To access the minimum pension you must contribute a minimum number of years and to collect 100% of the retirement, too. To make it easier for unemployed workers to reach these contribution periods, Social Security offers two tools: covering contribution gaps automatically and signing a special agreement.
These agreements are a tool to contribute without work that can be used by unemployed people or those who have decided to stop working, but want to have a public pension.
What does the special Social Security agreement consist of?
This is a voluntary agreement with the public body through which you can pay Social Security contributions for permanent disability, death and survival, derived from common illness and non-work accident, retirement and social services and healthcare.
Thanks to this agreement, you can continue contributing to Social Security without being registered in any regime, that is, without working. In this way, an unemployed person can add contribution time to improve the retirement pension that he will receive.
Who can sign a special agreement?
The special Social Security agreement is open to everyone who wants to subscribe to it, not only to unemployed people.
Thus, workers who unsubscribe from another contributory regime or self-employed workers over 65 years of age who continue in the RETA and who are free to contribute, that is, who are not obliged to pay monthly contributions, could also request it.
Also people in a pluri situation who stop any of the activities, beneficiaries of unemployment benefits when they stop collecting it or people who have been denied a contributory pension.
In general terms, these agreements are usually signed by people who have lost Social Security benefits, people who earn less now with their new job than they earned in the last year, and people who have stopped collecting unemployment benefits.
And these agreements serve both to add listing time and listing capital, as the case may be.
Requirements to access the special agreement
Here is the key to these agreements and who can sign them. There are two basic conditions to be able to access this tool:
Have contributed 1,080 days in the 12 years prior to the application. Request the agreement within a period of 90 days from the termination of employment or the determining situation and always within one year from the situation that may give rise to the special agreement.
This agreement covers retirement contributions, but also other types of situations such as disability.
How much is quoted with the special agreement?
These agreements help add time and listing capital. In other words, you should add contribution days to reach the minimum period to access the pension, but also maintain the amount for which you had been contributing.
The special agreement allows you to choose the contribution base you want to have (and pay based on it) within the maximum and minimum values set by Social Security.
The minimum value is that corresponding to section 1 of the self-employed contribution table, which is 950.8 euros.
In general, the maximum will be the average contribution base for the last year in which you contributed, applying the corresponding annual revaluations.
You can also choose to contribute based on the maximum base if you have contributed on it in 24 months during the last 5 years.
The most common thing is that an unemployed person who wants to contribute opts for the minimum base, given that his or her resources will be limited and what he or she is looking for is to add contribution time. Meanwhile, a person who has changed jobs and now earns less will seek to contribute as much as possible.
How much do you have to pay for the special agreement?
These contributions involve a series of payments to Social Security. The specific amount will depend on the basis on which it is quoted.
Specifically, Social Security will apply a rate of 28.3% to the contribution base and this result will be multiplied by 0.94.
As an example, imagine that you choose to quote for the minimum of 950.8 euros. First, the contribution rate of 28.3% will be applied and then that amount will be multiplied by 0.94, giving rise to a fee of 252.93 euros, which is what you will have to pay each month to contribute to Social Security at through the special agreement.
