How to Claim a German Pension Refund: Complete 2026 Guide

Last legal and form review: 10 August 2026 If you worked in Germany and later left, you may be able to get back the pension contributions deducted from your salary. The official German term is Beitragserstattung.

The German Pension Insurance (Deutsche Rentenversicherung, or DRV) does not issue refunds automatically. Whether you qualify depends mainly on your citizenship, where you live, and whether you are still covered by a mandatory pension system. For some nationalities, the number of German contribution months also matters.

Short answer: before retirement age, you can claim if all three conditions are met:

1. You are no longer paying mandatory German pension contributions — or contributions in a foreign system that Germany treats the same way.

2. German law or a social security agreement does not give you the right to continue paying voluntary German pension contributions.

3. At least 24 full calendar months have passed since that relevant mandatory insurance ended.

Foreign insurance does not always matter. The main problem areas are EU and UK coverage, mandatory pension insurance in Türkiye or an ex-Yugoslav successor state — and one special case: living in India blocks every nationality except Indian citizens.

Use our free eligibility checker below for a preliminary answer in seconds. It covers the situations most people claiming their own contributions before retirement age are in; this guide explains the conditions and exceptions behind the result.

The familiar "less than five years in Germany" rule is not universal. The 60-month limit applies only to citizens of the eleven agreement countries listed later in this guide — plus Japanese citizens while they live in Japan. For every other non-EU citizenship, no contribution limit exists, although residence and current mandatory insurance can still matter. Check your eligibility and estimate your refund in 60 seconds:

In this guide: Find your country's rules DIY: claim it yourself Who can claim How the 60 months count How much you get back When to apply What happens after Problems & FAQ

What can be refunded?

If you were employed in Germany, you receive the part of the statutory pension contribution that came out of your salary. Since 2018, the employee rate has been 9.3%; in 2026, contributions are charged on monthly salary up to EUR 8,450. What can be refunded?

• Your employer paid another 9.3% — not refunded, because it was never deducted from your salary.

• Voluntary contributions and compulsory self-employed contributions are refunded at 50%: you paid both halves yourself, and the law treats one half like the employer share that stays in the system.

• Contribution months credited without a payment from you — qualifying unemployment or child-raising periods, for example — can affect pension rights or the 60-month threshold, but create no cash refund.

• A company pension (bAV) is a separate system — a Direktversicherung, Pensionskasse or employer promise is not part of this refund. But it isn't lost: a granted statutory refund gives you the right to cash out a vested company pension too (see the company pension section below).

• A completed refund erases the German pension rights attached to every earlier period in the account — including periods that paid you nothing. If you later return to insured work in Germany, you build new rights from zero; the refunded periods never come back.

  
  

Official basis: § 210 SGB VI · DRV 2026 contribution values · DRV refund brochure

Who can claim a German pension refund?

For most former employees, the answer comes down to the three conditions above. Citizenship and residence determine how those conditions apply to you — especially whether the law still lets you pay voluntary German contributions.

You don't need to want to pay voluntarily. If the law gives you that right — even unused — a refund is not possible. That single principle explains almost every rule on this page, and it's why you and a co-worker can leave Germany on the same day with the same contribution count and get different answers.

1. You are no longer covered by mandatory pension insurance that Germany treats as relevant

You cannot claim while you're still paying mandatory German pension contributions. Mandatory coverage in another EU country or the UK blocks you the same way — and so does mandatory state pension insurance in Türkiye or an ex-Yugoslav successor state (with one exception: Kosovo's mandatory individual pension fund doesn't count — see the country guide).

Foreign mandatory insurance does not always block you, though. Mandatory Indian pension insurance is not treated like German insurance and doesn't stop an otherwise eligible claim. Mandatory Turkish insurance, on the other hand, is treated like German insurance and blocks the refund for as long as it continues. The country guide below tells you which side your system is on.

And unless you live in the EU or the UK — where residence alone blocks you — your address and your insurance status are separate questions. Living in Türkiye is not the same as paying mandatory Turkish pension contributions there.

2. You do not have the legal right to pay voluntary German contributions

This condition causes most country-specific exceptions. If the law still allows you to add voluntary contributions to your German account, you cannot take the earlier contributions back. The answer depends on:

• every citizenship you currently hold;

• the country where you live;

• the EU-UK rules or the applicable social security agreement; and

• for some nationalities, whether your German record contains 60 contribution months.
  

German, EU/EEA, Swiss and UK citizens keep voluntary-insurance rights, so former employees with these citizenships cannot claim before retirement age (one exception: German civil servants and certain others who left mandatory insurance — see the special-cases section below). A non-EU citizen living in an EU member state or the UK is also blocked, even without working there. And India carries the one special residence rule outside Europe: anyone living in India without Indian citizenship is blocked, as if India were part of the EU.

Example: an Indian citizen living in France is blocked by EU residence. The same person living in Norway is not — Norway is not an EU member state. With 59 or fewer German contribution months, only the 24-month waiting period remains.

3. You have completed the 24-month waiting period

You need 24 full calendar months after your last relevant mandatory-insurance month. Count the contribution month itself — not the later date on which your employer transferred the payroll money.

Date example: March 2024 was your final German contribution month. The 24 waiting months run April 2024 through March 2026, and you can apply from 1 April 2026 — if nothing restarted the clock.

The clock starts after the final month of relevant mandatory coverage — for most former employees, the final month they worked. A bonus paid after you left adds no month when no pension contribution was deducted from it. And during the 24 months, new mandatory insurance in the EU, the UK, Türkiye or an ex-Yugoslav successor state restarts the clock: the new 24 months begin after that insurance ends.

Don't conceal later EU or UK work or residence. A refund obtained through false information can be withdrawn, reclaimed and enforced. State every relevant employment and insurance period in the application — the pension office checks.

Official basis: § 210 SGB VI · § 7 SGB VI · DRV guidance on voluntary insurance · DRV India refund guidance · §§ 45 and 50 SGB X

Find your country's rules: eligibility by citizenship and residence

General rules everyone must meet

You must meet all three conditions:

1. You do not hold German, EU/EEA, Swiss or UK citizenship.

2. You live outside the EU and the UK. Living in Norway, Iceland, Liechtenstein or Switzerland is fine.

3. At least 24 full calendar months have passed since your last mandatory pension insurance in Germany, the EU, the UK, Türkiye, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Montenegro, North Macedonia or Serbia. New mandatory insurance in any of these countries restarts the 24 months (one exception: Kosovo's Trust/KPST fund — see the second table). Use our 24-month waiting-period calculator to find the exact date your waiting period ends.

If you meet all three, check the two tables below for additional rules based on your citizenship, where you live, or mandatory pension insurance in another country.

Additional rules based on your citizenship

Citizenship	Additional rule
US, Indian, Canadian, Australian, Brazilian, South Korean, Filipino, Albanian, Moldovan, North Macedonian or Uruguayan	59 or fewer German contribution months. From 60 months, a refund is no longer available — claim your German pension at retirement age instead.
Japanese	Living outside Japan: no contribution limit. Living in Japan: only 59 or fewer German contribution months.
Israeli	Living outside Israel: no contribution limit. Living in Israel: no refund before German retirement age.
Bosnian, Kosovan, Montenegrin or Serbian	Living outside Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Montenegro and Serbia: no additional rule. Living in any of those four countries: no refund before German retirement age.
Any other citizenship not listed above	No additional rule — you qualify if you meet the general rules.
German, EU/EEA, Swiss or UK	No refund before German retirement age. Holding one of these citizenships alongside another citizenship also blocks the refund — every passport counts. One exception: Germans who left mandatory insurance, such as civil servants, can refund their earlier contributions — see the special-cases section.

Additional rules based on where you live or pay pension insurance

Where you live or pay mandatory pension insurance	Additional rule
Norway, Iceland, Liechtenstein or Switzerland	Living there is fine: if you meet the general rules, your address there does not prevent a refund. Citizens of these countries: use the first table — no refund before retirement age.
India	If you are not an Indian citizen, living in India prevents a refund before German retirement age. Indian citizens use the first table.
Japan	Japanese citizens living in Japan: only 59 or fewer German contribution months. Other nationalities: no additional rule.
Israel	Israeli citizens living in Israel: no refund before German retirement age. Other nationalities: no additional rule.
Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Montenegro or Serbia	Citizens of any of these four countries: no refund while living in any of them. Other nationalities: residence alone does not block the refund — but paying mandatory state pension insurance there does. Exception: Kosovo's Trust/KPST fund is an individual savings account, not state pension insurance, and does not block the refund.
North Macedonia	No refund for anyone while paying mandatory North Macedonian pension insurance — and it restarts the 24 months. Residence alone does not block the refund.
Türkiye	No refund for anyone while paying mandatory Turkish pension insurance — and it restarts the 24 months. Residence alone does not block the refund.
All other countries	No additional rule.

If you are a recognized refugee or stateless, use the dedicated section below — the country rules reach you through your residence, not your origin.

United States

If you're a US citizen, you qualify for a German pension refund when three things are true:

1. You live outside the EU, the UK and India.

2. You have 59 or fewer German contribution months.

3. Your last mandatory pension insurance ended more than 24 months ago — counting insurance in Germany, the EU, the UK, Türkiye and the ex-Yugoslav states (Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Serbia). A new job with mandatory insurance in any of them restarts the 24 months.

Paying into US Social Security changes nothing — American insurance never blocks the refund and never restarts the clock.

From 60 German contribution months, the refund door closes. The German-American agreement then gives you the right to keep paying into the German system voluntarily — and as long as that right exists, the money can't be taken out. Your contributions aren't lost: they've earned you a German pension, which you can claim at retirement age and receive in the US or anywhere else in the world.

Living in the US without US citizenship? That changes nothing either way — there is no US residence rule. Your answer depends on the citizenships you hold, so check the section for each of your passports.

Recognized refugees and stateless people: see the refugee section below — your residence country's rules may apply to you instead.

Legal basis and official guidance: Section 210 SGB VI · Germany-United States agreement in the Federal Law Gazette · DRV contribution-refund guidance · DRV country guide

Full guide for US citizens: 🇺🇸 German Pension Refund for U.S. Citizens→

India

If you're an Indian citizen, you qualify for a German pension refund when three things are true:

1. You live outside the EU and the UK.

2. You have 59 or fewer German contribution months.

3. Your last mandatory pension insurance ended more than 24 months ago — counting insurance in Germany, the EU, the UK, Türkiye and the ex-Yugoslav states (Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Serbia). A new job with mandatory insurance in any of them restarts the 24 months.

Paying into an Indian pension scheme changes nothing — Indian insurance never blocks the refund and never restarts the clock.

From 60 German contribution months, the refund door closes. The German-Indian agreement then gives you the right to keep paying into the German system voluntarily — and as long as that right exists, the money can't be taken out. Your contributions aren't lost: they've earned you a German pension, which you can claim at retirement age and receive in India or anywhere in the world.

Living in India without Indian citizenship? Then India blocks you. A single German contribution month in your past gives you the right to pay voluntary German contributions — as if you lived in the EU — and that right prevents a refund for as long as you live in India. This applies to every other nationality, including refugees and stateless people living in India. If you move to another eligible country, the block ends.

