Pension reform finally approved: what will change for you and your employees?

On April 4, 2024, the federal parliament gave final approval to the pension reform.
Some notable measures include a pension bonus of 33,975 euros for those who work for three years and stricter conditions for the minimum pension.

Pension bonus up to more than 30,000 euros

Employees, self-employed workers and civil servants alike will be able to receive a pension bonus.
This is an amount you receive if you continue to work beyond the earliest date on which you can retire (early).
You can find that date on mypension.be.
With this bonus, the federal government wants to discourage early retirement.

Each additional day worked counts, and you automatically accrue a bonus as long as you continue to work up to a maximum of three years longer.
You don’t have to pay taxes on the amount paid out (so gross is net).

The amount of the pension bonus depends on several factors:

• With a “normal” career of less than 43 years (on the day of the earliest retirement date), you will receive 3,775 euros if you work one year longer.
  In the second year this amounts to 7,550 euros, and in the third year 11,325 euros.
  So in total, the bonus can amount to 22,650 euros net.
• A “long” career of 43 years or more at your earliest retirement date yields even more, namely 11,325 euros per year.
  In total, then, it amounts to 33,975 euros (3 * 11,325 euros).

Note that your conventional pension and the bonus added together may not exceed 7,969.69 euros per month.

This rule will take effect from Jan. 1, 2025.
As of July 1, 2024, there will already be a transition period for those currently close to retirement.
On accrual of the bonus hereby starts on July 1, 2024, with payment to those who retire from January 1, 2025.

Minimum pension based only on days actually worked

Several years ago, the federal government decided to raise the minimum pension to 1,500 euros net per month.
From January 1, 2025, stricter rules will apply to this.

Until now, employees had to be able to present a career of at least 30 years to qualify.
But through so-called assimilated periods, unemployment can also be included in your career.
Therefore, the government has decided to calculate the minimum pension from 2025 on the basis of time actually worked.

To be entitled to the full minimum pension, you must have worked 5,000 days.
This amounts to about 20 years of work.
Full-time unemployment no longer counts when calculating a minimum pension.
But many other forms of absence still count as effectively worked.
Consider maternity and paternity leave, palliative care, informal care and caring for a child with a disability.
A period of temporary unemployment also counts.
Career breaks, military service or strike days do not fall into the category of days effectively worked.

Another new feature is that five part-time years worked before 2002 are given a higher weight in the calculation of the minimum pension.
This should help reduce the pension gap between men and women.

Restriction on perequirement of civil service pensions

Another measure in the pension agreement is the peregration of civil service pensions.
As a result, the highest civil service pensions are hardly allowed to increase additionally on top of the indexation.

Doubling Wijninckx contribution

Finally, you must take into account – although only from January 1, 2028 – a doubling of the so-called Wijninckx contribution, from 3 to 6 percent.
This contribution is paid by a very select group of Belgians who have accumulated very high supplementary pensions.
According to Pensions Minister Carine Lalieux, this would involve pension capitals of at least 1.6 million euros accrued through the second pillar for employees and of 2.2 million euros for the self-employed.
In 2022, this tax was applied to barely 2,437 employees and company executives.