Pension question, Germany
What happens to my German pension after leaving Germany?
The gate is five years of insurance, and Deutsche Rentenversicherung states that the German and the foreign insurance periods are added together to test it, so years insured elsewhere in the EU can carry you through a gate you assumed you had failed. Those foreign years do not increase the German payment, because each country pays only for its own periods.
- Source: deutsche-rentenversicherung.de, read 3 October 2026
What to do next
- List every German employer and the years you worked there, and any German insurance number you held.
- List your insured years in other EU countries, because they count towards the gate.
- Run our free check to see which countries may hold a pension in your name.
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Run the free checkQuestions people also ask
When must the German pension be applied for?
A pension from a person's own insurance (old-age, reduced earning capacity, child-raising pension) must be applied for within three months of meeting all the conditions; after a later application the pension normally starts only from the month of application.
Do you give advice on what to do?
No. We identify where a pension is likely held and the official route to it, and we name each source with the date we read it. We do not give financial, tax or legal advice.