The 24-Month Waiting Period for a German Pension Refund: When Can You Apply?
By Johannes Kühn, founder of Germany Pension Refund · Rules checked against § 210 SGB VI and the Deutsche Rentenversicherung's guidance on the waiting period: 10 September 2026
Short answer: you can apply for a refund of your German pension contributions from the first day of the 25th calendar month after your last month of compulsory pension insurance — provided no new compulsory insurance, in Germany or in one of the other countries listed below, began in the meantime. If March 2024 was your last contribution month, the waiting period runs from April 2024 through March 2026, and the first day you can file is 1 April 2026. The clock is set by your last contribution month and starts running the month after it — not by your deregistration, and not by the day you left Germany.
This guide explains that one condition — the 24-month waiting period in § 210 Abs. 2 SGB VI: when the clock starts, what restarts it, what doesn't, when it ends, and what happens once you have filed. Whether you qualify at all — your citizenships, where you live and, for some nationalities, your German contribution months — is a separate question, answered in the complete German pension refund guide and on our country pages. And the waiting period is not the same as processing time: it runs before you can file. How long a claim then takes after filing is a different clock, documented on our processing-time data and methodology page.
Waiting-period calculator: the calculator finds the exact date a claim can first be filed. Enter your last month of compulsory pension insurance; overall eligibility still depends on the rules in the complete guide.
When the clock starts
The waiting period begins after your last compulsory contribution (Pflichtbeitrag) to the German pension insurance — after the last calendar month in which you were covered by compulsory pension insurance. For most former employees, that is the last month of their last job in Germany. Three dates do not matter: the date you deregistered (Abmeldung), the date you left the country, and the date your employer transferred the final payroll. A bonus paid out after you left does not move the start of the waiting period either, as long as it does not create an additional compulsory-contribution month in your insurance record. If in doubt, your insurance record (Versicherungsverlauf) shows the last month with compulsory contributions — that is the month that counts.
Two kinds of months are easy to overlook, because you are not working during them:
Months receiving German unemployment benefit (Arbeitslosengeld, ALG I) normally count as compulsory-contribution months: the law makes this conditional on your having last been compulsorily insured within the year before the benefit began (§ 3 sentence 1 no. 3 SGB VI) — the ordinary case when ALG I follows insured employment directly. If you drew the benefit after your last job, the waiting period then starts after the last month of benefit receipt. Example: last job ended in June 2024, unemployment benefit received until October 2024 — the waiting period runs from November 2024 through October 2026, and you can apply from 1 November 2026.
Child-raising periods (Kindererziehungszeiten) are compulsory insurance too. They are credited to one parent's record for raising a child in Germany — with limited exceptions for raising abroad — and they generally do not continue after a move abroad. For children born from 1992, the period covers up to 36 calendar months after the month of birth (fewer for earlier births), so a child under three when your last job ended can still move your date: if the child-raising period credited to you ended after your last contribution month, the 24 months run from the end of that period. If it ended in or before that month, nothing changes. What counts is the credited child-raising period, not parental leave as such; our V0800 guide explains how these periods are determined and which parent they are credited to. Other benefit months — sickness benefit, for example — can count as well, under the same condition.
What restarts the waiting period
New compulsory pension insurance before you apply restarts the 24 months — in Germany, the EU, the UK, Türkiye, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Montenegro, North Macedonia or Serbia. The fresh 24 months run from the end of that insurance. This applies even if your first 24 months had already run out before the new insurance began.
Example: your last German contribution month was March 2024. A job under compulsory insurance in Austria from September 2024 to February 2025 restarts the clock — the 24 months now run from March 2025 through February 2027, and your earliest application date becomes 1 March 2027, provided you no longer live in the EU or the UK when you apply. In Türkiye and the five ex-Yugoslav states listed above, compulsory state pension insurance also blocks the refund for as long as it continues; the clock starts after it ends.
What does not restart it
A mini-job with only employer flat-rate contributions. A mini-job that is exempt from pension insurance, or from which you opted out, with the employer paying only flat-rate contributions (§ 172 Abs. 3 and 3a SGB VI), is not compulsory insurance for this purpose — it neither blocks the refund nor restarts the waiting period. A mini-job with your own pension contribution is compulsory insurance and does restart it.
Compulsory insurance in Switzerland, Norway, Iceland or Liechtenstein. If you hold no German, EU, EEA, Swiss or UK citizenship, compulsory pension insurance in Switzerland or an EEA state generally does not restart the 24 months. Special cases within the personal scope of EU law need an individual review.
Kosovo's mandatory pension fund (Trust/KPST). It is an individual savings account, not state pension insurance — it does not block the refund and does not restart the waiting period.
Pension systems anywhere else. Public or private pension arrangements outside the countries named so far never block the refund and never restart the clock — US Social Security, the Canadian CPP, Australian super, Brazil's INSS, the Philippine SSS, a company plan or private retirement savings. What matters is not whether you save for retirement somewhere, but whether the system is one Germany treats like its own compulsory insurance.
A visit to Germany or the EU. Visiting restarts nothing; only compulsory insurance does. Taking up residence in the EU or the UK is a different matter: it blocks the application for as long as it lasts, whatever the clock says — the residence rules are explained in the complete guide.
When the waiting period ends — and the first day you can apply
The waiting period is counted in calendar months. It ends on the last day of the 24th calendar month after the month in which your compulsory insurance ended, and you can apply from the first day of the month after that — the 1st of the 25th month. That is the date the calculator above shows.