Legal basis and official guidance: Section 210 SGB VI · Germany-India agreement in the Federal Law Gazette · DRV contribution-refund guidance · DRV country guide

Full guide for Indian citizens: 🇮🇳 German Pension Refund for Indian Citizens→

Canada

If you're a Canadian citizen, you qualify for a German pension refund when three things are true:

1. You live outside the EU, the UK and India.

2. You have 59 or fewer German contribution months.

3. Your last mandatory pension insurance ended more than 24 months ago — counting insurance in Germany, the EU, the UK, Türkiye and the ex-Yugoslav states (Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Serbia). A new job with mandatory insurance in any of them restarts the 24 months.

Paying into the CPP or QPP changes nothing — Canadian and Quebec pension insurance never blocks the refund and never restarts the clock.

From 60 German contribution months, the refund door closes. The German-Canadian agreement then gives you the right to keep paying into the German system voluntarily — and as long as that right exists, the money can't be taken out. Your contributions aren't lost: they've earned you a German pension, which you can claim at retirement age and receive in Canada or anywhere else in the world.

One rare exception: if you started paying voluntary German contributions while living in Canada before 1 April 1988, that old right to contribute voluntarily continues — and it can block your refund even with fewer than 60 months. If that's you, have your case checked individually before applying.

Living in Canada without Canadian citizenship? That changes nothing either way — there is no Canadian residence rule. Your answer depends on the citizenships you hold, so check the section for each of your passports.

Recognized refugees and stateless people: see the refugee section below — your residence country's rules may apply to you instead.

Legal basis and official guidance: Section 210 SGB VI · Germany-Canada agreement in the Federal Law Gazette · DRV contribution-refund guidance · DRV country guide

Full guide for Canadian citizens: 🇨🇦 German Pension Refund for Canadian Citizens→

Australia

If you're an Australian citizen, you qualify for a German pension refund when three things are true:

1. You live outside the EU, the UK and India.

2. You have 59 or fewer German contribution months.

3. Your last mandatory pension insurance ended more than 24 months ago — counting insurance in Germany, the EU, the UK, Türkiye and the ex-Yugoslav states (Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Serbia). A new job with mandatory insurance in any of them restarts the 24 months.

Paying into your super changes nothing — Australian superannuation and Age Pension coverage never block the refund and never restart the clock.

From 60 German contribution months, the refund door closes. The German-Australian agreement then gives you the right to keep paying into the German system voluntarily — and as long as that right exists, the money can't be taken out. Your contributions aren't lost: they've earned you a German pension, which you can claim at retirement age and receive in Australia.

Living in Australia without Australian citizenship? That changes nothing either way — there is no Australian residence rule. Your answer depends on the citizenships you hold, so check the section for each of your passports.

Recognized refugees and stateless people: see the refugee section below — your residence country's rules may apply to you instead.

Legal basis and official guidance: Section 210 SGB VI · Germany-Australia agreement in the Federal Law Gazette · DRV contribution-refund guidance · DRV country guide

Full guide for Australian citizens: 🇦🇺 German Pension Refund for Australian Citizens→

Brazil

If you're a Brazilian citizen, you qualify for a German pension refund when three things are true:

1. You live outside the EU, the UK and India.

2. You have 59 or fewer German contribution months.

3. Your last mandatory pension insurance ended more than 24 months ago — counting insurance in Germany, the EU, the UK, Türkiye and the ex-Yugoslav states (Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Serbia). A new job with mandatory insurance in any of them restarts the 24 months.

Paying into the INSS changes nothing — Brazilian pension insurance never blocks the refund and never restarts the clock.

From 60 German contribution months, the refund door closes. The German-Brazilian agreement then gives you the right to keep paying into the German system voluntarily — and as long as that right exists, the money can't be taken out. Your contributions aren't lost: they've earned you a German pension, which you can claim at retirement age and receive in Brazil.

Check your second passport. If you also hold Italian, Portuguese, Spanish or any other EU or UK citizenship, that passport blocks the refund — even if you've never set foot in the country that issued it. The German system looks at what citizenships you hold, not which ones you use.

Living in Brazil without Brazilian citizenship? That changes nothing either way — there is no Brazilian residence rule. Your answer depends on the citizenships you hold, so check the section for each of your passports.

Recognized refugees and stateless people: see the refugee section below — your residence country's rules may apply to you instead.

Legal basis and official guidance: Section 210 SGB VI · Germany-Brazil agreement in the Federal Law Gazette · DRV contribution-refund guidance · DRV country guide

Full guide for Brazilian citizens: 🇧🇷 German Pension Refund for Brazilian Citizens→

South Korea

If you're a South Korean citizen, you qualify for a German pension refund when three things are true:

1. You live outside the EU, the UK and India.

2. You have 59 or fewer German contribution months.

3. Your last mandatory pension insurance ended more than 24 months ago— counting insurance in Germany, the EU, the UK, Türkiye and the ex-Yugoslav states (Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Serbia). A new job with mandatory insurance in any of them restarts the 24 months.

Paying into the National Pension Service changes nothing — Korean pension insurance never blocks the refund and never restarts the clock.

From 60 German contribution months, the refund door closes. The German-Korean agreement then gives you the right to keep paying into the German system voluntarily — and as long as that right exists, the money can't be taken out. Your contributions aren't lost: they've earned you a German pension, which you can claim at retirement age and receive in Korea.

Living in South Korea without Korean citizenship? That changes nothing either way — there is no Korean residence rule. Your answer depends on the citizenships you hold, so check the section for each of your passports.

Recognized refugees and stateless people: see the refugee section below — your residence country's rules may apply to you instead.

Legal basis and official guidance: Section 210 SGB VI · Germany-Korea agreement in the Federal Law Gazette · DRV treaty overview · DRV Korea liaison information

Full guide for Korean citizens: German Pension Refund Eligibility | South Korea→

Philippines

If you're a Filipino citizen, you qualify for a German pension refund when three things are true:

1. You live outside the EU, the UK and India.

2. You have 59 or fewer German contribution months.

3. Your last mandatory pension insurance ended more than 24 months ago — counting insurance in Germany, the EU, the UK, Türkiye and the ex-Yugoslav states (Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Serbia). A new job with mandatory insurance in any of them restarts the 24 months.

Paying into the SSS changes nothing — Philippine Social Security System contributions never block the refund and never restart the clock.

From 60 German contribution months, the refund door closes. The German-Philippine agreement then gives you the right to keep paying into the German system voluntarily — and as long as that right exists, the money can't be taken out. Your contributions aren't lost: they've earned you a German pension, which you can claim at retirement age and receive in the Philippines.

Living in the Philippines without Filipino citizenship? That changes nothing either way — there is no Philippine residence rule. Your answer depends on the citizenships you hold, so check the section for each of your passports.

Recognized refugees and stateless people: see the refugee section below — your residence country's rules may apply to you instead.

Legal basis and official guidance: Section 210 SGB VI · Germany-Philippines agreement in the Federal Law Gazette · DRV contribution-refund guidance · DRV country guide

Full guide for Filipino citizens: 🇵🇭 German Pension Refund for Filipino Citizens→

Albania

If you're an Albanian citizen, you qualify for a German pension refund when three things are true:

1. You live outside the EU, the UK and India.

2. You have 59 or fewer German contribution months.

3. Your last mandatory pension insurance ended more than 24 months ago — counting insurance in Germany, the EU, the UK, Türkiye and the ex-Yugoslav states (Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Serbia). A new job with mandatory insurance in any of them restarts the 24 months.

Paying into Albanian social insurance changes nothing — contributions to the Albanian scheme (ISSH) never block the refund and never restart the clock.

From 60 German contribution months, the refund door closes. The German-Albanian agreement then gives you the right to keep paying into the German system voluntarily — and as long as that right exists, the money can't be taken out. Your contributions aren't lost: they've earned you a German pension, which you can claim at retirement age and receive in Albania.

Living in Albania without Albanian citizenship? That changes nothing either way — there is no Albanian residence rule. Your answer depends on the citizenships you hold, so check the section for each of your passports.

Recognized refugees and stateless people: see the refugee section below — your residence country's rules may apply to you instead.

Legal basis and official guidance: Section 210 SGB VI · Germany-Albania agreement in the Federal Law Gazette · DRV contribution-refund guidance · DRV country guide

Full guide for Albanian citizens: 🇦🇱 German Pension Refund for Albanian Citizens→

Moldova

If you're a Moldovan citizen, you qualify for a German pension refund when three things are true:

1. You live outside the EU, the UK and India.

2. You have 59 or fewer German contribution months.

3. Your last mandatory pension insurance ended more than 24 months ago — counting insurance in Germany, the EU, the UK, Türkiye and the ex-Yugoslav states (Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Serbia). A new job with mandatory insurance in any of them restarts the 24 months.

Paying into Moldovan social insurance changes nothing — contributions to the Moldovan scheme (CNAS) never block the refund and never restart the clock.

From 60 German contribution months, the refund door closes. The German-Moldovan agreement then gives you the right to keep paying into the German system voluntarily — and as long as that right exists, the money can't be taken out. Your contributions aren't lost: they've earned you a German pension, which you can claim at retirement age and receive in Moldova.

Check your second passport. Many Moldovans also hold Romanian citizenship — an EU passport blocks the refund even if you've never lived in Romania.

Living in Moldova without Moldovan citizenship? That changes nothing either way — there is no Moldovan residence rule. Your answer depends on the citizenships you hold, so check the section for each of your passports.

Recognized refugees and stateless people: see the refugee section below — your residence country's rules may apply to you instead.

Legal basis and official guidance: Section 210 SGB VI · Germany-Moldova agreement and BGBl reference · DRV contribution-refund guidance · DRV country guide

Full guide for Moldovan citizens: German Pension Refund for Moldovan Citizens→

North Macedonia

If you're a North Macedonian citizen, you qualify for a German pension refund when three things are true:

1. You live outside the EU, the UK and India.

2. You have 59 or fewer German contribution months.

3. Your last mandatory pension insurance ended more than 24 months ago — counting insurance in Germany, the EU, the UK, Türkiye and the ex-Yugoslav states (Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Serbia). A new job with mandatory insurance in any of them restarts the 24 months.

Careful — paying North Macedonian pension insurance blocks the refund. Mandatory North Macedonian pension insurance is treated like German insurance: while you pay into it, no refund is possible, and your 24-month waiting period only starts once it ends. It does not add to your German contribution months — it only blocks the refund for as long as it lasts. This applies whatever your citizenship.

Recognized refugees and stateless people: see the refugee section below — your residence country's rules may apply to you instead.

From 60 German contribution months, the refund door closes. The German-North Macedonian agreement then gives you the right to keep paying into the German system voluntarily — and as long as that right exists, the money can't be taken out. Your contributions aren't lost: they've earned you a German pension, which you can claim at retirement age and receive in North Macedonia.

One rare exception: if you paid at least one voluntary German contribution for a period between September 1969 and December 2004 while living outside Germany, that old right to contribute voluntarily continues — and it can block your refund even with fewer than 60 months. If that's you, have your case checked individually before applying.

