Your Pension from Switzerland

The Swiss Pension Insurance

The insurance carrier of the mandatory Swiss pension insurance is called the “Eidgenössische Alters-, Hinterlassenen- und Invalidenversicherung AHV-IV”. This administration is centralized and covers all of the Swiss Cantons.

Regardless whether you want to at a later time apply for your Pension, Survivor benefits or a Disability pension, we are the experts and here to help you. Let us take care of your interest and we will optimize your pension and investigate how we can increase the yields of your contributions.

Do a quick check to find out whether you are entitled to draw a pension from the Swiss Social Security Administration!

Invest half an hour of your time - we will do the rest!

Here is how:
Click here or call us toll-free at 1 866 341 6474 and ask for our questionnaire. Fill out the questionnaire and send it back to us via e-mail or the Postal Service.

We will analyse your data and quickly give you a Feedback.

There are no obligations to you and you alone decide how to proceed. If your data shows that upon retirement you are owed any money from the Swiss government we offer to you our expert services to get you your money! This is solely your decision!

For the questionnaire and its quick analysis we will charge a one-time fee of $ 25.00

Social Security Performance

The Swiss Pension Insurance offers the following: 

(a) a pension at age 63 the earliest and at age 70 the latest for men; at age 62 the earliest and at age 69 the latest for women born in 1942 or later,

(b) disability benefits in case you become disabled and are unable to work prior to turning 65,

(c) survivor benefits in case of the death of a spouse,

(d) benefits if you are raised as an orphan up to age 25.

The mandatory retirement age for men is 65, for women it is 64. Men and women can apply for their respective pensions 1 or 2 years earlier or delay the receipt of their benefits by 1 but no more than 5 years.

In case an insured worker becomes so ill that it is apparent that he or she will not be able to work for quite a long time or is even permanently disabled, that worker can apply for an disability benefits. The amount of the benefits will depend on the degree by which the income has been reduced.

In case of the death of a husband the surviving spouse can, depending on her age and the length of the marriage, receive survivor benefits, which will be charged against the survivor's income.

In case of the death of the wife the surviving husband can apply for survivor benefits as long as he has children below the age of 18.

Divorced spouses can under certain circumstances receive survivor benefits.

In case one or both parents of a child die before the child turns 18, the surviving child can receive semi- or full orphan benefits. If the surviving child is still in job-training benefits will be paid until the child turns 25.

Conditions for receiving a pension

In order to receive a pension you have to be insured for at least one year. That means you have to accumulate at least 12 month of contributions.

  • Your claim to a pension begins on the first day of the month following the insured reaching the mandatory retirement age. The claim expires at the end of the month following the insureds death.

    For all males the mandatory retirement age begins at age 65.

    For women the rules are as follows:

    -born in 1938 or before, the mandatory retirement age begins at age 62

    -born between 1939 (incl.)and 1941 (incl.), the retirement age begins at age 63

    -born in 1942 or later, the retirement age begins at age 64.

    Insured persons can under the provisions of the 'Flexible Mandatory Retirement Age' move the receipt of their pensions forward by one or two years (Vorbezug) or delay the receipt of their pensions by a maximum of 5 years (Aufschub). With married couples it possible that one spouse delays the receipt of the pension and the other moves it forward.

Groups of Insured

As an employee your pension insurance is mandatory. Your employer deducts every month from your paycheck the Social Security contributions and forwards the amounts of money to the insurance carrier. The insurance carrier in turn registers the month for which the money has been paid and the amount of your salary by which the amount of your monthly contributions are determined. The same applies for workers who are in an apprenticeship or any other form of professional training.

Under certain conditions the mandatory pension insurance can be changed into a voluntary one.

Male and females who have raised their own children will receive credits on their accounts with the insurance carrier in the form of monthly contributions.

All paid and credited monthly contributions on your insurance carrier's account will be added up and will determine the time-period you have been insured, the waiting period. Together with the amounts of your contributions it will determine the amount of your pension pay-outs.

Therefore it is of absolute importance that ALL monthly contributions are registered by the insurance carrier and properly credited to your account.


We will help you with making sure that your account is properly credited by investigating and providing proof to the insurance carrier in cases of missing data so that you will receive the maximum pay-outs.

Insurance Categories

It is the rule that all employees need to contribute to a mandatory pension insurance. The employer withholds the amount of the contribution from the employee's monthly paycheck and forwards the money to the insurance carrier.

There is also the possibility to insure oneself on a voluntary basis.

It is important that you check whether in the past you have made voluntary contributions and whether those contributions have been credited to your account with the insurance carrier.

In order to increase the yield of your contributions you may in the future be able to enter into a voluntary insurance scheme.

Please consult us! We will investigate and determine the correct state of your account and make suggestions how you can optimize your pension.

