Old-age pensions

Since 1 January 1999, i.e. since the entry into force of the Social Insurance System Act of 13 October 1998, two old-age pension schemes have been operating in parallel in Poland:

1) the old pension scheme – for persons born before 1 January 1949, in which ZUS calculates the old-age pension under the rules in force before 1999;
2) the new pension scheme – for persons born after 31 December 1948, in which ZUS calculates the old-age pension according to the new rules.

Persons born between 1 January 1949 and 31 December 1968 could decide by them- selves:

• whether they preferred to remain in the pre-1999 pension system, i.e. in the pay-as-you-go model, in which the contributions of economically active persons are earmarked for old-age pension payments and the value of those contributions is credited to individual accounts at the Social Insurance Institution;
• or wished to join the new pension scheme that combines a pay-as-you-go model with a funded model where contributions are collected both in the Social Insurance Fund and in an Open Pension Fund.

The retirement age in Poland amounts to:

• for women – 60 years,
• for men – 65 years.

The new rules of obtaining the right to an old-age pension have significantly reduced the right to draw it at an age lower than the retirement age. This has increased the actual age of retirement for both women and men. The diagram below illustrates the upward trend observed over the last 20 years.

In 2024, the actual average age of retirement for men was 65.1 years and for women – 60.6 years.