What happens to a pension when the worker goes home

These are the rules we have found that end an entitlement, or move it somewhere else, if nothing is done in time.

Japan operates a lump sum withdrawal payment, dattai ichijikin, for foreign nationals who leave. It is open to someone who contributed for at least six months, has not reached the ten years needed for a Japanese old age pension, has never received a disability or survivor pension, and no longer has a registered address in Japan.

The application must be filed within two years. The two years run from the day after the registered Japanese address is removed, not from the last contribution.

The maximum number of months counted was raised from thirty six to sixty, with effect from 1 April 2021, for contribution periods on or after that date. Contribution periods whose last payment falls before March 2021 remain capped at thirty six months.

Source: Japan Pension Service, nenkin.go.jp, checked 18 August 2026.

There is a second question underneath the first, and it decides whether taking the payment is a good idea at all. Japan has social security agreements with twenty four countries. Among the countries that send large numbers of workers to Japan, the Philippines has one and Bangladesh, Pakistan, Nepal, Sri Lanka and Indonesia do not. Where an agreement exists, periods in Japan can be added to periods at home, and taking the lump sum can end that possibility. Where no agreement exists there is nothing to add and the lump sum is the only route.

Source: Japan Pension Service, Status of Agreements, nenkin.go.jp/international/english/agreement/status.html, checked 18 August 2026.

From October 2025 wages, contributions to the Employees Provident Fund became mandatory for non-citizen employees, at two per cent from the employer and two per cent from the employee, for pass holders under the age of seventy five. Domestic workers and diplomatic mission staff are excluded. The first payment was due by 15 November 2025.

Source: KWSP, kwsp.gov.my, checked 18 August 2026.

A foreign worker leaving Malaysia permanently can withdraw the entire balance. The fund tells expatriates to apply two months before the work pass expires or the contract ends.

Source: KWSP, Leaving Country withdrawal, kwsp.gov.my, checked 18 August 2026.

For non-citizens registered after 1 August 1998, an account with no contribution activity for three years is classified as unclaimed savings and transferred in full to the Unclaimed Money Management Division of the Accountant General's Department. The money leaves the fund. From that point the person, or the next of kin, deals with a different government body.

Source: KWSP, Unclaimed Savings, kwsp.gov.my, checked 18 August 2026.

A new pot is forming right now, under a rule that is a few months old, for people who will mostly leave before they ever hear of it.

Foreign workers in Korea are not automatically entitled to a refund of National Pension contributions on leaving. Eligibility runs on either a bilateral social security agreement or a reciprocity designation by the National Pension Service.

Source: National Pension Service, Guide to the National Pension for Foreigners, nps.or.kr, checked 18 August 2026.

Separately, and this is the part that reaches workers the pension does not, every worker on the Employment Permit System is covered by employer funded Departure Guarantee Insurance, and by a smaller worker funded Return Cost Insurance. These are not the pension. They are payable on permanent departure after a year of employment, and they apply regardless of nationality.

The designated insurer states that money not requested within three years of the departure that triggers it becomes dormant insurance and is transferred to HRD Korea, after which it is reachable only through a separate process.

Source: Samsung Fire and Marine, the designated Employment Permit System insurer, foreign worker FAQ, checked 18 August 2026. We have put this to HRD Korea directly and will publish the answer.

We wrote to the National Pension Service with the same six questions we put to every institution in this study. Its Center for International Affairs replied on 18 August 2026 that international cooperation and social security agreements are its remit and that it does not have the authority to answer on general procedures, and directed us to the public website. We have followed the route it gave.

Migrant workers in production, construction, fishery and care work are covered by Labor Insurance. They are not participants in the individual account Labor Pension. On 1 January 2026 Taiwan extended the Labor Pension Act to foreign professionals and specialist professionals. That extension does not reach the workers described here.

Source: Bureau of Labor Insurance, bli.gov.tw, and Ministry of Labor, mol.gov.tw, checked 18 August 2026.

The Labor Insurance old age benefit is explicitly not subject to the general five year limitation that applies to other Labor Insurance benefits. Nothing is forfeited and nothing expires.