Procedures Of The Swiss Pension Insurance Carriers

In general all pension insurances use a fully digitalized system, which makes all data instantly available. However, the laws and regulations of the Swiss insurance carriers are different, complex and are subject to constant changes. This results in rather time-consuming procedures every time a request or claim works its way through their systems. So it will take on the average about three months until an application for a pension has been approved even when all necessary documentation has been provided and accepted. Additional requests like the approval of new documentation and/or the adding on of time-periods require a lengthy processing time, which can take up to 24 months. Unfortunately we have no influence on the duration it takes to process a claim or request.

The best time-saving procedure is for us to (with your help) provide the insurance carrier with as much and as precise information as we can. That way we avoid time-consuming check backs by the Swiss Social Security administrations and financial losses for you.

When you make your retirement plans please take into consideration the duration it may take for your claim(s) to work its way through the system. Start your application process now so that by the time you have reached your retirement age all documentation is at hand and all questions have been answered. That way the time it will take to process your application will be short and you will be able to receive your pension payouts immediately

  • Only after an application has been submitted to the Social Security Administration will a pension be approved. The application consists of several pages, which the applicant has to fill out. In order to process the application the Swiss Social Security Administration requires a time-period of approximately four to six months, provided all documentation is available, there are no question-marks, no back-checks and there are no requests for you to provide additional proofs.

    Taking this into consideration we suggest that you at the latest at the age of 60 or at least 5 years before your planned retirement have us check the status of your Swiss insurance account to make sure all information has been recorded and that those records are correct so that you will receive the maximum possible pay-outs. For example, had any of your previous Swiss employers submitted incorrect or incomplete contributions you would find out about this only after the Social Security Administration had approved your pension. It would then require a rather extensive, expensive and time-consuming effort on your part to have the necessary corrections made to your pension account, during which time you will receive no pension or at the very best only a token amount.

    Therefore we urge you, regardless of your present age, to already now gather and secure all job-related details of any professional activities you had in Switzerland and clear these information with the Swiss Social Security Administration. You should do so even if you have plans to again work in Switzerland at any time in the future. Out of experience we can tell you that it is very difficult to correct mistakes after 10 or 20 years that were made by a Swiss employer or a Swiss public office. To correct such mistakes after such a long period of time you would need extensive proofs; and the more time has passed the more difficult it will be to obtain those proofs.

    Make good use of the time until you plan to retire. Please appoint us now so we can assist you with clearing all the details.

  • All pension insurance carriers record the times, your annual contributions, the amounts of your salaries and all other for your pension relevant information and data in your so-called Individual Account (Individuellen Konto - IK). This account reflects your professional career as far as it is important for the calculation of your pension. Any missing data or false recordings or mistakes will have a negative impact on the amount of your eventual pension pay outs.

    Please let us establish for you what information has been credited to your pension account and make sure that all the data are correct.

    We will point out to you how you can check the correctness and completeness of these recordings and assist you if needed in the necessary corrections and/or supplementations of your data.

    Your pension account is as important as your bank account! Make sure you are in control of it!

  • You can at any time, even after many years, request corrections to your pension account. If there are missing or incorrect data on your account you are by-and-large not held responsible for these mistakes. However, you are responsible for proving that the information is indeed incorrect. Acceptable proofs would be job-related documentation, certificates, salary statements and even the testimony of a witness.

    We can offer you our specialized service in assisting you with the correction(s) of incorrect or missing data on your pension account. We conduct our research at the source and will, if necessary, interrogate witnesses, check with public offices and even find individuals who could shed light on your problems.

    Because this may expand into an extensive effort we will advise you on whether it will be worth our time and your expense if the outcome will result in only a marginal increase in your pension pay-outs.

  • Should our research show that there are missing time-periods and/or contributions on your pension account or that for example one or more of your salaried jobs have not been recorded, that will, of course, have a negative impact on the amount of your eventual pension pay-outs.

    We will assist you in the research and in adding the missing time-periods and contributions to your pension account. In case of any missing documentation we will go to the source and assist you in your investigations. We will consult witnesses and check with official departments and offices and even try to find certain person(s) if he/she could shed some light on your problem.

    Should it become apparent that our research will be rather extensive and time-consuming we will be able to offer you an estimation of whether the efforts and moneys required for finding the requested documentation will be worth the increase in your pension-pay-outs.

    Please keep in mind that we are the experts!

Insurance Periods

Every month during which you paid either a mandatory or voluntary contribution is considered an insurance period. This and all other periods have to be credited on your account with the insurance carrier.

In addition you may receive credit for certain periods even if you have not made any contributions. For example, you get credit for time spent on raising children, caring for relatives or for time spent on professional education and training. You will also receive credit for time periods during which you received disability benefits, unemployment compensations and served in the military.

