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When you stop working because of old age, you need money to live on. That money is your pension. In the Netherlands, everyone gets a basic pension from the government, called the AOW. But you don't get it all at once: you collect it slowly, a bit for every year you live or work here. Each year gives you 2% of a full AOW. So someone who arrives at 32 and stays until retirement is already 30% short. Someone who leaves after 5 years has collected only 10%. Most expats only find out decades later. There is a little-known way to fill the gap: within 10 years of arriving, you can buy back the years before you came. This guide explains, from the start, how the AOW works for expats, what buying back years costs and when it's worth it, what to do when you leave, and what happens to the pension from your employer.
The idea in simple words
Think of the AOW as a jar with 50 marbles. For every year you live or work in the Netherlands (between age 17 and about 67), you get one marble. When you are old, the government pays you a pension that depends on how many marbles you have. 50 marbles means the full pension.
If you arrive at 32, you have already missed 15 marbles. That means a smaller pension for the rest of your life.
The good news: in your first 10 years here, you can buy the missing marbles. After 10 years, that chance is gone forever.
The most important facts
- Building it up: 2% of a full AOW for each year you are insured, in the 50 years before your AOW age. You are insured if you live or work in the Netherlands.
- Full AOW: €1,662.16 a month before tax for a single person from 1 July 2026, plus holiday allowance. If you were insured for less than 1 year, you get no AOW at all.
- Buying back years: you can buy back the missing years before you arrived if you apply within 10 years after you first came to live or work here, and you have been insured for at least 5 years. It costs at least €3,876 per year.
- Leaving: you can keep building up AOW by choice if you apply within 1 year after you leave.
- Employer pension: you keep what you have saved when you leave, but you normally can't take it out as cash.
The three parts of a Dutch pension
| Part | What it is | How you build it up |
|---|---|---|
| 1. State pension (AOW) | A basic pension from the government office Sociale Verzekeringsbank: the Dutch government office that pays the state pension (AOW) and child benefit., from your AOW age | 2% for each year you live or work in the Netherlands. You pay for it through your income tax. |
| 2. Employer pension | A pension through your employer's pension fund or insurance company | You and your employer both pay into it. Your part is taken from your salary before tax. |
| 3. Private pension | Your own savings for later, or a In Dutch: lijfrente. A product that pays you a fixed amount regularly for a set time or for life, often bought with savings for retirement. (lijfrente) | Your own choice. You pay less tax on it, within limits. |
Together, the AOW and the employer pension are meant to give someone who works here their whole life about 70% of their average salary when they retire. An expat who works here for a shorter time gets much less from both. That's why it pays to know the rules early.
How the AOW works for expats
You build up the AOW in the 50 years before your AOW age. Each year you are insured gives you 2%, so 50 years gives you a full AOW. You are insured if you live in the Netherlands, or if you work here while living in another country. If a foreign employer sends you here for a while and you stay insured in your home country (with an A form that proves you stay insured in your home country while you work in another EU country for a while. or similar), you don't build up AOW.
The full amounts from 1 July 2026, before tax:
| Situation | Per month before tax | Holiday allowance per month (paid in May) |
|---|---|---|
| Single | €1,662.16 | €104.78 |
| Married, or living with another adult, each | €1,139.39 | €74.85 |
Your AOW age (the age when the AOW starts) is 67 in 2026 and 2027, and 67 years and 3 months from 2028 up to and including 2031. After that, it moves with how long people live on average, and each change is announced 5 years ahead. You can check your own date and how much you have built up in Your personal online page on the SVB website., or on mijnpensioenoverzicht.nl, which shows your AOW and your employer pensions together. You need DigiD, your login for Dutch government websites, for both.
Short stays: if you were born on or after 1 January 1950 and you were insured for less than 1 year in total, you get no AOW at all. Years in other EU countries don't count for the Dutch AOW. But each EU country pays its own pension for the years you were insured there.
Example: the gap
Daniel moves to Amsterdam at 32 and plans to stay. If his AOW age is 67, his 50 years started at 17. So he is missing 15 years: 30% of a full AOW. As a single person, that is about €500 a month less before tax, or €6,000 a year, for the rest of his life, at today's amounts. A pension from his home country may fill part of that, depending on what he built up there.
Buying back the years before you arrived
This is the choice most expats never hear about. If you came to live or work in the Netherlands later in life, you can pay to be insured for the years before you arrived. The SVB calls this buying back insurance. The rules:
- You started living or working in the Netherlands within 50 years of your AOW age.
- You haven't reached your AOW age yet when you apply.
- You apply within 10 years after you first came to live or work in the Netherlands. After that, the chance is gone forever.
- You have been insured for the AOW, by living or working here, for at least 5 years. The SVB may also count insured years in another EU country, or look differently at time on an earlier The document that allows you to live in the Netherlands if you are not from the EU.. So ask them if this applies to you.
- You can't buy back years if you were insured in another EU country and get a pension from there for that time.
You can also buy AOW years for your children, if they come to the Netherlands for the first time within 50 years of their AOW age.
What it costs
The SVB works out a price for each year you want to buy. The price depends on your total income, from anywhere in the world, in that year:
- At least €3,876 per year from 1 July 2026, even for years when you earned nothing, such as years as a student.
- Less for years before you turned 21: between €66 (age 15) and €2,777 (age 20).
- More for years when you earned more, up to a maximum per year.