Source: Bureau of Labor Insurance FAQ, bli.gov.tw, checked 18 August 2026.

What stands in the way is not a deadline. It is that the benefit is payable only at Taiwan's statutory pension age, so often decades after the person left, and must then be applied for from abroad through an authenticated power of attorney and certified translations. Migrant workers are also limited in how long they may stay, so most never accumulate the fifteen years of coverage that produce a monthly pension rather than a one time payment.

Source: Taiwan FactCheck Center, tfc-taiwan.org.tw, checked 18 August 2026.

This is the clearest case in the whole study of money that is not lost, not disputed and not expired, and still does not arrive.

Between 1961 and 1973 four European countries signed recruitment agreements with Turkey and Morocco and brought in hundreds of thousands of workers. Those men were typically in their twenties and thirties when they arrived. Someone who came at twenty five in 1964 is eighty seven today.

So this is no longer, mostly, a question about workers. It is a question about estates, widows and children, and about record systems that were never built to be reached from another country.

Deutsche Rentenversicherung data for 2022 shows retirees from the former recruitment countries receiving 834 euros a month against 1,111 euros for the population without a migration background. For women the figures are 661 euros against 899 euros. The poverty risk is 36.6 per cent against 15.4 per cent. Around 360,000 retirees from the former recruitment countries draw a pension while living in Germany.

Source: Deutsche Rentenversicherung 2022 data, reported by Mediendienst Integration, mediendienst-integration.de, checked 18 August 2026.

The Netherlands terminated the 1971 general convention with Morocco with effect from 1 January 2017. Separately, amendments signed at Rabat on 4 June 2016 applied the woonlandbeginsel, the country of residence principle, and ended certain exports of benefit.

Source: Eerste Kamer, eerstekamer.nl, checked 18 August 2026.

The woonlandbeginsel applies to the survivor benefit Anw, to the WGA follow up benefit, and to kinderbijslag and kindgebonden budget. It does not apply to AOW. The Dutch government's own explanation of the principle does not list AOW, and the SVB implementing circular is titled for the Anw and the AKW only. AOW continues to be paid to Morocco.

Source: Rijksoverheid, rijksoverheid.nl, and SVB circular PUC 1301, puc.overheid.nl, both checked 18 August 2026.

We record this because the opposite is widely believed, and someone who believes their state pension was stopped is unlikely to ask about it.

Turkey operates yurtdışı borçlanması, under which a Turkish citizen can pay contributions covering periods spent abroad and so build an entitlement in the Turkish system. It covers insured work abroad, up to a year of unemployment, and time spent abroad as a non-working spouse, for periods after the age of eighteen. Former citizens who left with exit permission can also use it, provided they hold Turkish citizenship at the time of the request.

The premium is forty five per cent of a chosen daily earnings band. For 2026 that runs from about 495 Turkish lira to about 4,459 Turkish lira for each day of service purchased. Once the institution issues its assessment there are three months to pay, after which the request is void.

The heirs of a deceased Turkish citizen may make the purchase on the deceased's behalf.

Source: Sosyal Guvenlik Kurumu, sgk.gov.tr, checked 18 August 2026.

Whether taking a Turkish pension by this route affects a Dutch AOW or a German pension is a question we have put to the institutions concerned. We do not have an answer and we will not guess at one.

A Dutch pension fund learns that a participant living in Turkey or Morocco has died only if that person was still in active administrative contact with a Dutch body. Otherwise the family has to report it. Several funds require a death certificate that has been verified against the Dutch non-residents register, or consular legalised, before a survivor pension is assessed.

Source: MAX Meldpunt, maxmeldpunt.nl, checked 18 August 2026.

What that means in practice for a family in Turkey or Morocco is a legalised death certificate, a certified translation, and an inheritance declaration reconciled with a legal framework built for domestic estates, before anyone will look at the file.

