Pensions for the self-employed
- Service
- Nationwide
- Public service
If you are self-employed, you have to take care of your obligatory pension insurance yourself. Your pension contributions and your future pension depends on your estimate of how much you will earn from your self-employment. That amount is called your confirmed income from self-employment.
Your pension insurance for self-employed workers secures your income
- when you get old,
- when you fall ill, ...
Do the following
If you do self-employed work on the side or if it is seasonal but meets the requirements of self-employment set out in the law, you have to take out insurance. In other words, the same rule applies if you are a small-scale self-employed person.
You have to take out insurance for your self-employment if:
- you are between 18 and 69 years old,
- you work in your own company,
- you have worked as a self-employed for at least four months without interruptions after you have turned 18, and
- your confirmed income from work is at least 9,423 euros per year (in 2026).
Your confirmed income is your estimate of how much you will earn from your self-employment.
As a self-employed worker, you have to take out pension insurance under the Self-employed Persons’ Pensions Act within six months from the date on which you start your self-employment. You can choose which pension insurance company or pension insurance fund (if there is one in your line of business) that you want to insure yourself in. You cannot replace the statutory pension insurance for self-employed workers with voluntary pension insurance.
If you are self-employed and have employees, you have to insure them, as well.
If you earn your living from agriculture or get a grant in the arts or sciences, you have to take out your pension insurance with the Farmers’ Social Insurance Institution Mela.