Under certain provisions a person can receive substitute periods, which will be credited to his or her account without the person having to pay the contributions.

Are you certain that all your time periods have been credited to your account?

Please appoint us to look into these matters for you so that you will receive full and proper credits for your time periods. They will increase the yields of your pension.

Swiss Pensions in the US

In General

As the recipient of social security payments from a Swiss insurance carrier you can have your payments transferred into a bank account abroad in the currency of the country of your residence. However, you have to be registered with the Swiss consulate or other office of Swiss representation in the country of your residence.

You can apply for your pension with the Swiss Social Security Administration from any country outside of Switzerland. All you have to do is request the proper application forms from the Administration in German, French or Italian (!) and make sure that all supporting documentation is stated in one of those languages.

We are specialized in assisting pensioners who are living abroad and will handle all business with the Swiss insurance carriers in a professional way.

We are offering our 'wrap-around' service, which goes beyond the basic correspondence such as the assistance with your application for pension, our prognosis, making sure that your account shows all time-periods and substitute times. We gather all necessary proofs and documentation and investigate missing records and more.

Pensions From Foreign Countries

In General

Question: Besides having your social security contributions deducted from your paycheck in Switzerland, did you ever pay contributions in any other country?

In general you can, provided you have met all conditions in the respective countries, receive social security payments simultaneously from any country you have worked in and made your contributions.

The resulting income tax that is generated by those payments to you will have to be paid by you in the country of your residence or the country where the payments are being transferred to.

We will be honored if you trust us with the safeguarding of your interests in front of the individual national Social Security Administrations. We work together with experts who are fluent in the languages of the respective countries and will be able to get you in touch with legal advisors or attorneys who will represent you in court if necessary.

  • The respective Social Security Administrations of Switzerland and the USA have signed an agreement, which guarantees pension payouts to citizens residing in each partner-country ('Bilateral Agreement').

    If you have paid social security contributions into the Swiss system you are entitled, even if you have left Switzerland, to partial social security payments. You have to – as is required by Swiss residents - fulfill a minimum of 12 months of contributions. Your pension payouts will commence at your mandatory retirement age or upon the death of your spouse. If you are disabled and your incapacity is 50% or more you can receive your disability payments in your foreign country of residence.

    If you are a Swiss citizen or a naturalized US citizen the Swiss Social Security Administration will transfer your pension to any country of your residence.

    While receiving a pension from Switzerland, you may also receive Social Security payments from the USA at the same time.

  • In general, if you fulfill all requirements, you are allowed to receive your pension from Switzerland simultaneously with any Social Security payouts from the USA.

    All you have to do is ask us to assist you with setting up your application and to guide you through the laborious and complex process until success is guaranteed.

    Your need to apply for your US pension with the US Social Security Administration. Upon request our American partner can assist you there as well.

    Please talk to us!

  • Switzerland has signed social security agreements with the following countries:

    all members of the EU, Iceland, Lichtenstein, Norway, Chile, Israel, all states resulting from the breakup of the former Yugoslavia, Canada, the Philippines, San Marino, Turkey and the USA

    .These agreements provide certain equal rights to the citizens of those countries regarding the status of their pension insurances regardless in which countries the citizens reside and what their nationalities are.

    We will assist you in every way through our foreign offices. This goes for the citizens of the EU, EFTA, Switzerland, and all other aforementioned countries but also for anybody regardless of nationality who has ever worked in Switzerland.

    Trust with your problems. We specialize in securing your foreign pension entitlements

  • In general you can, provided you meet all requirements, receive pensions simultaneously from Switzerland, any member country of the EU, EFTA, or any country, with which Switzerland has signed a Social Security Agreement. There are, however, differences to observe, which may affect the amount of your pension.

    By using our offices you can be assured that we will assist you from the time we file your application to the moment you receive your pension. We will help you in obtaining all benefits due to you to maximize the amount of your payouts.

    There is extensive preparatory work necessary on your part; we will work with you to make it easy by assisting you in every step of the way.

Social Security And Divorce

In the case of a divorce (or the annulment of a marriage) the Swiss Social Security Administration will in general apply the rule of equalization. This means that the income of both spouses, which was generated during the time of their marriage, will be added up and then divided in half. Those two (equal) amounts will then be credited with the insurance carrier. The same procedure will be applied if both spouses receive a pension or if one spouse receives survivor benefits.

This is a complex and far-reaching procedure because the one spouse with the higher income or entitlement will have to give up a certain percentage of the pension while the spouse with the lower income or pension will receive more than was originally scheduled.

If you are divorced we will assist you in making sure that the procedure of equal distribution has been done correctly regardless whether you through the rule of equalization had to give up a portion of your pension or gained a certain amount.