Legal basis and official guidance: Section 210 SGB VI · Germany-North Macedonia agreement in the Federal Law Gazette · DRV contribution-refund guidance · DRV country guide

Full guide for North Macedonian citizens: German Pension Refund for North Macedonian Citizens→

Uruguay

If you're a Uruguayan citizen, you qualify for a German pension refund when three things are true:

1. You live outside the EU, the UK and India.

2. You have 59 or fewer German contribution months.

3. Your last mandatory pension insurance ended more than 24 months ago — counting insurance in Germany, the EU, the UK, Türkiye and the ex-Yugoslav states (Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Serbia). A new job with mandatory insurance in any of them restarts the 24 months.

Paying into the BPS changes nothing — Uruguayan pension insurance (Banco de Previsión Social) never blocks the refund and never restarts the clock.

From 60 German contribution months, the refund door closes. The German-Uruguayan agreement then gives you the right to keep paying into the German system voluntarily — and as long as that right exists, the money can't be taken out. Your contributions aren't lost: they've earned you a German pension, which you can claim at retirement age and receive in Uruguay.

Living in Uruguay without Uruguayan citizenship? That changes nothing either way — there is no Uruguayan residence rule. Your answer depends on the citizenships you hold, so check the section for each of your passports.

Recognized refugees and stateless people: see the refugee section below — your residence country's rules may apply to you instead.

Legal basis and official guidance: Section 210 SGB VI · Germany-Uruguay agreement in the Federal Law Gazette · DRV contribution-refund guidance · DRV country guide

Full guide for Uruguayan citizens: German Pension Refund Eligibility | Uruguay→

Japan

Japan is the one country in this guide where your answer depends on which side of its border you live.

If you're a Japanese citizen living in Japan, you qualify for a German pension refund when two things are true:

1. You have 59 or fewer German contribution months.

2. Your last mandatory pension insurance ended more than 24 months ago — counting insurance in Germany, the EU, the UK, Türkiye and the ex-Yugoslav states (Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Serbia). A new job with mandatory insurance in any of them restarts the 24 months.

The same two conditions apply to refugees and stateless people living in Japan.

If you're a Japanese citizen living outside Japan, no contribution limit applies. Whether you have 60, 120 or more German months — you qualify if you live outside the EU, the UK and India and the 24-month waiting period above is complete.

Paying into the Japanese pension system changes nothing — nenkin contributions (National Pension or Employees' Pension) never block the refund and never restart the clock.

From 60 German contribution months while you live in Japan, the refund door closes. The German-Japanese agreement gives you the right to keep paying into the German system voluntarily while you live there — and as long as that right exists, the money can't be taken out. But this block is attached to your address, not your passport: if you later move to an eligible country outside the EU, the UK and India, the limit no longer applies and the refund opens up again. If you stay in Japan, your contributions aren't lost — they've earned you a German pension, which you can claim at retirement age and receive in Japan.

Living in Japan without Japanese citizenship (and not as a refugee or stateless person)? Japan's rules don't touch you. Your answer depends on the citizenships you hold, so check the section for each of your passports.

Legal basis and official guidance: Section 210 SGB VI · Germany-Japan agreement in the Federal Law Gazette · DRV contribution-refund guidance · DRV country guide

Full guide for Japanese citizens: 🇯🇵 German Pension Refund for Citizens of Japan→

Israel

For Israeli citizens, everything depends on where you live.

If you're an Israeli citizen living in Israel, a refund before retirement age is not available. The German-Israeli agreement gives you the right to keep paying into the German system voluntarily while you live there — and as long as that right exists, the money can't be taken out. The same applies to recognized refugees living in Israel. This block is attached to your address, not your passport: if you move to an eligible country outside Israel, the EU, the UK and India, the refund opens up. If you stay, your contributions remain on record until German retirement age. You then claim the pension if you have completed the five-year qualifying period; otherwise a refund becomes possible.

If you're an Israeli citizen living outside Israel, no contribution limit applies. Whether you have 20 or 200 German months, you qualify when two things are true:

1. You live outside the EU, the UK and India.

2. Your last mandatory pension insurance ended more than 24 months ago — counting insurance in Germany, the EU, the UK, Türkiye and the ex-Yugoslav states (Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Serbia). A new job with mandatory insurance in any of them restarts the 24 months.

Paying into Bituach Leumi changes nothing — Israeli National Insurance never blocks the refund and never restarts the clock.

Living in Israel without Israeli citizenship (and not as a recognized refugee)? Israel's rules don't touch you. Your answer depends on the citizenships you hold, so check the section for each of your passports.

Legal basis and official guidance: Section 210 SGB VI · Germany-Israel agreement in the Federal Law Gazette · DRV contribution-refund guidance · DRV country guide

Full guide for Israeli citizens: 🇮🇱 German Pension Refund for Citizens of Israel→

Türkiye

If you're a Turkish citizen, there is no contribution limit — whether you have 20 or 200 German months, you qualify for a German pension refund when two things are true:

1. You live outside the EU, the UK and India.

2. Your last mandatory pension insurance ended more than 24 months ago — counting insurance in Germany, the EU, the UK, Türkiye itself and the ex-Yugoslav states (Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Serbia). A new job with mandatory insurance in any of them restarts the 24 months.

Careful — paying Turkish pension insurance blocks the refund. Mandatory Turkish insurance (SGK) is treated like German insurance: while you pay into it, no refund is possible, and your 24-month waiting period only starts once it ends. It does not add to your German contribution months — it only blocks the refund for as long as it lasts. This applies whatever your citizenship.

Living in Türkiye itself is not the problem. Unlike some countries in this guide, your address in Türkiye doesn't block anything — only the insurance does. A Turkish citizen living in Istanbul without mandatory SGK coverage can claim; one working under SGK coverage cannot, until 24 months after that coverage ends.

One rare exception: if you began paying voluntary German contributions for periods up to 31 March 1987, that old right to contribute voluntarily continues — and it blocks the refund. This applies to Turkish citizens, refugees and stateless people living in Türkiye. If that's you, have your case checked individually before applying.

Living in Türkiye without Turkish citizenship? If you're not paying mandatory Turkish insurance, your residence changes nothing — your answer depends on the citizenships you hold, so check the section for each of your passports. If you are paying it, the block above applies to you too.

Legal basis and official guidance: Section 210 SGB VI · Germany-Türkiye agreement in the Federal Law Gazette · DRV contribution-refund guidance · DRV country guide

Full guide for Turkish citizens: 🇹🇷 German Pension Refund for Citizens of Türkiye→

Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Montenegro and Serbia

If you're a citizen of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Montenegro or Serbia, where you live decides everything.

Living in any of those four countries: no refund before German retirement age. The agreements give you the right to keep paying into the German system voluntarily while you live there — and as long as that right exists, the money can't be taken out. This block is attached to your address, not your passport: if you move to an eligible country, the refund opens up. If you stay, your contributions remain on record until German retirement age. You then claim the pension if you have completed the five-year qualifying period; otherwise a refund becomes possible.

Living outside the four countries, the EU, the UK and India: no contribution limit. Whether you have 20 or 200 German months, you qualify when your last mandatory pension insurance ended more than 24 months ago — counting insurance in Germany, the EU, the UK, Türkiye and the ex-Yugoslav states (Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Serbia). A new job with mandatory insurance in any of them restarts the 24 months.

Careful — paying pension insurance in the four states blocks the refund. Mandatory pension insurance in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Montenegro or Serbia is treated like German insurance: while you pay into it, no refund is possible, and your 24-month waiting period only starts once it ends. It does not add to your German contribution months — it only blocks the refund for as long as it lasts. This applies whatever your citizenship. One exception: Kosovo's mandatory individual pension fund (Trust/KPST). It's a personal savings account, not state pension insurance — paying into it does not block your German refund.

Living in one of the four countries without citizenship of any of them? Your address there doesn't block you — only the mandatory insurance above does (except the Kosovo fund). Your answer depends on the citizenships you hold, so check the section for each of your passports.

Recognized refugees and stateless people: see the refugee section below — your residence country's rules may apply to you instead.

Legal basis and official guidance: Section 210 SGB VI · Germany-Yugoslavia agreement in the Federal Law Gazette · DRV contribution-refund guidance · DRV country guide

Full guide for Bosnian citizens: German Pension Refund for Citizens of Bosnia-Herzegovina→

Full guide for Kosovar citizens: German Pension Refund for Kosovar Citizens→

Full guide for Montenegrin citizens: German Pension Refund Eligibility | Montenegro→

Full guide for Serbian citizens: German Pension Refund Eligibility | Serbia→

Chile

If you're a Chilean citizen, there is no contribution limit — whether you have 20 or 200 German months, you qualify for a German pension refund when two things are true:

1. You live outside the EU, the UK and India.

2. Your last mandatory pension insurance ended more than 24 months ago — counting insurance in Germany, the EU, the UK, Türkiye and the ex-Yugoslav states (Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Serbia). A new job with mandatory insurance in any of them restarts the 24 months.

Paying into your AFP changes nothing — Chilean pension contributions (AFP or the old IPS system) never block the refund and never restart the clock. Chile does have a social security agreement with Germany, but unlike some agreements, it puts no limit on refunds.

Living in Chile without Chilean citizenship? That changes nothing either way — there is no Chilean residence rule. Your answer depends on the citizenships you hold, so check the section for each of your passports.

Legal basis and official guidance: Section 210 SGB VI · Germany-Chile agreement in the Federal Law Gazette · DRV contribution-refund guidance · DRV country guide

Full guide for Chilean citizens: German Pension Refund Eligibility for Chilean Citizens→

Morocco

If you're a Moroccan citizen, there is no contribution limit — whether you have 20 or 200 German months, you qualify for a German pension refund when two things are true:

1. You live outside the EU, the UK and India.

2. Your last mandatory pension insurance ended more than 24 months ago — counting insurance in Germany, the EU, the UK, Türkiye and the ex-Yugoslav states (Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Serbia). A new job with mandatory insurance in any of them restarts the 24 months.

Paying into the CNSS changes nothing — Moroccan pension contributions (Caisse Nationale de Sécurité Sociale) never block the refund and never restart the clock. Morocco does have a social security agreement with Germany, but unlike some agreements, it puts no limit on refunds.

One payment note if you live in Morocco: the German-Moroccan agreement itself (Art. 35) sets the payment route — the pension office transfers your refund in euros to a Moroccan bank, which pays you the equivalent in dirham at the official daily rate. Payment to an account outside Morocco is not something you can insist on while you live there. Plan for local receipt — or talk to us about your options before you apply.

Living in Morocco without Moroccan citizenship? That changes nothing either way — there is no Moroccan residence rule. Your answer depends on the citizenships you hold, so check the section for each of your passports.

Legal basis and official guidance: § 210 SGB VI · Germany-Morocco agreement (Art. 35) in the Federal Law Gazette · DRV contribution-refund guidance · DRV country guide

Full guide for Moroccan citizens: German Pension Refund Eligibility | Morocco→

Tunisia

If you're a Tunisian citizen, there is no contribution limit — whether you have 20 or 200 German months, you qualify for a German pension refund when two things are true:

1. You live outside the EU, the UK and India.

2. Your last mandatory pension insurance ended more than 24 months ago — counting insurance in Germany, the EU, the UK, Türkiye and the ex-Yugoslav states (Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Serbia). A new job with mandatory insurance in any of them restarts the 24 months.

