News item | 02-12-2025 | 13:40
All pension schemes must be switched to the new pension system on January 1, 2028. The Senate today approved the bill that regulates this. The end date was previously set on January 1, 2027. On January 1, more than 9.5 million pensions will be transferred to the new system. This means that more than half of the participants will switch to the new system by 2026.
Mariëlle Paul, Minister of Social Affairs and Employment: “On January 1, more than half of the pensions will be transferred to the new system. That is an important milestone. They will receive a pension that increases more easily, is more transparent and better reflects the fact that people no longer have 40 years with 1 employer. The other pension schemes will make the switch over the next 2 years. This change in the law provides sufficient time for a careful transition.”
Transition period extension law
The Future of Pensions Act stipulated that pension funds have until January 1, 2027 to switch to the new system. The change in this end date had already been promised to the Senate during the discussion of the law. The law on the Extension of the transition period to the new pension system removes the date mentioned from the pension law and now regulates the date in an Order in Council (AMvB). At the same time as this law, the cabinet will issue an Order in Council extending the period until January 1, 2028.
What will change in the new system?
The basic principle in the new system remains that pensions are built up jointly and that financial risks are shared. It remains a collective and solidarity-based system. Employers and employees pay contributions and pension providers invest that money so that the premium becomes more valuable. In the first decades of this century, most pensions did not or hardly increase. In the new pension system, smaller buffers are maintained, so that a larger part of every euro invested, plus the return made on it, can go to the pension benefit. And the buffers can be used in a more targeted manner.
The new pension law also ensures that it becomes clearer and more personal how much pension has been accrued. From now on, a participant’s pension is based on all premiums paid on behalf of that participant, plus the return this money has generated. In the previous system, most pension was accrued at the end of one’s career and pension money was distributed from young to old. Changing jobs or unemployment therefore had extra serious consequences at the end of the career. In this way, the new law is more in line with the fact that people nowadays no longer work for 40 years for one boss.