We recommend submitting your application once the waiting period has ended. Filing early does not shorten the statutory waiting period and can lead to additional confirmation requests — in Germany Pension Refund cases, the pension office has asked early applicants for written confirmation that no new compulsory insurance began before the 24 months ended. Use the waiting time to prepare instead: your insurance record (Versicherungsverlauf), payslips and deregistration certificate, so that the application is complete on day one.
No deadline — but no interest
There is no exclusion period for a first application to refund your own contributions — survivors' claims follow their own rules — so you can file years after leaving Germany, as long as the conditions still fit on the day you apply. Two things waiting does not do: it earns nothing — no interest accrues for the time before the application — and it does not freeze your situation. Citizenship, residence and insurance status are judged on the application date.
After you file
Once a valid application is in, new insured work or a move back does not undo it: if the conditions were met on the application date, taking up insured work in Germany again or moving back later — even during the pending procedure — does not block the refund. The pension office then points out the legal effects of the refund and that you could instead complete the five-year qualifying period with the new contributions. The refund covers the entire refundable balance, and with the refund your previous insurance relationship is dissolved: rights from the pension-relevant periods completed up to the refund cease to exist (§ 210 Abs. 6 SGB VI) — including periods from work taken up before the refund is completed. Once the refund has been completed, future contributions in Germany can build new pension entitlements. The pension rights extinguished by the refund are not restored.
From here on, a different clock runs: processing time. See our processing-time results for how long completed refunds have taken after submission. One legal rule connects the two clocks: no interest accrues before the application, but German law can provide 4% annual interest from the seventh calendar month after a complete application reaches a German pension carrier. That is a legal rule, not a benefit or guarantee of our service.
Who the waiting period applies to — and who it doesn't
The waiting period applies to everyone who claims a refund of their own contributions before German retirement age — including people who became exempt from compulsory insurance, for example career civil servants, and claim their earlier contributions under § 210 Abs. 1a SGB VI, which is possible only if the five-year qualifying period is not met. It does not apply to two other refund routes: the refund at German retirement age when the five-year qualifying period has not been met, and refunds to survivors after an insured person's death. Both are explained in the complete guide; survivors' refunds also in our widow-pension guide, which covers them alongside the survivor's pension.
Frequently asked questions
Does the waiting period start when I deregister or leave Germany?
No. It starts after your last compulsory-contribution month — the last calendar month in which you were covered by compulsory pension insurance — not on the day you deregistered, left the country or received your final payroll transfer. If March 2024 was your last contribution month, the waiting period runs April 2024 through March 2026, and you can apply from 1 April 2026.
I received unemployment benefit after my last job — when does my waiting period start?
After the last month in which you received German unemployment benefit (Arbeitslosengeld, ALG I). Those months normally count as compulsory-contribution months — the ordinary case when ALG I follows insured employment directly — so the 24 months run from the end of the benefit, not from the end of the job. Last job ended June 2024, benefit received until October 2024: the waiting period runs November 2024 through October 2026, and you can apply from 1 November 2026.
I had a child in Germany — can that move my application date?
It can. Child-raising periods (Kindererziehungszeiten) are compulsory insurance, and for children born from 1992 they cover up to 36 calendar months after the month of birth. If the child-raising period credited to you ended after your last contribution month — for example because you stayed home with the child before leaving Germany — the 24 months run from the end of that period; if it ended in or before that month, nothing changes. The pension office determines these periods through form V0800; our V0800 guide explains which parent they are credited to.
I worked in another EU country or the UK after leaving Germany — what happens to my waiting period?
It restarts if that work was under compulsory pension insurance — which most employment is. Compulsory pension insurance in Germany, the EU, the UK, Türkiye, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Montenegro, North Macedonia or Serbia before you apply restarts the 24 months from the end of that insurance — even if your first 24 months had already run out. And living in the EU or the UK on the day you apply blocks the application — see the complete guide.
Is there a deadline for applying?
For a first application to refund your own contributions, no: there is no exclusion period, and you can file years after leaving Germany as long as the conditions still fit on the day you apply. Waiting earns nothing, though — no interest accrues for the time before the application. Refunds to survivors follow their own rules.
Is the 24-month waiting period part of the processing time?
No — they are two different clocks that run one after the other. The waiting period runs before you can file; processing time only starts once you have filed, so processing-time figures never include the waiting period. How long completed refunds have taken after submission is documented on our processing-time page. Use the waiting period to prepare the application.
Next step
Enter your last month of compulsory insurance in the calculator above to see your earliest application date. To see whether the other conditions fit, our free eligibility check walks through citizenship, residence and the 60-month and 24-month rules — a preliminary indication in under a minute. It is not an individual legal decision and does not cover every edge case. In a managed claim, we check your eligibility and prepare your documents while the waiting period runs, and your application is reviewed and submitted by our German partner law firm once the waiting period has ended — not before. You may apply directly to Deutsche Rentenversicherung without using our service; the pension office charges no application fee.
Germany Pension Refund is a service operated by ATLAES GmbH, Berlin. Germany Pension Refund is a private service. We are not part of or affiliated with Deutsche Rentenversicherung or any German government authority. This guide gives general information, not an individual decision.
Official basis: § 210 SGB VI · DRV guidance (GRA) on § 210 SGB VI — waiting period · § 3 SGB VI (compulsory insurance, including child-raising periods) · § 172 SGB VI (employer flat-rate contributions) · § 44 SGB I (interest)