Paying into the CNSS or CNRPS changes nothing — Tunisian pension contributions never block the refund and never restart the clock. Tunisia does have a social security agreement with Germany, but unlike some agreements, it puts no limit on refunds.

One payment note if you live in Tunisia: expect the pension office to pay your refund only to a bank account in Tunisia. Plan for local receipt and currency conversion — or ask us about payment alternatives before you apply.

Living in Tunisia without Tunisian citizenship? That changes nothing either way — there is no Tunisian residence rule. Your answer depends on the citizenships you hold, so check the section for each of your passports.

Legal basis and official guidance: Section 210 SGB VI · Germany-Tunisia agreement in the Federal Law Gazette · DRV contribution-refund guidance · DRV country guide

Full guide for Tunisian citizens: German Pension Refund Eligibility for Tunisian Citizens→

United Kingdom

If you are a UK citizen, your continuing right to pay voluntary German contributions prevents a refund before retirement age. Your German record remains available for a later pension — and if your account stays under the five-year qualifying period, a refund becomes possible at retirement age (see the retirement-age section). A separate exception can apply if you became a German civil servant or otherwise became exempt before completing the five-year qualifying period.

If you are not a UK citizen but live in the UK, UK residence also gives you voluntary-insurance rights and prevents a refund before retirement age. Moving to a qualifying country before applying changes the result.

Legal basis and official guidance: § 210 SGB VI · § 7 SGB VI · DRV EU-UK guidance

Full guide for UK citizens and residents: German Pension Refund After Brexit: Rules for UK Nationals and UK Residents→

German, EU/EEA and Swiss citizens

German, EU/EEA and Swiss citizens retain voluntary German insurance rights and cannot receive a refund before retirement age. Their German periods remain for a later pension — and if the account stays under the five-year qualifying period, a refund becomes possible at retirement age (see the retirement-age section).

A different statutory exception can apply if you became a German civil servant or otherwise became exempt from mandatory insurance before completing the five-year qualifying period. See the exemption section below.

If you are a non-EU citizen living in an EU member state, residence gives you voluntary-insurance rights and prevents the refund. Residence in Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway or Switzerland does not have that effect for a third-country national — although your citizenship can still prevent the refund.

Legal basis and official guidance: § 210 SGB VI · § 7 SGB VI · EU extension regulation for third-country nationals · DRV voluntary-insurance guidance

What about China, Mexico, Vietnam — and every other country not listed above?

Good news: you're in the simplest case of all. If your country isn't listed above, no special rules apply to you — and there is no contribution limit. Whether you have 20 or 200 German months, you qualify for a German pension refund when two things are true:

1. You live outside the EU, the UK and India.

2. Your last mandatory pension insurance ended more than 24 months ago — counting insurance in Germany, the EU, the UK, Türkiye and the ex-Yugoslav states (Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Serbia). A new job with mandatory insurance in any of them restarts the 24 months.

You do not need an agreement between Germany and your country. Many people worry that without a social security agreement, no refund is possible — it's the other way around. Agreements are what create special rules, like the 60-month limits above. No agreement means plain German law applies, and plain German law keeps the refund open.

Paying into your home country's pension system changes nothing — insurance in China, Mexico, Vietnam or any other unlisted country never blocks the refund and never restarts the clock.

One thing to check: your other passports. If you also hold an EU, EEA, Swiss or UK citizenship — even one you've never used — that citizenship blocks the refund. Your answer depends on every citizenship you hold, not just the one you think of first.

Legal basis and official guidance: Section 210 SGB VI · Section 7 SGB VI · DRV voluntary-insurance guidance

How the 60 months are counted

One day of insured work makes the whole calendar month count. Start on January 31, and January is a full contribution month. That's why counting is more generous — and more dangerous — than it looks.

More than employment counts. Months can also be added by unemployment benefits (contribution months are credited while you receive them — you can gain months after your last job without noticing), sickness benefits, child-raising periods, voluntary contributions, and later corrections to your account. Your official insurance record (Versicherungsverlauf) is the only reliable count — the span between your first and last job is just an estimate.

Our calculator estimates your months from your work dates. If you had complete months without contributions between jobs, subtract them. If your result lands anywhere near 60, get the official record before relying on it — a single credited month you forgot can flip a refund into a rejection, and a forgotten gap can flip a rejection into a refund.

If a 60-month rule blocks your refund, the money is not gone. Your German months stay in your account and have earned you a German pension — payable anywhere in the world at retirement age.

Official basis: Section 50 SGB VI · Section 51 SGB VI · Section 56 SGB VI · Section 249 SGB VI

Special cases: when you should ask us instead of the checker

The free eligibility checker is designed for former employees claiming their own contributions before retirement age. The situations below need an individual assessment.

Why German, EU/EEA, Swiss and UK citizens can't claim

These citizenships give continuing voluntary-insurance rights and block a refund before retirement age. Once you reach German retirement age, the five-year qualifying period decides the outcome: claim the pension if you have completed it; if you have not, a refund becomes possible. The detailed citizenship rules are explained in the country section above.

At retirement age: pension or payout?

At retirement age, the question changes: it's no longer "may I take my money out?" but "have I earned a pension?" That's decided by the five-year qualifying period — and it counts more than your German salary months. Child-raising periods, certain credited periods, months from a German divorce split, and foreign insurance periods combined under EU, UK or agreement law all count toward the five years, even across several countries.

1. You've reached five years → you have a German pension. Claim it — it's payable anywhere in the world, for life. If your refund was blocked before retirement age (EU or UK citizenship, 60 or more months under an agreement), reaching retirement age does not unlock a cash-out: the pension is your benefit. If your citizenship never had a refund limit and you still meet the other refund conditions, the refund can technically remain open even now — but compare carefully before taking it: a lifelong pension is usually worth far more than the one-time payout.

2. You haven't reached five years, even after all foreign periods are counted → you can get your refund now. At this stage, nothing that blocked you before applies: voluntary-insurance rights don't block it, current mandatory insurance doesn't block it, and there is no 24-month waiting period. This is when EU and UK citizens who remain below five qualifying years can finally take their contributions out.

3. The pension office may offer you a third path: paying the missing months voluntarily to reach the five years and buy yourself into a lifelong pension (§ 282 SGB VI). If you choose the top-up, your refund application is treated as withdrawn and converted into a top-up application — the pension office will ask which you want. Decide deliberately: a small pension for life against a one-time payout, and if the amounts are close, get advice on your specific numbers.

Official basis: Section 210 SGB VI · Section 35 SGB VI · Section 235 SGB VI · Section 282 SGB VI

Survivors: claiming for a deceased family member — and the 4-year deadline

A refund after death is not inherited like an ordinary bank balance. Close family can claim it — but only if the deceased's German account, including any foreign periods that must be combined under EU, UK or agreement law, had not reached the five-year qualifying period. If it had, no refund is possible for anyone. In that case the family may be entitled to a survivor's pension instead — see our guide to the German widow's pension.→

Who can claim, in order:

The surviving spouse or registered partner has priority. What counts is the status on the day of death — a valid marriage or registered partnership at that moment is enough, even after later remarriage. A divorced former spouse has no claim.

A half-orphan (one parent still living) can claim only if no spouse or registered partner exists.

A full orphan — for example, the insured person's child from a first marriage — can claim even when a spouse or partner survives.

Children qualify up to age 18, or up to 27 while in education or training. Several eligible people share the refund in equal parts — and should apply together: the refund is split among those eligible when the application is decided, and a sibling who becomes eligible afterwards receives nothing.

Two timing rules, both arguing for applying soon: the 24-month waiting period does not apply to survivors, so the claim can be filed immediately — and it expires four years after the end of the calendar year in which the insured person died.

Official basis: Section 210 SGB VI

Every citizenship counts — including the passport you never use

If you hold more than one citizenship, the German pension office checks all of them. One citizenship with voluntary German insurance rights blocks the refund — even when your other citizenship, on its own, would qualify.

This surprises the same people every year: Australian-British and New Zealand-British dual citizens who have never set foot in the UK, Brazilian-Italian and Brazilian-Portuguese citizens whose EU passport came through a grandparent. It doesn't matter that you've never lived there, never worked there, and only keep the passport for shorter airport queues — the British or EU citizenship controls the result by itself.

The rule cuts the other way too: if you legally give up the blocking citizenship, your answer can change. What counts is your situation on the day you apply — the remaining citizenship, your residence, your insurance status and your contribution months must meet the rules on that date. Renouncing a citizenship is a serious, usually irreversible legal step with consequences far beyond this refund, so treat it as a last resort and take advice on your whole situation first — but people with large refunds and no ties to the blocking country do sometimes make exactly this choice.

Official basis: Section 210 SGB VI · Section 7 SGB VI · Regulation (EC) No 883/2004

If you are a refugee or stateless

The social security agreements generally extend their rules to recognized refugees and stateless people living in the agreement country — for refund purposes, you're treated like a citizen of where you live, not of where you came from. In practice: in the United States, Canada, Australia, Brazil, South Korea, the Philippines, Albania, Moldova, North Macedonia, Uruguay and Japan, refugees and stateless residents face the same 59-month limit as citizens. India is different: anyone living there without Indian citizenship is blocked before retirement age, regardless of refugee or stateless status. In Israel, recognized refugees — but not stateless people — are blocked like Israeli citizens. Living in a no-limit country, or in any country without an agreement, the general rules apply with no contribution limit.

The pension office will require proof of your status with the application: recognition as a refugee under the Geneva Convention, or as stateless under the 1954 Convention. If your situation is unusual — mixed periods, pending recognition, residence changes — ask us for a free individual check.

Official basis: Section 210 SGB VI · the personal-scope provisions of the social security agreement of your residence country (linked in each country section above)

Exempt assignments and civil servants: when there's nothing to refund — and when there is

Sent to Germany with a Certificate of Coverage? Then you stayed insured in your home country, no German pension contributions were deducted — and there is nothing to refund. The upside: you received your full gross salary without the German deduction all along. Senior short-term hires are the typical case, and the disappointment is common enough to say plainly: no contributions in, no refund out.

Unless payroll made a mistake. If German pension contributions were deducted despite a valid Certificate of Coverage, they may have been paid in error — and this is the one scenario where both the employee and the employer share come back. But it runs through a different procedure entirely (the correction process under § 26 SGB IV), is normally initiated by the employer, and is not the § 210 refund this guide describes. If you find German pension deductions on payslips from a covered assignment, raise it with your employer's payroll first.

Employee first, then German civil servant? Contributions from your earlier private-sector employment can be refunded under a special rule for people who later became exempt from insurance (§ 210 Abs. 1a SGB VI) — provided your German account, including any periods that must be combined internationally, stayed under the five-year qualifying period. Notably, this is the main route through which German citizens can receive a refund at all: becoming a civil servant closes the pension system's door behind you, and the law lets you take your earlier contributions with you.

Civil servant first, then private sector? Your civil-service years can be credited to your pension record through Nachversicherung — retroactive insurance paid by your former public employer. Those credited periods build pension rights, but they were never deducted from your salary, and they cannot be cashed out as employee contributions. What you can do with them is claim the pension they support at retirement age.

