German Pension Refund Online Calculator
Find out how much of your German pension contributions you can claim back – no sign-up required, no strings attached.
REFUND CALCULATOR
Step by Step to Your Refund
STEP 1:
How many months did you work in Germany?
STEP 2:
What was your average monthly gross salary in Germany?
STEP 3:
Almost done! Enter your email to start your refund process.
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How to Estimate Your Pension Refund
Want to find out how much you could get back? With just a few documents, you can make a solid estimate of your pension refund – and we’ll show you how.
The most accurate way is to gather your monthly payslips, especially the December payslip for each year you worked, and the payslip from your last month in Germany. These will show how much you contributed to the German pension system. Add those amounts together, and you have your total refund base.
Can’t find your payslips? No problem – you can also use your annual wage tax statements. Look for section 23.a, which shows your share of the pension contribution. Keep in mind that these figures can occasionally be inaccurate – so if you have payslips, use them instead.
If you don’t have any documents, but you remember your gross salary, you can still estimate your refund by applying the contribution rate (9.3%) to your income for each year – up to the annual cap.
And if you already have your insurance record (Versicherungsverlauf), simply multiply the listed income amounts (“Entgelt”) by the annual contribution rate to calculate your total.
Please Note:
This calculator provides an estimate and does not serve as proof of eligibility or guarantee a refund.
Am I Eligible for a German Pension Refund?
If you’ve worked in Germany and paid into the German pension system, you may be wondering whether you’re entitled to get that money back. The good news: many non-EU citizens can claim a full refund of their pension contributions once they’ve left the country. Whether you’re eligible depends on a few key factors – mainly your citizenship, your current place of residence, how long you worked in Germany, and how much time has passed since your last contribution.
Let’s start with nationality. If you’re a non-EU citizen and no longer live in the European Union, there’s a very good chance you qualify for a refund. For citizens of countries like the United Kingdom, the United States, Canada, Turkey, India, China, Ukraine, Brazil, Morocco, the Philippines, and Russia, eligibility depends mainly on how long you contributed to the German pension system and where you currently live.
In many of these cases, if you paid into the system for less than five years, you can usually claim a refund without any problems. If you’ve contributed for five years or more, special agreements between Germany and your home country may mean that your contributions stay in the system and are paid out later as a pension – especially if you still live in your home country. But even in those cases, if you’ve moved to another country, a refund may still be possible.
For example, Japanese citizens can only get a refund if they currently live outside of Japan. Israeli citizens must live outside Israel, and people from former Yugoslav countries must reside outside of that region (e.g., in the US or Canada) to claim their pension contributions back before retirement age.
Another important factor is where you live now. To be eligible for a pension refund, you must reside outside the European Union. If you’re still living within the EU, even if you’re no longer working, the German pension system will keep your contributions until you reach retirement age. An exception applies to UK residents, depending on when and where they made their last pension contributions. If you didn’t pay into a mandatory UK or EU pension scheme before Brexit (before 01.01.2021), you may still qualify for a refund while living in the UK.
Finally, the timing matters too. You can only submit a pension refund application 24 months after your last contribution. This refers to the last month of employment or receipt of unemployment benefits or parental leave – whichever came last. The formal deregistration from Germany (your Abmeldung) is not relevant for this rule. What matters is that you’ve stopped contributing and have left the German labor market for good.
If all this sounds complicated, don’t worry – we’re here to simplify the process for you. With years of experience and thousands of successfully processed refunds, we know exactly what to do. You can start with our free eligibility check, and if you qualify, we’ll take care of everything from forms to submission. Most of our clients receive their refund in as little as some weeks, while self-submitted claims often take months or years long.