What happens to my pension if my old employer no longer exists?

Where the pension sat with a fund, an insurer or a state institution, the record can outlive the employer, and several countries run official services for exactly this search. In the United Kingdom: Find pension contact details (Pension Tracing Service): Free government service providing contact details for lost workplace and personal pension schemes (Source: gov.uk, read 6 September 2026). In Switzerland: A person looking for occupational pension (2nd pillar) assets can make a written request to the Zentralstelle 2. Säule at the Sicherheitsfonds BVG, which compares the person's data with the reports from pension and vested-benefits institutions and informs them of the result. No telephone information is given. The Zentralstelle holds no assets and does not decide entitlements; requests for payment must be made directly to the institution holding the money (Source: sfbvg.ch, read 1 September 2026). So the first step is the country and the name the employer had when you worked there. Our pension portals directory lists the official record or search service for each country, with the date we verified it.

Which official services search without the employer?

• United Kingdom and Switzerland, as above.
• South Africa. FSCA Unclaimed Benefits Search Engine: GEPF for government employees; FSCA hosts a public Unclaimed Benefits search covering private retirement funds (Source: fsca.co.za, read 6 September 2026).

Where does money go when nobody asks for it?

Into another institution, on a timetable the rules set.

• Switzerland. In the second pillar, money left behind moves off the employer's books within six months to two years, then moves again ten years after reference age (Source: ahv-iv.ch, ch.ch, eda.admin.ch and aeis.ch, read 3 October 2026).
• Liechtenstein. Institutions that can no longer deliver the annual statement must report the 'forgotten' balance to the Sicherheitsfonds within six months of the last failed delivery (Source: gesetze.li, read 1 September 2026).
• Malaysia. For a non-Malaysian member registered on or after 1 August 1998, once three years pass with no contribution credited, the dividend stops being credited, so the balance sits frozen rather than growing. The fund also states that savings in this position are moved out to the Accountant General's Department under section 70H, and that anything after that is handled with that department and not with the EPF (Source: kwsp.gov.my, read 3 October 2026).

What if the employer itself owed the money?

Then a guarantee fund may stand behind it. Italy. INPS states the right to TFR is subject to a five year prescription running from the date employment ended, and ten years only where a court has established it. For TFR held by the INPS guarantee fund, INPS states applications sent by any other route are inadmissible (Source: inps.it, read 3 October 2026).

How do I find out what the employer is called now?

Our connector reads official registers, starting with the Global LEI Index, and says what an employer is called today, with the register and the date read. Our post What is my old employer called today? shows real answers. Our employer pages answer the same question for one employer in one country, and 2335 pages pass our publish gate in the register read of 15 October 2026. The country hubs for the examples above: United Kingdom, Switzerland, South Africa, Liechtenstein, Malaysia and Italy.

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 a takeover move the pension to the new owner? Not necessarily. A takeover is a fact about the company. Where a former employee's pension sits now depends on the scheme and on the years worked, which is why we name a scheme only from a verified mapping.

Can PensionHunter name the scheme? That is the work in our reports: the scheme, who holds the record today and how to reach them, with sources. We identify and research; we do not give advice.

Sources

• United Kingdom, pension portals directory entry, citing gov.uk, read 6 September 2026.
• South Africa, pension portals directory entry, citing fsca.co.za, read 6 September 2026.
• Deadline register row ch-16, citing sfbvg.ch, read 1 September 2026.
• Switzerland, pension portals directory entry, citing ahv-iv.ch, ch.ch, eda.admin.ch and aeis.ch, read 3 October 2026.
• Deadline register row li-16, citing gesetze.li, read 1 September 2026.
• Italy, pension portals directory entry, citing inps.it, read 3 October 2026.
• Malaysia, pension portals directory entry, citing kwsp.gov.my, read 3 October 2026.
• Our government pension portals directory, each entry with the date we verified it.