Official basis: Section 210 SGB VI · DRV section 210 guidance · Section 282 SGB VI · DRV refund form package

Not covered by the checker? Request a free individual eligibility assessment.

How much can you get back?

Your refund is the pension contribution deducted from your own salary — nothing more, nothing less. Your employer paid the same amount again on top, but that money was never part of your salary and is not refunded. And it's not simply 9.3% of everything you ever earned: the employee rate has been fixed at 9.3% since 2018, but it was different in earlier years — between 8.75% and 10.15% depending on the period — and the salary ceiling (Beitragsbemessungsgrenze) rises almost every year. Salary above the ceiling never created contributions in the first place.

A 2026 example above the ceiling: you earn EUR 10,000 gross per month. Only EUR 8,450 — the 2026 ceiling — is subject to pension contributions. Your employee share is EUR 785.85 per month, about EUR 9,430 for twelve full months. The EUR 1,550 above the ceiling adds nothing, because nothing was ever deducted on it.

Our calculator estimates your refund using the exact rate and ceiling of every year you worked. The final amount is calculated by the pension office from the contribution data in your official account.

Special contribution types change the math:

Voluntary and self-employed contributions: half comes back. As a voluntary payer or compulsorily insured self-employed person, you paid the full contribution yourself — in effect, both the employee and the employer half. The law still refunds only half, treating the other half like the employer share that stays with the pension system.

Contributions during benefit receipt: only your part. If a public agency paid all or part of a contribution while you received benefits, only the part you funded yourself can be refunded.

Contributions paid entirely by the state: no cash — but the months count. These periods add nothing to your refund, but they still count toward the 60-month total. A month that pays you nothing can be the month that pushes you over the limit.

Historical higher-insurance contributions (Höherversicherung): a rare category from older decades with its own refund rules — if your record reaches back that far, have the account checked.

Official basis: Section 210 SGB VI · Section 168 SGB VI · Section 158 SGB VI · Section 159 SGB VI

What can reduce or change the amount?

A rehabilitation benefit can cut the refund sharply

If the German pension system ever paid a benefit from your account — medical rehabilitation, vocational rehabilitation, or a reduced-earning-capacity pension — only the contributions you made after that benefit are refundable. Everything before it is locked.

The problem is not always obvious. After an accident or surgery, the rehabilitation may look like it was arranged and paid by your health insurer. If the pension office ultimately funded it, it counts — whether you knew or not.

Why this deserves a check before you apply: imagine you worked in West Germany for eight years with an average salary of EUR 7,500, your citizenship has no 60-month limit, and you've already earned a German pension entitlement after 5 years of contribution. Retirement is decades away, so you'd rather have the roughly EUR 60,000 you paid in. But say you had a pension-funded rehabilitation and then worked three more months before leaving Germany: only those three months are refundable — around EUR 2,000. And accepting that EUR 2,000 erases everything else: eight years of contribution payments, the retirement pension those payments earned — which would have been paid to you from retirement age for the rest of your life — and, after that, the widow's or widower's pension your spouse might have received from it. Around EUR 2,000 now against a lifelong pension and your family's survivor protection: that's the trade you'd be signing. If you ever received rehabilitation or similar benefits in Germany, find out who paid for it before you apply.

Divorce, missing periods and exemptions also matter

German divorce (Versorgungsausgleich): the court-ordered splitting of pension rights after a German divorce can increase or reduce your account. An open court case delays your refund; a wrong decision changes your account unless you challenge it.

Missing periods: an incomplete account reduces the amount — and can produce the wrong contribution-month count. Missing months hide most often at the start or end of an employment, or after a contract change.

The contribution ceiling: salary above the yearly ceiling never created contributions and cannot increase the refund (see the 2026 example above).

Certificate-of-Coverage assignments: if you were validly exempt from German pension insurance during an assignment and nothing was deducted, there is nothing to refund for those months.

You cannot choose only the best years

A refund always covers your entire refundable balance. You cannot cash out selected jobs or years and keep the rest as German pension rights — it's everything or nothing.

And when the refund becomes final, the insurance relationship is dissolved. All rights from the periods before the refund disappear — including credited periods that paid you no cash. If you later return to insured work in Germany, your new record starts from zero.

The refundable balance earns no interest for the years before you apply. Statutory interest after a complete application is a separate rule, explained later in this guide.

Did you also have a company pension? Your refund unlocks it

The refund in this guide covers the statutory pension — the contributions deducted from your salary for the Deutsche Rentenversicherung. Many employees in Germany also built up a second pot: a company pension (betriebliche Altersvorsorge, or bAV) — a Direktversicherung, Pensionskasse, pension fund or employer promise, often funded through salary conversion. That money is not part of the statutory refund, and normally it's locked: German law forbids cashing out vested company pension entitlements before retirement, no matter where in the world you live.

With one exception — and your refund is it. Under § 3 Abs. 3 BetrAVG, once your statutory pension contributions have been refunded, you can demand a cash settlement of your vested company pension entitlement — and the provider must comply. It is not a request the employer may weigh; the granted refund creates the right. Your refund decision (Bescheid) is the key document.

In practice: if you had a company pension in Germany, don't file it away as lost money when you leave. Complete your statutory refund first, keep the Bescheid, then claim the company pension settlement. Two things to know before you do: the settlement is calculated from your vested entitlement (not simply your paid-in premiums), and unlike the statutory refund, a company pension settlement can be taxable — check the treatment in your country of residence and, where applicable, in Germany.

Germany Pension Refund handles this second step for clients as well — from identifying what kind of company pension you had to demanding and collecting the settlement. Mention your company pension when you start your refund, and we plan both steps together.

Official basis: § 3 Abs. 3 BetrAVG

When can you apply?

Short answer: 24 full calendar months after your last relevant mandatory-insurance month — provided nothing restarted the waiting period before you filed.

How to calculate the 24 months

1. Find your final month of relevant mandatory insurance. That's your last contribution month — which is not always your last employment month: months receiving German unemployment benefits or on parental leave count as insured months too. Use the contribution period itself, never the later date when payroll transferred the money.

2. Count the next 24 complete calendar months.

3. Apply from the first day of the month after that — if the other conditions are met.

Example: March 2024 was your final contribution month. The waiting period runs from April 2024 through March 2026, and you can apply from 1 April 2026 — not May, merely because your employer transferred the March contribution in April.

Two things that don't move the date, and one that does: a bonus paid after your employment ended adds no contribution month when no pension contribution was deducted from it. The date you deregistered or left Germany is irrelevant — only insurance months count. But a new job with mandatory pension insurance in Germany, the EU, the UK, Türkiye or an ex-Yugoslav state restarts the 24 months from that insurance's end (see the general conditions above).

Official basis: Section 210 SGB VI

What can restart the waiting period?

A new job with mandatory pension insurance restarts the clock — and not only in Germany. Mandatory insurance in another EU country or the UK restarts it, and so does mandatory state pension insurance in Türkiye, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Montenegro, North Macedonia or Serbia. In every case, the 24 months begin again from the end of that insurance.

What does not restart it: private and unrelated foreign pensions. Your 401(k), your Australian super, your Chilean AFP, a company plan, private retirement savings anywhere — none of it touches the German waiting period. The question is never "am I saving for retirement somewhere?" but "is the public system I'm paying into treated like German mandatory insurance?" One instructive edge case: Kosovo's pension fund (Trust/KPST) is mandatory — but it's an individual savings account, not state pension insurance, so paying into it does not restart your 24 months.

What if you return to Germany after applying? Nothing changes. If you qualified on your application date, taking a new German job or moving back later does not undo the claim. The refund still erases your old German periods — and your new insured work builds a new record from zero.

Official basis: Section 210 SGB VI · the equal-treatment provisions of the applicable social security agreements (linked in each country section above)

What if you apply too early?

Applying early doesn't speed anything up — it guarantees a rejection. The pension office always rejects claims filed before the waiting period is complete. The most common hidden cause: work in another EU country after leaving Germany that wasn't stated in the application — months the applicant didn't realize counted.

The rejection must state the earliest correct application date, and you can simply apply again from that date if the other conditions still hold. In Germany Pension Refund cases, an early application has also triggered an extra declaration: the office demanded written confirmation that no new mandatory insurance began before the 24 months ended — paperwork that exists only because the claim arrived early.

There's no rush in the other direction — but no reward either. A first application has no deadline (with one exception: survivor claims expire four years after the year of death — see the survivor section). The refundable balance earns no interest for the years before you apply, and while you wait, the facts your claim depends on can shift: citizenship, residence, insurance status — and the payslips and records you'd need as evidence don't get easier to find with time.

Official basis: Section 210 SGB VI · DRV section 210 guidance · DRV contribution-refund brochure

What documents do you need?

Use the current overseas form and provide what it asks for. Add other evidence only when your case — or the responsible pension office — requires it. Most applicants need far less than this list suggests; the special-case documents at the end apply only if the case applies to you.

Forms change. Download a fresh copy when you're ready to apply. The links in this guide were checked on 6 August 2026.

Which application form?

V0901 — if you live outside Germany. The current overseas application, available in German-English and also in French, Italian and Spanish versions. It covers identity, citizenship, German and foreign insurance, divorce, earlier pension benefits, declarations and payment details.

V0900 and V0910 — if you still live in Germany. V0900 is the domestic application, V0910 its explanation sheet. V0900 is not simply the German version of V0901 — the rest of this guide assumes you've left.

A payment declaration — always. The pension office requires a separate payment declaration even though V0901 already contains bank details. For a standard overseas payment this is A1310; Italy uses A1311, and some routes have their own current equivalent. Do not use A1312 — it's cancelled.

E5816 and E5817 — for some Turkish claims. The current form package includes this German-Turkish application and explanation for Turkish citizens abroad whose claim runs through the DRV Bund process.

Documents and information to prepare

Completed and signed V0901. List every current and former citizenship, every German work period with employer and health insurer, foreign pension periods, current mandatory insurance, any German divorce proceeding and any earlier pension-office benefit.

Official confirmation of identity and citizenship. Use the confirmation section in V0901 or provide officially certified proof — a plain passport scan alone does not satisfy this requirement.

Complete payment documents. Fill the V0901 payment section and the required A1310 or A1311. State the account holder and bank details exactly, and include the bank evidence the route requires — a bank statement or void cheque where applicable. The declaration also asks for PANR, BXNR and ZANR reference numbers — you will not have these; leave those fields empty.

Your German insurance number (RV/SV-Nr.), if you know it. It appears on every DRV letter, and on payslips as SVNR, RV-Nummer or Versicherungsnummer. Put it on every form and every letter.

If the number is lost — details that identify your account: full name and former names, date and place of birth, last German address, employers, health insurers, and the last pension office you know of. The health insurer is often how the office finds an account.

Your insurance and employment records. The Versicherungsverlauf, employers' annual social-insurance certificates, payslips, or health-insurance evidence where the account is incomplete.

Useful documents in particular cases

Deregistration certificate. Deregistering is legally required when you give up a German residence. If you did it, the office sees your departure in the address register. If you didn't, expect to be required to deregister retroactively before your claim proceeds.

