European Union

General information on the EU legislation on the coordination of social security systems

Personal scope of application of Regulation (EC) No 883/2004

Countries covered by EU social security regulations

Which pension and disability insurance entitlements may be claimed on the basis of Regulation (EC) No 883/2004?

Where can a claim for pension and disability insurance entitlements in Member States be lodged?

Taking into account insurance periods completed in Member States

Pension assessment

Payment of pensions and other benefits to other Member States

Changes that recipients of pensions and other benefits must report to the pension provider

General information on EU legislation on the coordination of social security systems

If you have been employed or have resided in other Member States, the EEA or Switzerland, you may claim your pension and disability insurance entitlements in Slovenia under Regulation (EC) No 883/2004 on the coordination of social security systems and the implementing Regulation (EC) No 987/2009.

As an EU Member State, Slovenia regulates its pension and disability system independently. The entitlements stemming from this system may also be claimed by citizens of other Member States and third-country nationals to whom Regulation (EC) No 883/2004 applies under the same conditions as apply to Slovenian nationals. Likewise, Slovenian nationals may claim pension and disability insurance entitlements in other Member States under the same conditions as the nationals of those Member States.

Personal scope of application of Regulation (EC) No 883/2004

As regards personal scope, Regulation No 883/2004 concerns:

• the nationals of one of the Member States

• stateless persons or refugees with permanent residence in one of the Member States

• family members with entitlements through insured persons

• third-country nationals, as well as their family members, who are legally resident in the territory of a Member State and whose position is not  exclusively  limited to the regulations of one Member State.

Countries covered by EU social security legislation

Regulation No 883/2004 applies to Member States: Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland (including the Åland Islands), France (including the overseas territories of Guadeloupe, French Guyana, Martinique, Réunion, St Pierre et Miquelon), Greece, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Germany, the Netherlands, Portugal (including the autonomous regions of the Azores and Madeira), Spain (including the Canary Islands, Ceuta and Melilla), Sweden, the United Kingdom (excluding the Isle of Man and the Channel Islands), Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Hungary, Malta, Poland, Slovakia, Romania, Bulgaria, Croatia and Slovenia. The two regulations also apply to certain non-EU countries: Iceland, Norway, Liechtenstein and Switzerland.

Which pension and disability insurance entitlements may be claimed on the basis of Regulation (EC) No 883/2004?

The right to old-age, early-retirement, disability, widow-er’s and survivor’s pensions, and the right to an assistance and attendance allowance, may be claimed in Slovenia under Regulation No 883/2004.

Each Member State decides on pension and disability insurance entitlements on the basis of its own national law. As the conditions for entitlement to a pension vary from one country to another, you do not necessarily have the right to receive a pension at the same time in all the countries in which you have been insured.

If the claim has been rejected in a particular country because the pension conditions have not yet been met, you may, after the conditions have been met, file a new claim for pension entitlement. Regulation No 883/2004 also allows you to postpone a claim for an old-age pension in a particular Member State and to make a claim only in the country you have chosen.

Member States have different criteria for classing people into categories of those incapable or partly incapable of working. It is therefore possible to qualify for a disability pension in one Member State and not in another Member State, or to qualify later, if your state of health deteriorates.

Where can a claim for pension and disability insurance entitlements in Member States be lodged?

A pension claim is made to the competent provider in the Member State of permanent residence or the competent provider in the Member State whose legislation was most recently applicable to you.

If a pension claim is filed in one Member State, the competent provider in that Member State forwards the claim to the other countries in which you were employed or insured. This does not apply if you request postponement of recognition of the entitlement to an old-age pension in a particular Member State.

Persons residing in Slovenia may lodge a claim at any regional unit of the Pension and Disability Insurance Institute and its headquarters in Ljubljana.

The applicant must state the insurance period completed in the Member State, and attach documents in support of the claim. If you do not have supporting documents, you must provide full employment details, along with the time periods, the name of the employer and the place of employment. If you wish to postpone your claim for an old-age pension from another Member State until a later date, you should explicitly state this in the claim.

Upon request, the Pension and Disability Insurance Institute of Slovenia initiates an entitlement procedure, or forwards the corresponding requests to other Member States.

Taking into account insurance periods completed in Member States

Regulation No 883/2004 allows persons who have been employed or insured in several Member States to meet the prescribed conditions for entitlement to a pension by aggregation of insurance periods.

Insurance periods completed in the Member States are only added together if they do not overlap. Overlapping periods are only counted as one period.

Only a period reported and confirmed by the competent insurance provider of the Member State in the agreed way may be taken into account as a period of insurance completed in that Member State.

Pension assessment

If the conditions for entitlement to a pension or other benefits are met solely by aggregating insurance periods completed in Member States, the pension is assessed on a pro-rata basis.

A pro-rata part of a pension is assessed by first calculating the theoretical amount of the pension to which a person would have been entitled had the total insurance period been completed in the Member State that assesses the pension. This amount is then multiplied by the number of months of insurance completed in the Member State that assesses the pension, and divided by the total number of months of insurance period completed in all Member States. When calculating a pro-rata part of a pension, the competent provider only takes into account the wages or insurance bases under the legislation of the Member State that assesses the pension.

If the conditions for awarding an entitlement to a pension under national legislation (without taking into account insurance periods in other Member States) are met, two calculations are made. A pension under national legislation is calculated, as is the pro-rata part of the pension. After comparing both amounts, the higher amount is paid.

If, at the same time, you do not meet the conditions in all the Member States in which you have completed an insurance period, the calculation of a pro-rata part of the pension does not take into account insurance periods completed in Member States in which the conditions for pension entitlement have not yet been met, unless taking those periods into account allows a higher pension assessment.

If you have completed less than one year of insurance in a Member State, you cannot, as a rule claim pension entitlements in that Member State. In such a case, the competent providers in the other Member States where you have completed more than one year of insurance take account of that insurance period. In some countries, entitlement to a pension may also be acquired under certain conditions on the basis of a period of less than one year. Therefore the other Member States do not take account of that period.

Payment of pensions and other benefits to other Member States

Pensions awarded in a particular Member State may be paid to another Member State in which a beneficiary resides.

Changes that recipients of pensions and other benefits must report to the pension provider

The statutory provisions oblige pension recipients and applicants to report any change that could affect entitlement to a pension or other benefits, or the amount of the benefit as soon as possible.

Timely reporting of changes can allow you to avoid overpayments and, consequently, the return of unduly paid benefits.

Recipients of pensions and other benefits or applicants may report any changes at any unit of the Pension and Disability Insurance Institute of Slovenia. We advise that the following changes in particular be reported:

• the resumption of employment or self-employment;
• for the recipient of a survivor’s pension after the age of 15 — the end of education and the start of employment;
• the award  of a pension, a new assessment of a pension or the withdrawal of a pension by the provider of another Member State;
• a change of permanent residence;
• other changes that could affect entitlement to a pension and other benefits, or the amount thereof.