Pausing your payments into the early retirement scheme

If you were born on 1 January 1976 or later, you may pause your payments into the early retirement scheme.

If you were born before 1976, you cannot pause your payments. You can, however, opt for one or more payment-free periods.

When, how long and how many times

You are not allowed to start out by pausing your payments into the scheme. But if you have paid into the early retirement scheme for just one day, you may pause your payments.

You decide when and for how long you want to pause payments – and whether you want to split your pause into 2 or more periods. 

The earliest you can pause your payments is the date when we receive your written request. And we cannot resume collecting your payments into the early retirement scheme until we have received your written request to do so. 

We recommend that you fill in opt-out form AR 252 when you decide to pause your payments as relevant guidance is provided on that form. However, you can also request a pause by sending us a message. 

It's your own responsibility

When you have decided to pause your payments, it's your own responsibility to make sure that payments are resumed.

Therefore, we recommend that when requesting a pause in payments, you give us a date when we should resume collecting your payments into the early retirement scheme. This way, you will avoid the risk of losing eligibility for early retirement because you forgot to resume payments. 

A too long pause may affect your right to early retirement

If you pause payments for so long that you do not have time to pay into your early retirement scheme for 30 years before reaching your early retirement age, it will affect your eligibility for early retirement. We would strongly advise against that. 

If you pause payments for so long that you do not have time to pay into your early retirement scheme for 30 years before your 67th birthday, you will lose eligibility for early retirement altogether – even if the early retirement age is raised at some point in the future. 

If you are not eligible for early retirement, you may use the opt-out cancellation scheme subject to certain conditions.

Read about the opt-out cancellation scheme for early retirement