A fresh insurance record — with a caveat. A record issued while you were still working won't show the latest contributions, because records compile per calendar year. List every employment period in V0901 regardless, especially periods the record doesn't show yet, with employer and health insurer for each.

Missing-period evidence. Keep payslips and know your health insurer's name — the office can request confirmations from the insurer and former employers. Check the first and last months of every employment and the months around any contract change: gaps hide at the edges, because the office queries gaps in the middle of a record itself but not at its ends.

Child-raising periods — form V0800. If your record shows a German birth or maternity period, expect the office to ask about child raising — file V0800 together with the refund application when the facts are clear. Child-raising contribution periods add up to 30 months per child born before 1992, or 36 months per child born from 1992 — enough to push a record over 60 months, which can decide your eligibility (see how the 60 months are counted). Separate consideration periods run until the child turns ten but don't count toward the five-year qualifying period; months of simultaneous work and child raising count once, not twice; and child raising abroad follows separate cross-border rules.

Earlier rehabilitation or disability benefits. Include any pension-office decision you know of — and don't rely on a refund estimate alone: only the account reveals whether a benefit was paid that cuts your refundable period (see the rehabilitation warning above).

German divorce. Complete the court and file-reference fields in V0901; the office can request the decision or further evidence separately.

Survivor claim. Provide the death certificate and proof of the eligible spouse, registered partner or children — and name every surviving spouse, partner and child, because statutory priority determines who receives the refund.

Representation. Include a power of attorney or proof of legal representation if someone acts for you.

Applying from abroad is not fully digital

Send the signed V0901 and the payment declaration as original paper documents by post. If someone represents you, the responsible office can also require original documents — DRV Oldenburg-Bremen has confirmed exactly that requirement for the Australian cases it handles; Bund or Knappschaft cases can be routed differently.

Official basis: Current DRV form package · V0901 English · A1310 English payment declaration · DRV child-raising guidance · Section 17 BMG

DIY: how to claim the refund yourself, step by step

You can apply directly to the pension office, and there is no application fee. Your real costs are of a different kind: official confirmations, certified documents and international postage — and above all, time. A DIY claim moves at the pace of international paper post, and if it stalls, there is no direct line to the person handling your file: the hotline can look up your status and take a message, but you cannot simply call your caseworker. The genuinely difficult parts are checking the country rules correctly, identifying the right office, filing a claim complete enough to avoid months of back-and-forth, and monitoring German-language correspondence from abroad.

DIY application: step by step

1. Check eligibility and calculate your filing date. Confirm every citizenship, your residence, current pension insurance, voluntary-insurance rights, your German contribution months and the 24-month waiting period. The eligibility checker and waiting-period calculator above do this math — the country sections explain it.

2. Review your German pension account. Obtain the Versicherungsverlauf and have missing work periods corrected before applying. If you're still in Germany — or planning your departure — you can view and download it instantly in the pension office's online portal; the login works only with a German eID (German ID card, a still-valid German electronic residence permit, an EU citizens' eID card, or another EU country's national eID). A foreign passport cannot log in, and a German residence permit expires when you leave Germany for good — so for most overseas claimants the instant route is closed. From abroad, request the record online, by phone or in writing instead and receive it by post: allow one to three weeks within Germany, longer internationally. If you're reading this before leaving Germany: download your record now, while your card still works. Knappschaft-Bahn-See and some other offices can require a full account clarification (Antrag auf Kontenklärung), asking about education, employment, unemployment, parenting and gaps from age 17 onward — even for years entirely outside Germany.

3. Download the current application. V0901 if you live abroad, or the current country-specific form where one exists. Download fresh — forms change.

4. Complete the full history — neatly. Every citizenship, former name, German work period with employer and health insurer, foreign pension period, current mandatory insurance, German divorce and earlier pension-office benefit. Don't cross out or overwrite answers if a clean replacement page is possible: a tidy application is processed; a messy one is queried.

5. Arrange official confirmation. Have the V0901 confirmation section completed by an accepted authority, or provide the officially certified proof the current instructions require. Sign and date the declaration.

6. Complete the payment declaration. Fill out the separate A1310 (A1311 for Italy) as well as the payment details in V0901 — both are required.

7. Identify the right first office. Start with your latest pension-office letter and the first two digits of your insurance number, then apply the Bund, Knappschaft and international liaison-office rules explained below — the office finder does this in three questions.

8. Send the complete signed claim by post. Paper originals — not ordinary email, not an online upload, not fax (no longer accepted). Keep a complete copy of everything and reliable proof of delivery: the office won't track your mail, so your records are the only evidence of what was sent and when.

9. Monitor international post and reply quickly. Standard liaison-office forms can be bilingual, but case-specific letters arrive in German, the official administrative language. Put your insurance number and the office's reference on every page of every reply — and note the date each letter actually reached you: deadlines run from receipt, and stating the receipt date in your replies protects you (explained in the rejections chapter below).

Where should you send it?

Don't send your claim to DRV Bund in Berlin just because it's the best-known address. Germany's pension system is a network of offices, and your claim belongs at the one with the strongest connection to your existing record — that office identifies you fastest, and if another liaison office must ultimately decide, forwards the file with the least loss of time. A wrongly routed claim keeps its application date but can lose weeks in internal forwarding.

The practical hierarchy — work from the top:

1. Your latest pension office. If a recent letter or your insurance record names the office currently holding your account, start there — unless a Knappschaft or Bund rule below overrides it, or an international liaison office is assigned to your citizenship or residence (rule 4): the liaison office then decides your claim even while another office holds your account.

2. Any Knappschaft connection. If your number or record identifies DRV Knappschaft-Bahn-See — or you ever paid even one contribution there — send it to Knappschaft-Bahn-See. This rule outranks everything else, and an older number from another office won't reveal it: your work history does.

3. A DRV Bund number. If the first two digits are in the Bund range (40–79), send it to DRV Bund regardless of citizenship or residence.

4. The international liaison office for your country. Otherwise, use the liaison office assigned to your citizenship. If your citizenship has none, use the one for your country of residence. For example: Indian cases go to DRV Nord — including an Indian citizen living in Nepal or Brazil. A Nigerian living in Canada also starts with DRV Nord, because Canada is the residence connection.

5. No liaison connection at all? Use the regional office shown by your number or your latest record.

6. No number and no letter? Write to the most likely original regional office and give it everything that identifies you: full name and former names, date and place of birth, your last German address, your German employers — and your health insurer, which is often how an account is found. Do not send an unidentified application to DRV Bund merely because no better address comes to mind.

One honest caveat about the two digits: they show which office issued your number — not necessarily the office legally responsible today. But the issuing office is far more likely to find your record than any unrelated office, which is why the finder calls its result the recommended first office, not a legal guarantee. If responsibility turns out to differ, the receiving office forwards your file.

Official basis: §§ 126, 127, 127a, 128 and 128a SGB VI (carrier responsibility and liaison-office functions, including international cases) · DRV guidance (GRA) on § 126 and § 128 SGB VI · DRV overview "Ansprechpartner und Verbindungsstellen" · DRV carrier addresses · § 147 SGB VI (insurance number)

Which German pension office handles your application?

"The DRV" is not one office. Deutsche Rentenversicherung is a network: DRV Bund, DRV Knappschaft-Bahn-See, and 14 regional pension offices across Germany. Your account sits at one of them — and the office holding your account is not always the office that decides your international refund.

The account carrier and the deciding office can be different

An international liaison office (Verbindungsstelle) can be responsible for deciding your claim while a different carrier holds your pension account. Before the deciding office can calculate or approve anything, it must request your digital account or physical file from the carrier that has it.

A real example: an Indian citizen's regional account sits at DRV Berlin-Brandenburg, while DRV Nord handles the India connection. DRV Nord cannot work the refund until Berlin-Brandenburg releases the file. If months pass in silence, your file is usually sitting between two offices — not waiting on a legal decision. Knowing this changes how you read the silence: it's transit, not trouble.

Germany Pension Refund chooses the first destination from the latest known office, the carrier digits, citizenship and residence — the fastest credible starting point for each case. That beats blindly sending every international claim to Bund, especially when your name doesn't exactly match the record or the insurance number is missing.

The safety net — and its limits

If a German social-benefit office receives your application but isn't responsible, it must forward it, and your original filing date is preserved (§ 16 SGB I). That protection is real, but it doesn't make forwarding fast — weeks or months can pass in transit that the right first address would have saved. And one consequence matters for money: the six-month period after which statutory interest begins only starts once a complete application reaches a German pension-insurance carrier. Receipt by an unrelated public-benefit office preserves your date, but it does not start the interest clock.

Official sources: DRV international liaison offices · DRV carrier addresses · § 16 SGB I · DRV interest guidance

What happens after you apply?

Most applications pass through six stages. Knowing them changes how you read the silence in between — most of the waiting is mechanics, not doubt about your claim.

1. Receipt and routing. Some carriers still send an acknowledgement saying they've started and asking you not to chase immediately; others send nothing at all — no confirmation doesn't mean no receipt. If the first office forwards your claim, it normally sends an Abgabemitteilung: a short letter naming the new carrier and telling you to contact that office from then on. Keep it — it tells you who owns your file.

2. Account or file transfer. The deciding office requests your account from the carrier that holds it. A claim that goes silent for months is usually stuck exactly here: the refund office has asked for the file, and the account carrier hasn't released it digitally or mailed the paper file yet.

3. Account review. The office checks your contributions, missing periods, rehabilitation benefits, divorce adjustments and contribution types. It can contact the health insurer you named for each employment to confirm periods — one reason the Krankenkasse names on your application matter.

4. Eligibility review. Citizenship, residence, voluntary-insurance rights, current mandatory insurance and the 24-month wait. If foreign insurance periods are stated or visible, the office can write to the foreign pension authority for confirmation — a step you can't speed up, and one that can take longer than everything else combined.

5. Further questions. The common requests: a full account clarification, better document copies, corrected bank evidence, original papers — and in agreement-country cases, a mailed confirmation request: a letter explaining what you give up with the refund (for example, combining German months with your home-country pension) and asking you to confirm you still want it. That letter is routine, not a rejection — answer it and the claim proceeds.

6. Decision and payment. The written Bescheid lists the periods considered and how the amount was calculated. Before you accept it, check the first and last months of every employment and the months around any employer or contract change: missing periods hide at the edges, because a gap in the middle of a record is obvious to the caseworker — a missing edge month is not.

When the pension office asks for more information

A follow-up letter is not a rejection. It means one thing: the office cannot yet establish a fact it needs for eligibility, calculation or payment. Answer it well and the claim moves; ignore it and the claim dies of silence. The rules for answering well:

Reply by the stated deadline — and put your insurance number and the office's reference on every page of every reply.

If a letter reaches you late, document it. Write the actual receipt date on the letter or envelope, keep the envelope, and state the receipt date in your reply ("your letter dated X, which I received on Y"). The office sends untracked mail and has no record of when it arrived — your statement is the evidence, and deadlines run from receipt, not from the printed date.

If you don't have a requested document, say so plainly. Explain why, send substitute evidence where you have it, and ask the office to proceed with the information already in its records. Silence is the only wrong answer.

