You generally only apply for pension once in your life. Don’t let it worry you; the process of retiring simply calls for a bit of planning – and the completion of an application.
Our pension advisers are happy to help with any questions you might have concerning retirement and pension applications!
Effective planning makes the application process easy!
- Read about the pension benefits and related requirements, and start considering the right time for you to retire.
- Check your retirement age for old-age pension and the estimated pension amount using the pension calculator for employees or the pension calculator for entrepreneurs. The calculators are currently available only in Finnish and Swedish.
- Plan the practical workplace arrangements with your employer to ensure that the transition to retirement will go as smoothly as possible. Agree, at least, on the use of any holiday time and check whether you need to submit a written notice of termination when you retire.
Complete an insurance application online
The fastest way to apply for a pension is to fill in an electronic application form in our online service. You need your personal online banking codes for logging in to the service.
With the same application form, you can claim earnings-related pension for work in both the private and the public sector, national pension and earnings-related pension from abroad.
It is also still possible to complete a paper application form and send it to us by mail. Further instructions can be found on our Forms and applications page.
The right time to hand in your pension application depends on which pension you are claiming.
- Old-age pension, partial old-age pension and years-of-service pension
should be applied for approximately one month before retiring.
- Disability pension
should be applied for at the latest 3-4 months before your sickness allowance paid by Kela ends.
- Survivors’ pension
should be applied for within 6 months from the death of the family wage earner.
National pension provides additional security to supplement a small earnings-related pension
If your earnings-related pension is small, you can use the same pension application to apply for national pension as additional pension security. The national pension is granted by Kela and additional information about national pensions can be found on Kela’s website.
The income limits for national pension in 2024
- EUR 1,601.21 per month for those living alone
- EUR 1,434.88 per month for those living with another person (spouse, common law spouse, registered partner)
If your earnings-related pension falls below the aforementioned limits, you are entitled to receive national pension.
Guarantee pension ensures a minimum pension
If your gross pension income totals less than the minimum pension limit (EUR 976.59 per month in 2024), you may be entitled to guarantee pension.
- Guarantee pension is granted by Kela and you are required to investigate your right to all other pensions in Finland and abroad prior to being granting guarantee pension. Further information about guarantee pension is available from Kela’s website.
Attachments are rarely required
It is generally sufficient to complete an application when applying for pension. Attachments are only required for:
- Disability pension, whereby a Medical Statement B is required
- A pension application if you have lived or worked in a country other than Finland; for this, you will need to attach the form Residence and employment abroad (Appendix U). We will need an Appendix U form even if you are not applying for pension from abroad. You can complete an Appendix U form in our online service.
Note! We do not need proof of your earnings, since your employer will have reported your earnings to the Incomes Register and we can retrieve the information from there when processing your pension application.
Submit attachments electronically
You can expedite the processing of your application by sending us attachments electronically, as scanned documents or photos. Send attachments through our online service.
Check our detailed instructions for sending electronic attachments.
What happens next?
We will process your application
Once your application has been received by Veritas’ pension processing, we will investigate your right to the pension, issue a decision on the granting of the pension and calculate the amount of the pension based on the earnings information from your employment history. Upon issuing our decision, we will register the information in the Pensions Register.
- The processing of applications takes, on average, 16 days for old-age pension applications and 34 days for disability pension applications.
Once the decision is issued, the payment of the pension can begin. The payment day is the first weekday of each month, but the first payment instalment may deviate from this general rule.
Check your pension decision!
If you have questions concerning your pension decision, please don’t hesitate to contact us and we’ll review the situation together! If, despite everything, you are dissatisfied with the pension decision you received, you can submit an appeal for a change from the Pension Appeal Board. In your appeal, it is important that you state the change you demand and the grounds for that demand. You’ll find further instructions and information about the appeal period in the appeal instructions mailed to you along with your pension decision.
If you have received your decision from Veritas, send the appeal to us. If you wish to submit further clarifications concerning your health later on, you can also send those to us while your appeal is being processed. You will receive a written response to let you know whether the additional information you provided will affect the decision.
If you are dissatisfied with the decision of the Pension Appeal Board, you may seek to have it rectified by appealing to the Insurance Court.
It’s time to order a new tax card
The pension decision will be issued to you on paper and delivered to your home address. The decision will state the amount of your monthly pension before taxes. Once you receive the decision, it’s time to order a new tax card for the payment of the pension.
You can order a pension tax card from your local Tax Office, from the online service or by phone. Have your pension decision and any information about your other earnings and withholding rates for the current year ready. You can ask the tax authorities to send the pension tax card directly to Veritas. In future years, we will get your withholding rate automatically.
The earnings-related pension card
An earnings-related pension card is ordered as part of the pension process and will be separately mailed to your home address.
You can use the earnings-related pension card whenever you need to show proof that you are receiving old-age or disability pension. The card is useful, for example, in shops that offer pensioners discounts on products or services.
Please note that the earnings-related pension card is not available to people receiving partial old-age pension or survivors’ pension.