Old-age pensions operating under the earlier rules

The right to an old-age pension under the earlier rules is acquired when the insured person meets both of the following conditions:

• reaches the normal retirement age,
• completes the required insurance period.

The required insurance period is at least:

• 20 years for women,
• 25 years for men.

The insurance period is the sum of all contributory and non-contributory periods. Non-contributory periods are taken into account only in the part which does not exceed 1/3 of the proven contributory periods.

Insured persons who have reached the normal retirement age and have a shorter insurance period than the required one may receive an old-age pension with reduced insurance period.

The reduced insurance period is:

• at least 15 years for women,
• at least 20 years for men.

The pension granted on the basis of the reduced insurance period is not increased by ZUS to the amount of the minimum pension.

Some groups of persons employed in special conditions or working in a special character may retire before the normal retirement age.

An old-age pension calculated according to the earlier rules equals:
24% of the base sum
+ 1.3% of the contribution assessment basis for each year of contributiory periods
+ 0.7% of the contribution assessment basis for each year of non-contributory periods; they can account for no more than ⅓ of documented contributory periods.

The old-age pension assessment basis is an average assessment basis of contributions for pension insurance or social insurance in one of the following options:

• from 10 consecutive calendar years, which the person concerned selects from the last 20 calendar years,
• from 20 calendar years selected from the whole insurance period.

The assessment basis is increased by the following amounts due to the person insured in a given calendar year:

• remuneration for the period of incapacity for work,
• sickness allowance,
• maternity allowance,
• care allowance,
• rehabilitation benefit,
• compensatory allowance,
• compensatory benefit or supplement,
• a value of financial compensation due to a temporary non-increase of wages/salaries in the public sector.

The amount of unemployment benefits, training allowances or scholarships paid from the Labour Fund for the period of documented incapacity for work is also included in the abasis for old-age pension.

To establish the assessment basis, first ZUS aggregates the amounts of the contribution assessment bases and the amounts of the aforementioned benefits for each of the selected calendar years. Then ZUS calculates the ratio of each of these total amounts to the annual amount of the average wage/salary announced for a given calendar year. The result is expressed in percentages. Then the arithmetic mean of these percentages is calculated. It is the assessment basis index (which may amount to a maximum of 250%). At the end ZUS multiplies the base amount by this index.

The base sum equals 100% of the average wage/salary from the preceding calendar year, reduced by the compulsory social insurance contributions deducted from earnings of the persons insured. The base sum is fixed from 1 March of each year.

In the period from 1 March 2020 to 28 February 2021 the base sum equalled PLN 4,294.67, and from 1 March 2021 it amounts to PLN 4,512.41.