have to claim that pension separately once you have turned 68 years. Use the form for an old-age pension (7001e) to claim this new pension from the pension provider that is paying your current pension.
Your disability pension will be automatically converted to an old-age pension of the same amount
- when you reach the retirement age of your age group if your disability begins in 2017 or later;
- at age 63 if your disability began between 2006 and 2016;
- at age 65 if your disability began in 2005 or earlier.
Your full disability pension continues until your retirement age, at which time it will become an old-age pension of the same amount. Your partial disability pension will also become an old-age pension at your retirement age, but at the same time its amount doubles, that is, becomes a full disability pension.
If you have worked while drawing a disability pension or a years-of-service pension in 2005 or later, you must claim the pension you have earned for that work separately. If you have stopped working, you can submit your claim when your disability pension turns into an old-age pension. If you continue working, you can claim that pension once you stop working.
If you are unemployed, you can retire on the old-age pension when you reach the retirement age of your age group. You can choose to retire on the old-age pension immediately or continue drawing the unemployment allowance until you turn 65 years.
If you work in the public sector, you may have an occupational retirement age. That means that you may be entitled to retire on an old-age pension already before the general retirement age.
When the occupational retirement age was discontinued, the local government and state employees to whom it applied could choose whether to keep their occupational retirement age or switch to the general retirement age. The choice of occupational retirement age will remain in effect until retirement, provided that there are no interruptions in employment.
The previous occupational retirement ages began to rise gradually in connection with the pension reform: by 3 months for those who reached their occupational retirement age in 2018, by 6 months for those who reached it in 2019 and by 21 months for those who reach their occupational retirement age in 2024.