For Daniel, if he earned little in the 15 missing years, buying them all costs at least 15 × €3,876 = €58,140. That gives him about €6,000 a year more AOW (plus holiday allowance). So it pays for itself after about 9 to 10 years of being retired, at today's amounts.
Is it worth it?
- Good points: the AOW is paid for the rest of your life, it goes up with Dutch salaries, and the SVB also pays it if you live abroad. So the years you buy keep their value even if you leave later.
- Bad points: you pay now for money you get decades later. If you invested the same money yourself, it could also grow. You would need to live about 10 years past your AOW age to win, in today's money.
- Check your home country first. If you already built up a state pension for those years somewhere else, buying them here may give you double cover you don't need.
- You can buy only some years. You don't have to buy all the missing years. Ask the SVB for a calculation before you decide.
Write down the 10-year deadline
The 10 years start when you first came to live or work in the Netherlands, not when your current permit started. If you studied here years ago, your 10 years may already be running. Write the date down now, and decide well before it passes, because the SVB needs time to make a calculation.
When you leave the Netherlands
You stop building up AOW when you no longer live or work here. What you have built up stays yours. The SVB pays it to you when you reach your AOW age, wherever you live. In a few countries, the SVB can only pay the lower amount for someone who lives with another adult, even if you live alone.
You can keep building up AOW by choice while you live abroad, for up to 10 years. This is called voluntary insurance:
- You must have been insured in the Netherlands in the year before you leave, and apply within 1 year after you leave.
- In 2026 it costs 17.9% of your income, at least €569 and at most €5,693 a year. You pay the maximum if you earn €38,883 or more.
- Voluntary insurance for the pension your family gets if you die (Algemene nabestaandenwet: a Dutch benefit for a partner or children when someone dies.) costs 0.1% of your income, between €3 and €31 a year.
Our leaving the Netherlands checklist covers everything else to arrange before you go.
Your employer pension
By law, Dutch employers don't have to offer a pension, unless their type of work has a A pension fund for a whole sector, such as healthcare or construction. If your employer is in that sector, you must join it.. Most employees do have one, but some startups and small companies don't. Check your work contract, and look on your payslip for the pension line (see our payslip guide). If you have no employer pension, or only a small one, you can save for retirement yourself and pay less tax on it, up to a limit each year (jaarruimte).
Dutch pensions are moving to a new system under a new law, the Future Pensions Act (Wet toekomst pensioenen). All pension funds must switch by 1 January 2028, and many already have. Your pension then becomes your own personal amount inside a shared scheme, which makes it easier to see what you have.
Does the 30% ruling affect your pension?
Not your AOW. You build up the AOW for each year you are insured, not by how much you earn, so the 30% ruling doesn't make it bigger or smaller. Your employer pension can be different. The tax office describes the salary your pension is based on (pensioengevend loon) as the parts of your pay that pension is built up on, and your pension plan decides which parts those are. Some plans count your full salary, including the tax-free allowance. Others count only the taxed part. Then both you and your employer pay in less, and you build up less pension for as long as you have the ruling. Look for "pensioengevend loon" in your pension rules (pensioenreglement), or ask HR which salary they use.
When you change jobs
You keep the pension you built up with your old employer. It stays with that fund until you retire, and it is paid to you then. You can also ask your new employer's fund to take it over (waardeoverdracht). Small pensions, worth less than €632.63 a year in 2026, are usually moved to your new fund automatically. If that isn't possible within 5 years, the fund may pay it out to you in one go, but only if you agree.
Can I cash out my Dutch pension when I leave?
Usually not. You can't get a Dutch employer pension paid out early because you leave the country. The only exception is small pensions below €632.63 a year, if you agree. Moving it to a pension fund abroad is rarely possible, and the tax office usually treats that the same as taking it out. Then you pay income tax on the whole amount. On top of that, when you emigrate, the tax office makes a "just in case" tax bill (conserverende aanslag) for pensions you built up with a tax discount. It only has to be paid if you take the pension out early. If you leave the pension alone, that bill disappears after 10 years.
In most cases, the best choice is to leave your pension where it is and have it paid to a foreign bank account when you retire. The tax agreement between the Netherlands and your new country then decides which country taxes it.
Your pension checklist
- Log in to mijnpensioenoverzicht.nl with DigiD and check your AOW and employer pensions.
- Write down the date you first came to live or work in the Netherlands, and the 10-year deadline for buying back years.
- Check what state pension you built up in your home country and other countries for the missing years.
- Once you have been insured for 5 years, ask the SVB for a calculation of the cost, and decide before the deadline.
- Check that your employer offers a pension, and how much is taken from your salary.
- When you leave: apply for voluntary AOW insurance within 1 year if you want to keep building it up, and give your pension funds your new address.
Official sources and useful links
- SVB: building up an AOW pension
- SVB: AOW pension amounts
- SVB: your AOW pension age
- SVB: rules for buying back AOW insurance
- SVB: what buying back AOW insurance costs
- SVB: what voluntary insurance costs if you live abroad
- SVB: your AOW if you live outside the Netherlands
- Ministry of Finance: Verzamelbesluit pensioenen 2023, definition of pensioengevend loon (Dutch)
- Mijnpensioenoverzicht.nl: all your Dutch pensions in one overview
- FNV: when a small pension can be paid out (Dutch)
This is general information based on the rules in October 2026. AOW amounts change on 1 January and 1 July, and the price of voluntary insurance changes every year. Whether buying back years makes sense depends on your age, your past income and your pensions in other countries. Ask the SVB for a calculation, and think about getting independent financial advice before you pay.