Send crisp, high-contrast copies. The first mailroom scans your copy; if another office needs the file, it prints that scan and scans it again. A marginal passport copy becomes unreadable after two or three hops through the system — and an unreadable copy becomes another follow-up letter.

Don't reply by ordinary email. The office cannot act on a sender it can't identify — anyone could write under your name. A formally verified DE-Mail channel exists in theory, but almost no overseas claimant has one. Use the method stated in the letter, and keep proof of what you sent.

If a warning says the claim will be refused for failure to cooperate, answer before the deadline. And if that refusal happens anyway: it says nothing about your underlying eligibility. A rejection for non-cooperation does not permanently block you — you can apply again, this time with everything included from the start.

Official basis: §§ 60–67 SGB I (duty to cooperate and consequences of non-cooperation)

One last letter: the confirmation some countries require

If your country of citizenship or residence has a social security agreement with Germany, expect one more letter — by post — before the money moves: a Rückantwort, asking you to confirm that you still want the refund and understand what you're giving up.

What's at stake is combination: German months can sometimes be added to your home-country insurance periods — to bridge a gap, meet a minimum, or qualify for earlier retirement there. Once refunded, your German months can never be used that way again. The letter exists so nobody can later say they weren't warned.

For claimants with permanent German residence rights, the office can also ask whether you understand possible consequences outside pension law. Read the form carefully, ask the office if anything is unclear — and if you still want the refund, return it promptly: the claim waits until you do.

At Germany Pension Refund, we prepare managed cases for these predictable questions in advance and answer the office in German. (In this guide, "we" always means the Germany Pension Refund service.)

How the money reaches you

You do not need a German bank account. The pension office pays an approved refund to a suitable foreign account — or to another named account holder — when the payment declaration and bank evidence are complete. That flexibility covers most of the world, with two exceptions worth knowing:

Sanctioned countries. If transfers to your country are prohibited or unavailable (Russia is the current example), the refund itself is unaffected — but you must name a suitable account outside that country and complete the account-holder details in the payment declaration. Confirm the current route shortly before filing: sanctions and bank restrictions change faster than pension law.

Treaty-routed countries. For a few countries, the agreement itself fixes the payment path — if you live in Morocco, the German-Moroccan agreement routes your refund through a Moroccan bank, paid out in dirham (see the payment note in the Morocco section; the same applies in practice for Tunisia). Living there, you cannot insist on payment elsewhere.

Payment speed is not decision speed. Once the decision is made: in Germany Pension Refund cases, payment to a German account is often visible within about ten days. Foreign payments come with a notice allowing up to eight weeks for banking, compliance and currency-conversion steps — in our experience it rarely takes that long, but don't chase before the eight weeks are up: the notice itself asks you not to, and inquiries don't speed the transfer. These are practical observations, not legal deadlines.

Official sources: V0901 overseas application · Sections 60-67 SGB I · DRV information on restricted payments

How long does a German pension refund take?

Short answer: in Germany Pension Refund cases, the average from submission to money received is about eight weeks. Around 85% of our completed cases finish within eight weeks. A straightforward claim can be done in about three weeks; a difficult or delayed case can run to six months or longer. These are our experience figures across managed cases — not a pension-office promise, and there is no statutory processing deadline.

The reason the average is possible: managed claims arrive complete, correctly routed and pre-verified, so nothing has to be asked twice. A claim that triggers file transfers, account clarification or follow-up letters moves at the speed of international post — the chapters above show where those months go.

The 24-month eligibility wait is separate. It happens before you can submit at all and is not part of processing time — don't add the two together when planning, and don't let the waiting period idle: it's the time to gather records and prepare (see "When can you apply?").

Preparation quality matters more than it seems

About 15% of Germany Pension Refund clients first tried alone — and came to us after more than six silent months. Almost all of them share one pattern: a rushed V0901. German employment periods not listed, employers or health insurers missing, answers crossed out and overwritten, identity copies too poor to survive scanning.

Thirty extra minutes on a neat, complete application routinely saves months. A clean file gives the mailroom, the account carrier and the refund office no reason to stop and ask — and every question they don't have to ask is an international postal round trip you don't have to wait for.

Why one claim can take much longer

• Wrong office or file transfer: the deciding office must first find or obtain your account.

• Account clarification: missing employment periods or contribution types must be resolved before anything is calculated.

• Foreign-insurance enquiry: another country's pension office must confirm coverage or periods — a step nobody in Germany can accelerate.

• Earlier benefit or divorce: rehabilitation benefits and pension-rights adjustments change the calculation.

• Wrong or incomplete information: the office must reconcile conflicting statements or hunt for missing facts.

• Paperwork or payment details: a signature, an original, an identity confirmation or a usable payment declaration is missing.

• Lost correspondence: a request went to an old address or vanished in international post.

• Workload and office practice: the refund team has a queue — and pension applications are prioritized over refunds.

One office practice worth knowing: Germany Pension Refund still sees DRV Baden-Württemberg set some refund claims aside for about three months before substantive work begins — apparently continuing an older practice built around the internal three-month completion target. It is not a legal waiting period, and in our view there is no good reason to leave a complete application untouched. Other carriers start immediately — and current backlogs sometimes mean clean files finish faster elsewhere, not slower.

How to check the status

Call or write with your insurance number, full name, date of birth, submission date and proof of delivery. Then ask four questions, in this order:

1. Which office is responsible for my claim?

2. Has that office received my account file?

3. Is anything missing from me?

4. What is the next processing step?

The channels that exist — and what each can do. The general hotline can confirm basic status and pass a message to the responsible office; direct access to your caseworker is usually not available. The pension office also answers general questions by email (meinefrage@drv-bund.de) and offers bookable consultations in person or by video — all in German. But don't expect case details by email: the office will not send personal information to an ordinary email address, where anyone could be the sender. The one exception is a registered DE-Mail address — Germany's verified email system — the only email channel through which the office responds with personal case information, if it responds by email at all. Almost no overseas claimant has one, which is why your claim runs on paper and your status checks run on the phone.

And resist one tempting move: do not send a complete duplicate application unless asked. Duplicates create sorting work and can slow your claim further.

After six months: escalation, interest and court action

Six months is not a deadline after which your claim stops or gets rejected. It matters because two things begin: interest rights, and the possibility of legal action against inactivity.

Escalate to management before you escalate to court. Germany Pension Refund moves a badly overdue file with an inactivity complaint to the carrier's directorate — in our experience, management escalation moves a stalled file faster than involving a legal department, where processing pauses while the office builds its justification. A very overdue file can then produce one more document request as the office explains its delay; annoying, but still better than indefinite silence.

Court action exists — as the last step, not the first. If the office has not decided after six months without sufficient reason, § 88 SGG allows an inactivity action (Untätigkeitsklage). It forces a decision; it does not prove eligibility. Appropriate in some cases — rarely the fastest first move.

Most claimants never learn about the interest. Under § 44 SGB I, 4% annual interest begins after the sixth calendar month following receipt of a complete application by a German pension-insurance carrier. "Complete" means enough forms, answers and documents for the office to begin its investigation — not every fact needed for the final decision. Two fine points: filing with an unrelated German public-benefit office preserves your application date (§ 16 SGB I) but does not start the interest clock — and if the final decision omits interest you were owed, claim it inside your objection, within the objection deadline.

Official basis: § 44 SGB I (interest) · § 16 SGB I (application date) · § 88 SGG (inactivity action)

What if the pension office rejects your application or pays too little?

First, identify what was actually decided. Four different outcomes hide behind what feels like "rejected" — and they need four different responses:

• You applied too early. The 24-month condition wasn't met on your application date — most often because later EU work wasn't stated and silently extended the clock. Apply again from the date the office names, unless its calculation is wrong.

• The law blocks the refund. The office says you still have relevant mandatory insurance, or the right to pay in voluntarily. Check the citizenship, residence, foreign-insurance and agreement facts against this guide — and object if the facts or the rule are wrong. Offices make mistakes here (see the example below).

• You didn't cooperate. A requested fact or document wasn't supplied after a warning and deadline. Supply it immediately, read the appeal instructions, and decide whether to object, reapply, or both. This outcome says nothing about your eligibility.

• The account or payment is incomplete. The claim was approved but periods or refundable contributions are missing. This is not a rejection. Compare the Bescheid with the insurance record the office used: if the record also lacks the periods, prove them — payslips, the health insurer's name, employer evidence.

Your objection deadline

An objection (Widerspruch) is due within three months when the decision is notified to you abroad — or within the domestic one month if it's notified to an authorised representative in Germany. Follow the appeal instructions printed in the decision.

Two rules about the clock: it starts when the decision reaches the recipient, not on the printed date — write down the actual receipt date, keep the envelope, and state the date in your objection ("your decision dated X, which I received on Y"); the office sends untracked mail and relies on your statement. And it ends when your objection reaches an accepted authority — posting it on the last day is not enough.

You don't need a lawyer to object

There is no objection fee, and the format is simple: identify the decision, state that you object, explain which fact or rule is wrong, attach the evidence. The office rechecks the case. If it doesn't change the outcome, an objections committee issues a further decision — which can then be challenged in the social court.

Example: an Indian citizen living in Norway is rejected because the office claims Indian citizenship creates voluntary German insurance rights there below 60 months. That premise is simply wrong — check it against the India agreement and the current voluntary-insurance rules, and say so in the objection. If the problem is instead a missing work period, name the German health insurer and attach payslips or employer evidence.

On costs: professional fees are not automatically reimbursed just because an objection succeeds — reimbursement depends on whether the support was necessary. A missing work period doesn't need a lawyer. A disputed agreement or eligibility rule is where legal support is justified — and where the office bears the cost of a German lawyer when you win.

If the deadline has already passed

A new, identical application does not undo a binding decision. What remains is the review application under § 44 SGB X (Überprüfungsantrag), available when the original refusal was legally wrong — a narrower route with its own limits, and never a reason to let the normal objection deadline slip.

Official basis: § 84 SGG (objection deadline) · § 44 SGB X (review of binding decisions) · the appeal instructions (Rechtsbehelfsbelehrung) in your decision

Should you claim yourself or use a service?

You can apply directly — the pension office charges no application fee, and if your case is straightforward and you're comfortable with the rules, the forms, postal correspondence and German-language follow-up, DIY is a reasonable choice.

Let's be honest about what a service cannot do: it cannot make an ineligible claim eligible, and it cannot guarantee a decision date. Its value is practical — checking the route before filing, preparing a complete application, choosing the right first office, monitoring correspondence, answering requests and protecting deadlines. Everything else on this page explains why those practicalities decide how long a claim takes.

The comparison, point by point

Cost. Claim directly: no pension-office fee — but official confirmations, certified copies, postage and international banking still cost money. Germany Pension Refund: 9.75% of the approved refund, capped at EUR 2,500, no minimum, no upfront fee. VAT, the agreed administrative work and legal support are included. No refund means no service fee.

Eligibility and preparation. Claim directly: you interpret the citizenship, residence, agreement and foreign-insurance rules, review the pension record and complete every employment and health-insurance field. Germany Pension Refund: we check eligibility before filing — including the 60-month, dual-citizenship, residence and equivalent-insurance exceptions — then prepare the application and payment documents.

