Old-age pensions in the old scheme

Under the old pension scheme, an old-age pension is granted to an insured person who has met both of the following conditions:

• has reached the retirement age,
• has completed 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. The non-contributory periods are taken into account only in the part that does not exceed 1/3 of the proven contributory periods.

Insured persons who have reached the retirement age and whose insurance periods are shorter than the required one may receive an old-age pension with a reduced qualifying 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 qualifying insurance period is not increased by ZUS to the amount of the minimum pension.

The pension calculated under the old scheme consists of:

• 24% of the base amount,
• 1.3% of the assessment basis for each contributory year,
• 0,7% of the assessment basis for each non-contributory year, whereby only a part of the non-contributory periods is taken into account, i.e. the one not exceeding 1/3 of the proven contributory periods.

The basis for old-age pension assessment is an average social security contribution basis (either of an old-age and disability pension contribution or a social security contribution) in one of the following variants:

• from the period of 10 consecutive calendar years that the person concerned has selected from the recent 20 calendar years,
• from 20 calendar years selected from the whole insurance period.

ZUS adds to the old-age pension assessment basis the amounts due to the insured person in a given calendar year in respect of:

• remuneration for the period of incapacity for work,
• sickness allowance,
• maternity allowance,
• care allowance,
• rehabilitation benefit,
• compensatory allowance,
• compensatory benefit or supplement,
• the value of monetary compensation for a periodic failure to increase salaries in the budgetary sphere.

The amount of unemployment benefits, training allowances or scholarships paid from the Labour Fund for a period of documented incapacity for work is also included in the pension assessment basis.

To determine the assessment basis, ZUS sums up the assessment basis of contributions and of the benefit in each year from the selected calendar years. Thereafter calculates the ratio between each of the amounts determined in this way and the annual amount of the average wage/salary for the given calendar year; this ratio is expressed as a percentage. Afterwards, ZUS calculates the arithmetic average of the values obtained. It constitutes the assessment basis index (which may amount to a maximum of 250%). Finally, ZUS multiplies the base amount by this index.

The base amount equals 100% of the average wage/salary from the preceding calendar year, reduced by the compulsory social insurance contributions deducted from the earn- ings of insured persons. It is determined every year with effect from 1 March. 

From 1 March 2024 to 28 February 2025, the base amount equalled PLN 6,246.13, whereas from 1 March 2025, it is PLN 7,140.52.