How do social security agreements count years worked in two countries?

They add your insured periods together to test whether you qualify. Under a social security agreement or EU coordination, a country can count years you were insured elsewhere toward its own minimum period. Norway states it this way: Five years of insurance time opens the right, and NAV states that years lived or worked in an EEA country, or in a country Norway has an agreement with, are added to your Norwegian years to reach it (Source: nav.no and regjeringen.no, read 4 October 2026). Austria: Months insured in another EU or EEA state, Switzerland or an agreement country are added to the Austrian months to pass the gate (Source: pv.at, oesterreich.gv.at, usp.gv.at, read 3 October 2026). As of 14 October 2026, 33 of the 41 countries we research have at least one agreement route recorded in our data release. How much each country then pays is a separate question.

Which countries count foreign years toward their minimum?

• Japan. Where Japanese insured periods alone do not meet the qualifying requirement, periods in a social security agreement partner country can be counted toward the Japanese qualifying period; the page's worked example shows this against the 10-year requirement (被保険者期間が10年以上) (Source: nenkin.go.jp, read 1 September 2026).
• Spain. Under European coordination Spain must add the insurance periods you completed in other member states to your Spanish ones, provided they do not overlap, and test the 15 year condition against the combined total (Source: seg-social.es and BOE Real Decreto 241/2026, read 3 October 2026).
• Italy. Periods insured in the EU, the EEA and Switzerland count toward the Italian minimum, provided at least 52 weeks sit in Italy (Source: inps.it and gazzettaufficiale.it, read 3 October 2026).
• India. Periods in agreement countries are totalised toward the ten years, but only for members an agreement covers (Source: epfindia.gov.in, read 4 October 2026).

Where does the counting stop?

• Luxembourg. But a non-resident needs at least one year inside Luxembourg: below that, guichet.lu states the Luxembourg months are counted by whichever country pays, and give no right to payment from a Luxembourg fund (Source: cnap.public.lu, guichet.public.lu, secu.lu, gouvernement.lu, read 4 October 2026).
• South Korea. Those same conventions provide no totalisation of coverage periods, so Korean months do not count toward entitlement in either country (Source: nps.or.kr, read 4 October 2026).
• Vietnam. Nothing in the Decree credits years completed in another country, and nothing in it pays anything out unprompted (Source: baohiemxahoi.gov.vn, read 4 October 2026).

How do I see which countries have an agreement?

Our monthly data release lists, for each country we research, the agreement partners we have read on official agreement lists, as CSV with a source URL and read date on every row. Our data records 389 agreement routes, read on 51 official lists.

Does the agreement decide the amount?

No. Our post on combining pensions from different countries shows how each country works out its own share. The country hubs for the examples above: Norway, Austria, Japan, Spain, Italy, India, Luxembourg, South Korea and Vietnam.

Our free pension checker and our free map start from your own work history. Our pension questions pages answer single country questions, our authority answers publish what national pension institutions told us in writing, and our monthly data release publishes our agreement routes and deadline rows as CSV, each with its source and read date.

Frequently asked questions

Does an agreement give me a pension from the other country? No. It counts periods toward the test for qualifying. Each country then applies its own rules to its own periods.

What if there is no agreement? Then the counting has nothing to rest on, as the South Korea row shows for conventions without totalisation. Where our data release records no route for a country, that is a gap in what we have read, not a finding that no agreement exists.

Sources

• Austria, pension portals directory entry, citing pv.at, oesterreich.gv.at, usp.gv.at, read 3 October 2026.
• Norway, pension portals directory entry, citing nav.no and regjeringen.no, read 4 October 2026.
• Deadline register row jp-11, citing nenkin.go.jp, read 1 September 2026.
• Spain, pension portals directory entry, citing seg-social.es and BOE Real Decreto 241/2026, read 3 October 2026.
• Italy, pension portals directory entry, citing inps.it and gazzettaufficiale.it, read 3 October 2026.
• Luxembourg, pension portals directory entry, citing cnap.public.lu, guichet.public.lu, secu.lu, gouvernement.lu, read 4 October 2026.
• India, pension portals directory entry, citing epfindia.gov.in, read 4 October 2026.
• South Korea, pension portals directory entry, citing nps.or.kr, read 4 October 2026.
• Vietnam, pension portals directory entry, citing baohiemxahoi.gov.vn, read 4 October 2026.
• Our data release, data as of 14 October 2026, with the official agreement list and read date on every treaty route row.