Payment in the other direction depends on an annual proof of life. The Netherlands calls it a levensbewijs, Germany a Lebensbescheinigung, Belgium a certificate of life, France a certificat de vie. All four must be signed by the recipient and witnessed by a local competent authority or notary. Belgian guidance asks for prompt return of the certificate to avoid any interruption of the payment.

Source: Nederland Wereldwijd, nederlandwereldwijd.nl, and Belgian Federal Public Service Foreign Affairs, diplomatie.belgium.be, both checked 18 August 2026.

The largest migration corridor in this research is the one with the least in it. No national pension scheme in Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Kuwait, Oman or Bahrain covers non-GCC expatriate workers. The Gulf Cooperation Council unified scheme extends only to GCC nationals working in another GCC state.

Source: General Pension and Social Security Authority, gpssa.gov.ae, checked 18 August 2026.

Nor is there a bridge home. India's Ministry of External Affairs lists eighteen social security agreements in force and six under negotiation. No Gulf state appears on either list. We have found no such agreement between any Gulf state and Bangladesh, Pakistan, Nepal or the Philippines.

Source: Press Information Bureau, Government of India, pib.gov.in, checked 18 August 2026.

What an expatriate worker has instead is an end of service gratuity, paid once by the employer at the end of the contract. The period in which it can be pursued is short. Qatar sets one year from the expiry of the contract, under article 10 of Labour Law 14 of 2004. Bahrain sets one year under article 136 of Labour Law 36 of 2012, and thirty days for compensation on termination under article 135. Oman sets one year from the date the right arises, under Royal Decree 53 of 2023. The United Arab Emirates now sets two years, not one, under article 54(9) of Federal Decree-Law 33 of 2021 as amended in 2024.

Source: ILO NATLEX, natlex.ilo.org, for Qatar; Labour Market Regulatory Authority, lmra.gov.bh, for Bahrain; Royal Decree 53 of 2023 for Oman; Federal Decree-Law 33 of 2021 as amended for the United Arab Emirates. All checked 18 August 2026.

We do not publish a figure for Saudi Arabia or Kuwait. A one year period is widely stated for both and we could not attribute it to a provision, so it is not here.

Two states have begun to change this. Since 1 March 2024 the Social Insurance Organisation in Bahrain has collected monthly contributions for non-Bahraini workers, at 4.2 per cent of wages for the first three years of service and 8.4 per cent after that, so that the gratuity is held by a state body rather than promised by an employer. Oman will require employers to pay 9 per cent of basic monthly wages into individual savings accounts for non-Omani workers from 19 July 2027. The United Arab Emirates has operated a voluntary alternative end of service savings scheme since 1 November 2023, and a mandatory workplace savings plan inside the Dubai International Financial Centre since 1 February 2020.

Source: Social Insurance Organisation, sio.gov.bh; Royal Decree 52 of 2023, Oman; Ministry of Human Resources and Emiratisation, mohre.gov.ae. All checked 18 August 2026.

This study publishes silence as well as answers. These are questions we have put and not yet had answered. Each one is a figure or a rule we would otherwise have printed above.

• Which nationalities are enrolled in the Korean National Pension and which are exempt. We have a list from a non-government source and will not print it until the institution confirms it.
• Whether money held under the Korean Departure Guarantee Insurance is forfeited or merely relocated after three years, and by what authority.
• Whether the Malaysian Unclaimed Money Management Division publishes a figure for money received from the accounts of foreign workers.
• Whether the two year period in Japan extinguishes the entitlement or only bars the application.
• Whether taking a Turkish pension through the Turkish buy back route affects a Dutch AOW or a German pension.
• How many people receiving a Dutch AOW live in Turkey and in Morocco today. Two published figures for this differ by more than a factor of ten, so we print neither.
• What the Dutch pension sector currently holds for participants it cannot trace. Two Dutch news reports in May 2022 put the total in the hundreds of millions of euros, with no breakdown by country of residence.
• Whether any Gulf state operates a register that heirs living abroad can search.
• What the limitation period is for end of service entitlements in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, and under which provision.

If your institution can answer any of these, write to hello@pensionhunter.ai. We publish the answer with the source and the date, and we publish corrections in full beside the original.