Voluntary AOW/Anw insurance
- SNBN
- May 21
- 3 min read
Source: https://www.svb.nl/nl/vv
If you live or work in the Netherlands, you are usually automatically insured under the AOW (General Old Age Pensions Act) and the Anw (General Surviving Dependants Act). If you are insured, you will receive AOW benefits from your state pension age. In the event of death, your surviving dependents can receive a survivor's or orphan's benefit if they meet all the requirements.
This changes when you leave the Netherlands. You will no longer accrue AOW (state pension) benefits, and your surviving dependents will no longer receive survivor's or orphan's benefits.
You start accruing AOW benefits from 50 years before your retirement date. Each year, you accrue 2% of your pension to receive a full AOW pension when you reach retirement age. For every full year you live outside the Netherlands, you accrue 2% less AOW. To prevent this, you can take out voluntary insurance for AOW, Anw, or both.
Example:
Born in the Netherlands on January 1, 1970 and left for abroad on June 1, 2000
Expected retirement date according to the SVB is 1-10-2037 (expected AOW age is 67 years + 9 months)
Note! The retirement date is only set five years before the expected state pension age. This means the start date for state pension contributions is gradually shifting back! This means that contribution years are being dropped at the "front end":
At a retirement age of 65, your AOW accrual began in 1970 + 65 - 50 = 1985 (age 15 years)
At the current retirement age, AOW accrual will not start until 2037 – 50 = 1987 (age 17 years) and you will therefore have accrued 2 x 2% = 4% less AOW when you leave the Netherlands.
When you moved abroad on June 1, 2000, you would have accrued 14 years of AOW (state pension) benefits (2001–1987). If you don't return to the Netherlands, you would have accrued a total of 14 x 2% = 28% of your AOW benefits by the time you reach retirement age, and your AOW benefits would be reduced by 72%.
To continue accruing AOW benefits, you can take out voluntary insurance for AOW, Anw, or both. There are conditions , however:
Immediately before your departure, you must have been insured in the Netherlands for at least one year under the AOW and Anw schemes.
Your application is within 1 year after departure.
You have not yet reached retirement age
You can take out voluntary insurance through the Social Insurance Bank (SVB). Generally, you can take out voluntary insurance for a maximum of 10 years, but there are exceptions .
Voluntary insurance for the AOW is not free. You have to pay a premium for this. Pay. The insurance premium is a percentage of your income. The Dutch government sets this percentage and the minimum and maximum premiums each year.
With a high income, it is worth considering investing the premiums to be paid in a different way, rather than voluntarily insuring for AOW (state pension). For example, through a gross salary pension contribution in the country of residence.
It's impossible to provide definitive advice or an accurate calculation here because every situation is different, amounts are adjusted annually by the government, and because not everyone lives the same amount of time. This example is therefore only indicative but can help you decide whether or not to voluntarily insure yourself for AOW.
Example:
A Dutch citizen living abroad is considering voluntarily insuring herself for AOW (state pension) for 10 years, which would allow her to accrue an additional 10 x 2% = 20%. Her income exceeds €38,441, meaning I will pay the maximum premium of €5,664 per year (reference year 2025).
Her total AOW contribution over 10 years with a constant premium is therefore €56,640.
Assuming a constant AOW benefit for the reference year 2025 of €1,581 + €102 per month and a life expectancy of 85 years (= 17 years of pension), she can expect a total of approximately €68,700 in additional gross AOW during her lifetime.
Assuming that this concerns a gross AOW benefit and that the premium was paid from net income, this person could possibly achieve a higher return by investing this premium as a gross salary pension contribution in the country of residence.