In order to protect workers who have pursued international careers, European provisions on social security and bilateral social security agreements concluded between Belgium and third countries provide for a legal framework which safeguard your pension rights in each respective country of employment. Each country is obliged to pay a pension proportionate to the insurance periods completed there.

Applying for your pension

Under the Regulation, if you have built up pension rights within the EEA and if you also reside within the EEA at the time of application, you must file for your pension in your country of residence.

Is your pension sorted?

If you were not previously contributing to social security in your country of residence, the pension institution will reject your application and refer you to the pension institution of the member state where you last paid pension contributions.

If you reside in a country outside the EEA, you have to send your application to the pension institution of the member state where you last paid pension contributions.

Similarly, under the Totalisation Agreement, if you are living in Belgium or in the USA, you must apply for your pension in your country of residence. If you reside neither in Belgium nor in the US, you must send your application form directly to the competent pension institution (i.e. the Social Security Administration (SSA) for your US-pension and the National Pensions Office four your Belgian pension).

In the application form, you must typically mention whether you have been employed abroad. The pension institution dealing with your application will then forward it to the respective national pension institutions, which should decide on your pension rights in their jurisdiction. Each pension institution makes its decision known to the pension institution where your application was filed. Subsequently, the latter will inform you about your proportionate pension entitlements in each of the respective countries.

Calculation of your pension

When you have spent your working life in a number of countries, it might be possible that you were not insured for a sufficient period of time in a certain country in order to be entitled to a pension under that country’s domestic law. Therefore, the Regulation and the Totalisation Agreement guarantee that the insurance periods completed in other countries will also be taken into account. This is called the principle of aggregation.

The Regulation lays down special rules for calculating pensions. As soon as you submit a pension application in a member state of the EEA, your pension entitlements will be calculated taking into account the insurance periods fulfilled in other member states.

The end result

Each of these member states will be obliged to calculate a national pension and a pro rata pension, the higher of which will be granted to you.

The national pension is calculated in accordance with national rules only, taking account solely of your periods of work in that member state.

In order to determine the pro rata pension, two steps must be taken:

First, a theoretical amount is calculated, which takes your entire career into account as if the periods spent abroad had been completed in the member state concerned. Overlapping periods of work are counted only once.

Secondly, this theoretical amount is multiplied by a fraction. The numerator of this fraction represents the duration of the periods of work in the member state; the denominator represents all the periods taken into account in determining the theoretical amount.

The Totalisation Agreement provides for similar calculation rules.

Payment of your pension

Under the Regulation as well as under the Totalisation Agreement, each country pays its respective pension.

The Regulation stipulates that pensions shall be paid wherever you reside within the EEA. In practice, the Belgian National Pensions Office pays the Belgian pension all over the world.

Under the Totalisation Agreement, pensions must be paid all over the world.

Conclusion

The Regulation and the Totalisation Agreement ensures that workers with international careers are not worse off than non-migrant workers.

Furthermore, within the EEA, pension applications are in principle centralised in the country of residence and further on, after complex calculations, each respective member state will wire the proportionate national pension to the worker, wherever he wishes to take up residency within the EEA Belgian-US cross boarder employment will be governed by similar rules under the Totalisation Agreement.

Marieke Tavernier / Expatica

Marieke Tavernier is an Attorney-at-Law with Loyens & Loeff, an Amsterdam-based practice of lawyers and civil-law notaries offering integrated professional legal services in the Benelux countries.