The Dutch state pension is built on years of residence rather than years of contributions, which means an international career here produces a partial pension almost by definition.
This guide gives the accrual arithmetic, the 2026 amounts, where to look up what you have actually built, and what changes when you leave.
The AOW: What Residence Buys You
You accrue 2 per cent of a full AOW pension for each year of legal residence in the Netherlands between the age of 15 and your pension age, so a full pension takes 50 years and nothing else does.
Pension age is 67 in 2026, and it is linked by law to life expectancy, so anyone under about fifty should assume it will be higher by the time it applies to them.
From 1 July 2026 a single person on a full AOW receives about €1,662 gross a month, which is roughly €1,582 net with the payroll tax credit applied, plus a holiday allowance paid in May.
Each partner in a couple receives a lower rate, on the reasoning that two people share fixed costs.
Run your own numbers against that, because the partial figure is the one that will apply to you.
Arriving at 40 and leaving at 55 gives 15 years, or 30 per cent, which is roughly €500 a month at 2026 rates - a contribution to the rent rather than a retirement.
Working is not required, only legal residence, and years abroad simply do not accrue.
The SVB will issue a statement of your insured periods on request, which is worth getting once rather than guessing for a decade.
The Workplace Pension, And What Just Changed
The second pillar is where most of the money is for anyone who works here for a stretch, and enrolment is normally automatic and non-optional through either a company fund or an industry-wide one.
Both sides contribute, with the employer paying the larger share.
Pension only accrues on salary above the AOW-franchise, a deductible set at roughly the level of the state pension on the logic that the AOW already covers that slice.
The practical consequence is that a modest salary builds very little second-pillar pension, and a high one builds a great deal.
The system is mid-transition under the Wet toekomst pensioenen: the old model promised an accrual of about 1.875 per cent of pensionable salary a year, and the new one fixes the contribution instead and lets the outcome follow the investment return.
Every fund must have moved across by 1 January 2028, so if yours has not written to you about it yet, it will.
Check whether your scheme includes a partner pension and whether it is automatic or an opt-in, because this is the single most commonly missed item on a Dutch pension statement.
Small companies and startups are not always affiliated to a fund at all.
If yours is not, the second pillar is simply absent and you are building it yourself or not at all.
Where To Look It Up
Mijnpensioenoverzicht.nl aggregates your AOW, every workplace scheme you have ever been in and registered annuity products into one projection of monthly income at pension age.
You log in with DigiD, which needs a BSN and takes a week or two to arrange if you do not already have it.
Your fund also sends a UPO once a year: what you have accrued, what you would receive if you stopped today, and the projection if you continue.
Read it in the year you change job, go part-time or take unpaid leave, because those are the three events that put a hole in the accrual without anyone telling you.
Private investments held outside registered pension products do not appear there, and they sit in Box 3, taxed on a deemed return rather than on what they actually earned.
Filling The Gap Yourself
The third pillar for most people is a lijfrente, an annuity whose premiums are deductible from taxable income within an annual allowance calculated from your own pension shortfall.
That allowance is the point: the deduction is only available to the extent you are actually under-pensioned, which is why it suits freelancers and people arriving mid-career.
Banks and specialist providers both sell them, and the two things to compare are the annual cost as a percentage of the pot and what the contract obliges you to do with the money at the end.
A lijfrente must eventually be drawn as an income stream rather than a lump sum, which is the trade for the deduction on the way in.
ZZP’ers have no second pillar unless their sector operates a compulsory fund, so for them the lijfrente is not a top-up but the whole of the private provision.
If You Leave The Netherlands
Accrued AOW rights survive departure and are paid from abroad at pension age, at the partial rate your residence years earned.
Your workplace pension stays with the Dutch fund and is paid to you wherever you live, so the one obligation that follows you is keeping your address and bank details current with the fund for what may be thirty years.
Transferring a Dutch occupational pension to a foreign scheme is possible but requires approval, and the receiving scheme has to satisfy Dutch conditions.
Most people leave it where it is, and the ones who do not should price the advice before the transfer.
Between the Netherlands and the US, the totalization agreement lets periods in each country count towards a minimum qualifying record in the other, and the tax treaty governs which country may tax the pension when it is paid.
The double social insurance guide covers how the agreement works while you are still working.
Frequently Asked Questions
How much AOW will I get?
Two per cent of a full pension for each year of Dutch residence between 15 and pension age, so twenty years gives 40 per cent.
A full single AOW is about €1,662 gross a month from July 2026, plus a holiday allowance in May.
What is the pension age?
67 in 2026, tied by law to life expectancy and reviewed each year.
The SVB publishes your personal AOW date once it is fixed, which happens five years ahead.
Is there a minimum period to qualify?
No - a single year of residence earns 2 per cent, and there is no threshold below which you get nothing.
What happens to my workplace pension if I leave?
It stays with the Dutch fund and is paid to you abroad at retirement.
Keep your address and bank details up to date with the fund, because they will need to find you decades from now.
What changes under the new pension law?
Schemes move from promising an annual accrual to fixing the contribution, with the investment outcome flowing through to the individual.
All funds must have completed the transition by 1 January 2028, and yours will write to you before it does.
I am freelance. What do I do?
You get AOW like everyone else and no second pillar unless your sector has a compulsory fund, so the annuity route is the whole private provision.
Contributions are deductible only up to your calculated shortfall, so work out the allowance before deciding what to pay in.