Responsible office and records. Claim directly: you identify the account carrier and liaison office, recover a missing insurance number and correct the record. Germany Pension Refund: we select the recommended first office, identify gaps and help obtain or replace the evidence the office needs.

Correspondence and legal issues. Claim directly: you monitor international post, translate requests, follow up by phone and in writing, and protect every objection deadline. Germany Pension Refund: German correspondence, ordinary follow-up and deadline monitoring are part of the claim. Legal support for the managed administrative claim is included; court proceedings require a separate scope check.

Payment. Claim directly: the office pays the suitable account named in your application — a German account is not required. Germany Pension Refund: the refund passes through our German partner law firm's escrow account — arriving at German-account speed — the agreed fee is deducted, and the balance is transferred to your chosen account, with regulated currency-conversion support when that beats the office's direct conversion.

DIY is a sensible choice if

• your citizenship, residence and contribution count produce a clear result;

• no foreign-insurance or agreement exception makes the case uncertain;

• your pension account and identity documents are complete;

• you can identify the recommended first office and arrange official confirmation;

• you can monitor German correspondence and protect a deadline; and

• saving professional fees matters more to you than saving time.

A managed claim is most useful if

• the result depends on the 60-month rule, dual citizenship or an agreement exception;

• there is foreign mandatory insurance, a rehabilitation benefit or a divorce adjustment;

• the insurance number, contribution record or employment evidence is missing;

• the likely refund is large enough that a calculation error would be costly;

• German correspondence, office contact, payment and currency conversion should be handled in one place; or

• the claim is already delayed, rejected or underpaid.

How to compare providers

Check the full percentage and the fee cap, the German legal entity behind the brand, who actually submits the claim, where the refund is paid, and what happens after a refusal or a missed period. Ask whether VAT, legal work, banking and currency conversion are included — a low headline fee is poor value if the provider cannot route the case, answer the pension office, or protect a deadline.

Verification takes minutes: any German company can be checked in the Company Register (Unternehmensregister — it has an English interface), and a lawyer named in a power of attorney can be verified in the German Federal Bar's register. A legitimate provider names its legal identity and representatives without being asked.

Be careful with providers that hide the price until signup, promise a refund without asking your citizenship and residence, charge before doing meaningful work, or claim that every case is guaranteed or paperless from start to finish — the chapters above show why none of that survives contact with the real process.

Germany Pension Refund pricing: our current service fee is 9.75% of the amount recovered, capped at EUR 2,500, with no minimum and no upfront charge. It includes VAT and the legal and administrative work described in our terms. If the claim produces no refund, there is no service fee. Check the current pricing page before instructing us.

Frequently asked questions

Can I get a refund after 60 German contribution months?

Yes — for most citizenships. The worldwide 59-month limit applies only to citizens of the United States, India, Canada, Australia, Brazil, Albania, Moldova, North Macedonia, the Philippines, South Korea and Uruguay. Japanese citizens — and refugees and stateless people — living in Japan also qualify only with 59 or fewer German months.

For every other qualifying citizenship, no contribution limit exists: you can qualify after five, ten or twenty years if you live outside the EU, the UK and India and have completed the 24-month waiting period. And if the limit does apply to you and you've reached 60 months: the money isn't lost — your German periods remain in your account for a pension payable anywhere in the world at retirement age.

Can I return to Germany or the EU after applying?

Yes — if you qualified on your application date. Moving back to live or work in Germany after submission does not undo the claim. The refund still erases the old periods, and later German work builds a new record from zero.

Is a German pension refund taxable?

Germany deducts no income tax from a § 210 SGB VI refund. The Federal Fiscal Court held that the refund is tax-exempt (§ 3 Nr. 3b EStG) and is not treated as a negative pension-contribution deduction. Your country of residence can have its own reporting or tax rules — check locally.

Tax source: Federal Fiscal Court (Bundesfinanzhof), X R 35/18

Do I receive the employer's pension contributions?

No. Your employer paid another 9.3% on top in a standard 2026 employment — but that money was never deducted from your salary, and it stays with the pension system. The refund returns your employee-funded share. If you paid voluntary or self-employed contributions without an employer, you funded the full amount yourself — and the law still refunds only half, treating the other half like the employer share.

Do I need a German bank account?

No. The overseas form allows payment to a suitable foreign account — and, with the required declaration, to an account held by someone else. The office can ask for bank evidence such as a statement or a void cheque. International fees and exchange rates can reduce what arrives.

Can the refund be paid to Russia or another sanctioned country?

Eligibility and payment are separate questions. A citizen of a sanctioned country can absolutely qualify — but a transfer to a bank in that country can be prohibited or unavailable. Name a suitable account outside the restricted country and complete the account-holder details. Confirm the current route shortly before filing: restrictions change.

What if I can't find my pension insurance number?

Look on pension-office letters, the annual social-security record, and German payslips (SVNR). If it's still missing, provide your full birth details, former names, German addresses, employers, health insurers and the last pension office you know of — the carrier connected with your employment is a far better first identifier than sending an unidentified case to DRV Bund.

Is a German deregistration certificate mandatory?

Deregistering is mandatory when you give up a German residence. If you did it, the office sees your departure in the address register and needs no separate certificate. If you stayed registered, expect the office to require retroactive deregistration or another correction before treating the old address as closed.

Do I need to know my exact contribution amount?

No. A refund always covers the entire refundable balance in your account — partial refunds are legally impossible, so the claim cannot "forget" a refundable job just because you don't know its amount. Do still check the decision (Bescheid) for missing contribution periods.

How do several jobs and employment gaps count?

The amount uses the employee contributions recorded for each job. For the month count, a calendar month counts even if you were insured for a single day — but a complete month with no contributions does not count merely because it falls between your first and last job. Our calculator uses your date span as the estimate: subtract complete gap months, and calculate periods separately if your salary changed substantially.

Can child-raising periods push me over 60 months?

Yes. Child-raising contribution periods recorded through form V0800 add up to 30 months per child born before 1992, or 36 months per child born from 1992 — enough to complete the five-year period. The separate consideration period until the child turns ten does not count toward that threshold, and a month of simultaneous work and child raising counts once, not twice.

Can I submit before the 24 months end?

You can mail paperwork early — and the office will reject it, because the legal condition did not exist on your application date. Early filing has also triggered extra confirmation requests in our cases. File from the first day after 24 full calendar months have ended, provided no relevant mandatory insurance began in the meantime.

Is the process completely digital?

The paperwork can be prepared digitally, but an overseas claim is never paperless from start to finish: applicants abroad send the signed V0901 and payment declaration as original paper documents by post, and the responsible office can require further originals. In the Australian cases it handles, DRV Oldenburg-Bremen also requires the original power of attorney — unless another carrier such as Bund or Knappschaft is responsible. With a managed claim, the paper leg can be handled for you: you submit and sign digitally, and the service prepares and mails the paper originals — your side of the process is then fully digital, Australian cases excepted.

When does my refund claim expire?

Never — there is no deadline for your first personal refund application. You can apply years after leaving Germany if you still meet the conditions. But the balance earns no interest for the years before you apply, so waiting has no financial upside. Survivor claims are the exception: they expire four years after the end of the calendar year in which the insured person died.

Can I change my mind after applying?

Yes — before the refund decision becomes binding. After a valid refund is final and paid, reversal is possible only in exceptional legal circumstances.

Why did my spouse or colleague receive a refund first?

Each person has their own account, carrier, evidence history and caseworker. Two claims mailed in the same envelope can be routed to different offices or need different checks. One payment says nothing about the other claim — it isn't lost, it's just on its own path.

I also paid into a company pension (bAV) in Germany — can I get that back too?

Not through the statutory refund — company pensions are a separate system, and vested entitlements are normally locked until retirement. But a granted statutory refund changes that: under § 3 Abs. 3 BetrAVG you can then demand a cash settlement of your vested company pension, and the provider must comply. Complete the statutory refund first, keep the decision letter, then claim the company pension — we handle both steps.

Main FAQ sources: Section 210 SGB VI · DRV section 210 guidance · DRV voluntary-insurance guidance · DRV refund brochure · V0901 overseas form

How we researched this guide

Last legal and form review: 7 August 2026.

This guide was written by Johannes Kühn, founder of Germany Pension Refund, who has worked international German pension contribution-refund cases since establishing the service in 2015. The practical examples come from that casework; the legal rules come from the sources identified below — and the two are kept apart on purpose.

We separate rules from experience. When this guide describes a document request, an office practice or a processing time that we have repeatedly observed, it is labelled as Germany Pension Refund experience — never presented as law. When it states a rule, that rule traces to a source you can check.

Our source order

1. German law. § 210 SGB VI and the relevant procedure, registration and tax provisions come first.

2. Social security agreements and EU-UK law. Each agreement, protocol or European instrument is checked in its promulgated Bundesgesetzblatt text and current searchable version.

3. Current DRV legal guidance. The pension office's own instructions (GRA) show how offices combine § 210 with the agreements — including voluntary-insurance rights and equivalent foreign mandatory insurance.

4. Current forms and DRV publications. The live form package, V0901, payment documents, liaison-office pages and country brochures control the practical route.

5. Germany Pension Refund experience. Our international casework explains routing delays, document problems and office practices that statutes and treaties don't show.

Germany Pension Refund is a service of Berlin-based ATLAES GmbH. Our partner German law firm reviews and submits managed claims and handles legal work within the agreed scope. The brand name is used throughout because it's the name readers know; the GmbH is identified here for transparency.

Key primary sources

• § 210 SGB VI — refund entitlement, amount and legal effect

• DRV guidance on § 210 — retirement age, survivors, timing and detailed interpretation

• DRV guidance on § 7 — voluntary German insurance rights by citizenship and residence

• Social security agreements in the Bundesgesetzblatt and the DRV's Normen und Verträge collection — the binding texts, protocols and amendments in their current searchable wording

• Current DRV refund form package — domestic, overseas and payment forms

• DRV contribution-refund brochure — the official practical overview

• DRV international liaison offices — routing for international cases

• DRV interest guidance — complete applications and statutory interest

• DRV objection guidance — the one- and three-month objection periods

• Federal Fiscal Court, X R 35/18 — German tax treatment

How we keep it current

• Every quarter: form versions, carrier pages, payment instructions, contribution ceilings, calculator data and external links.

• Every year: the statute, DRV instructions, country rules, examples, pricing and the processing-time figures.

• After any known change: a form, an office instruction, an agreement interpretation or an original-document requirement is updated immediately.

• After every material edit: the visible review date changes and the change is recorded.

This guide gives general information, not an individual decision. The checker covers the common former-employee cases. Ask for an individual assessment if your case involves multiple citizenships, refugee or stateless status, relevant foreign insurance, a retirement-age or survivor claim, a divorce adjustment, or a disputed pension-office decision.

Next step: use the eligibility checker and refund calculator for your preliminary answer and estimate. If the result is clear, choose the official DIY route described above — or ask Germany Pension Refund to manage the claim. If the checker can't cover your facts, request a free individual review before filing.

Ready now? Start your claim — free eligibility review, no upfront fee →