The pension system in Sweden is made up of several different parts. During your active working life, you are constantly earning money for the total pension through the taxes you pay. Via it, a pension contribution, or pension right, is paid, which over time results in your public pension.
The own savings constitute a separate part of all parts of the pension. However, it is up to you to actively choose to save money for retirement.
Finally, if the employer offers it, you also have an occupational pension. Normally, the provision for the occupational pension is between 4.5 and 6 percent of your monthly salary up to SEK 47,625. Of the amount you earn in addition to that, around 30 to 31.5 percent is set aside for the occupational pension, according to Consumers’.
But the fact that the pension will begin to be paid out does not happen automatically. Because it is up to you to act, and that in itself can be a little clever.
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This is how high the average total pension is in Sweden
The total average pension before tax differs between men and women.
- All: SEK 22,700 per month
- Women: SEK 19,400 per month
- Men: SEK 26,500 per month
Women’s total pension as a proportion of men’s amounts to 73 percent on average.
Source: The Pensions Authority
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You can then receive a general pension
The general pension part, to which everyone who has lived or worked in Sweden is entitled, needs to be applied for to be paid. The year you were born also determines when you can apply for public pension at the earliest. The earliest you can request to receive a general pension is the month you turn 63.
The pension authority’s request to you who are in the process of requesting that part, is to do so three months before you wish to receive your first payment.
However, it is when it comes to your occupational pension that it starts to get a little trickier.
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Two central parts of your occupational pension
If you earned an occupational pension during your working life, it also consists of several parts with different rules for when you can request to receive it at the earliest.
The state’s occupational pensions agency explains what applies if you earn for the various parts named “Kåpan Tjänste” and “Kåpan Flex”, both parts of the state occupational pension agreement. You earn these until you turn 69 at the latest, and if you do not apply to have it paid out, there will automatically be a first payment from the time you turn 72 and then for life.
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Government employee? How to claim your occupational pension
The state occupational pensions agency, SPV, reports on its homepage for which rules apply if you want to withdraw the optional part of your occupational pension if you were a government employee during your working life.
- You must apply to have the elective part paid out. If you do not, the first payment will be made when you are 72 years old.
- You can take it out for life or for a period of at least ten years.
- You choose whether you withdraw the pension part as a lump sum if it is the case that the value of your insurance is less than a price base amount.
- You apply to have the optional occupational pension part paid out to the insurer that manages the money.
- Once the money is paid out, you cannot change your mind or cancel the payment.
- The earliest you can withdraw the optional part is when you turn 61.
What differs from the two parts “Kåpan Tjänste” and “Kåpan Flex” is that the former you can request to be paid for life or at least five years. “Kåpan Tjänste” you can also request to be paid from the age of 61.
“Kåpan Flex”, on the other hand, you can choose to be paid for life or for a period of at least one year. You also have the option, unlike “Kåpan Tjänste”, to have that pension part paid from the time you turn 63.
It is up to you to apply for both of these parts of the occupational pension to be paid out.
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The Swedish Pensions Authority: How to claim your occupational pension
You who, on the other hand, have not been a government employee, which rules then apply to you?
The Pensions Authority clarifies that some occupational pensions can begin to be paid out automatically when you turn 65, while in other cases it is entirely up to you to apply to have the occupational pension paid out. Should it be the case that your occupational pension is automatically paid but you wish not to withdraw it from your 65th birthday, then you must apply to have the payment stopped before it arrives in the account. Once in your account, it is too late to stop or change the payment period, just like for the government employees who receive a pension via the Staten sjölspensionsverk.
If you have worked at several workplaces during your working life and thus have different occupational pensions, you will, on the day you want to request the money, have to apply from the person who manages the money.
By logging in to minpension.se you can see an overview of where the money is managed in order to then contact them.
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Source: nyheter24.se
