Retirement

Steps

1. Request your S1 form from the fund that pays your pension, if you have no Czech pension.
2. Declare your place of residence to the foreign police within 30 days if you stay more than 30 days, and apply if you wish for the residence registration certificate (sheet CZ-SEJOUR-TOUS-001).
3. Hand your S1 to the Czech health insurance fund of your choice (for example the VZP): it registers you and gives you a certificate with an insured number (sheet CZ-SANTE-TOUS-001).
4. Check your taxation: the treaty between Czechia and your country decides who taxes your pension (sheet CZ-IMPOTS-TOUS-001).
5. If you have worked in Czechia, submit your pension application at a branch of the Czech social security administration (Česká správa sociálního zabezpečení, ČSSZ), in person or online, no earlier than 4 months before your right opens. No form to fill in beforehand: the officer prepares it with you. If you have worked in several EU countries, submit a single application, to the pension body of your country of residence or of the country where you last worked; it gathers the periods from the other countries.
6. Each country replies to you, then you receive the P1 form summarising the decisions.

Documents

• S1 form, ID document, proof of resources.
• For a Czech pension: career statements, payslips or tax assessments proving your periods (the ČSSZ does not have all the records and may ask you for them), birth certificates of the children raised.

Costs and timelines

• Statutory age: depends on the year of birth, sex and number of children for women; raised generation after generation: for example 65 years for a man born in 1965, 65 years and 6 months for a person born in 1971, 65 years and 8 months for 1973, then one more month per year of birth from 1974 to 1988, and 67 years for people born after 1988 (Act 155/1995, § 32 and annex 1). Calculate your exact age with the ČSSZ simulator.
• Insurance period: 35 years minimum since 2019; 20 years are enough (15 without the non-contributory periods) if you have exceeded by at least 2 years the statutory age for men of your generation.
• Early retirement: up to 3 years before the statutory age, with 40 years of insurance, permanently reduced.
• 2026 amount: basic amount of CZK 4,900, plus a percentage part calculated on your earnings since 1986 and your insurance period, of at least CZK 4,900; so CZK 9,800 at the minimum, plus CZK 500 per child raised (on request). If you have also worked in other EU countries, the Czech pension is calculated pro rata to your Czech periods (Act 155/1995, § 61): this minimum then does not apply as it stands.
• Working while retired: possible, with the full pension (without then contributing to pension insurance) or with half of the pension, which then continues to increase.

Common pitfalls

• Settling without an S1: the European card is only for temporary stays; without an S1, employment or permanent residence, you do not enter the public system (sheet CZ-SANTE-TOUS-001).
• Waiting until the last minute: the application is submitted 4 months before at the earliest, and a European application takes time.
• Not keeping your supporting documents: without proof, periods may be missing from the calculation.

What changes by country of origin

• EU, EEA, Switzerland: aggregation of periods and S1 under the European rules.
• British people (including Scottish): European rules for people covered by the withdrawal agreement; otherwise, protocol of the EU–United Kingdom trade agreement, similar but less complete. Find out from your British fund.