NOS: pensions abroad are a black hole for more and more people

On 9 November 2026 the Dutch public broadcaster NOS reported what we see every day. People who worked in more than one EU country cannot see what they built up, and as the NOS piece puts it (our translation), "there is no institution that collects all their pension entitlements". One Dutch pension fund alone has about 18,000 retired members who have not applied for their pension, and the fund says privacy law does not allow it to trace them.

The EU's Find Your Pension portal does not yet include the Netherlands, and the NOS reports that it returns personal pension information for only two countries, Belgium and France. So the job falls to the member: remember every employer and every fund, and write to each one.

That is where we start. Tell us where and when you worked, and we show which funds and which free official route apply to each job. If you have moved, you can also leave one forwarding address for your pensions in the free Global Pension Finding Register, so funds that join can find you.

Our reaction

The free official routes come first, always. But from abroad they often stop at the first step. They need a national digital ID that is hard or impossible to get once you have left (DigiD in the Netherlands, MyGovID in Ireland, BankID in Sweden), or a national number you no longer have. They need the scheme's name, while people remember the employer, and employers merge, rename and close. And they tell you to contact the provider, not which scheme held your years or who holds it today.

Why we exist

That gap is why PensionHunter exists. We identify which scheme held your years and who holds it today, from official sources, and a researcher stays with your case until it is closed and writes every request for you to sign and send. Identification only: no advice, no commission, and we never act for you. For pension funds, the free Global Pension Finding Register lets former members leave one forwarding address, so a fund that may not trace them can still be found.

Source: NOS, "Pensioen een zwart gat voor steeds meer mensen die in buitenland werken", 9 November 2026