What the Wet toekomst pensioenen changes
The Act does not replace the Pensioenwet (Pensions Act); it amends it, together with the tax rules that sit alongside it. The change it makes is nonetheless fundamental: the defined benefit promise in the second pillar disappears. Where a scheme used to promise an amount, expressed as a percentage of salary for every year of service, it now promises a contribution. What that contribution eventually buys depends on investment returns and on interest rates at the moment of retirement.It helps to keep the three pillars of the Dutch system apart. The first pillar is the AOW, the state pension paid by the Sociale Verzekeringsbank to everyone who has built up insured years of residence. The second pillar is the occupational pension agreed between employer and employee and administered by a pension fund or an insurer. The third pillar consists of individual products such as an annuity. The Wet toekomst pensioenen reforms the second pillar only. It leaves the AOW untouched, and it does not oblige an employer who offers no pension at all to start offering one. A plain-language summary of the new rules is published by the government at Business.gov.nl.The flat contribution and who may keep the old scale
Every participant in a new scheme receives the same contribution percentage of pensionable salary, whatever their age. That ends the age-related contribution ladders and the doorsneesystematiek, under which younger participants effectively subsidised older ones because the same accrual costs far more as retirement comes closer. Under a flat contribution, the money paid in for a young employee has decades to compound, and the capital that results is genuinely their own.There is one important exception. An employer whose scheme was already a contribution scheme with an age-related scale before 1 July 2023 may keep that scale for the employees who were already taking part in it. Employees who join after the scheme has transitioned go onto the flat contribution. This transitional right is optional and it is closed: it cannot be extended to newcomers.The switch is not cost-neutral for everyone. Employees in roughly the second half of their career lose the higher contribution percentage they were about to receive, without having had the benefit of a long compounding period earlier on. The Act therefore requires the parties who set the scheme to consider compensation for that group and to record what they decide, and why, in the transition plan. Compensation can take the form of a higher contribution for a limited period, a payment into the scheme, or an adjustment elsewhere in the terms of employment.Solidarity-based or flexible: the two contract types
Employers and social partners choose between two contract types. In the solidaire premieregeling (solidarity-based contribution scheme), contributions are invested as one collective portfolio and the results are allocated to age cohorts, so younger participants take more investment risk and older ones less. A solidarity reserve absorbs part of the shocks and can be used to smooth benefits. In the flexibele premieregeling (flexible contribution scheme), each participant has a personal pension capital invested along a lifecycle path and, at retirement, can choose between a fixed benefit and a variable one that moves with returns.Neither type is inherently better. The solidarity-based scheme spreads risk more widely and leaves participants fewer choices to make; the flexible scheme gives more individual control and makes the outcome easier to explain. Schemes placed with an insurer have a third route in the shape of the premie-uitkeringsovereenkomst. The choice belongs to the parties that set the terms of employment: the employer together with the works council or the trade unions, or the social partners in the sector. The pension provider carries the choice out; it does not make it.Invaren: moving accrued pension into the new scheme
Invaren means converting pension already accrued under the old scheme into personal pension capital under the new one. For pension funds it is the default route under the Act, because the alternative is running two systems side by side for decades at considerable cost. The employer and the social partners ask the fund to invaren; the fund then assesses whether it can do so in a way that is balanced for every group of participants and pensioners, and records how in its implementation plan.Participants are not without a voice. Associations of participants, former participants and pensioners have a hearing right (hoorrecht): they may give their view on the transition plan, and that view has to be dealt with rather than filed. De Nederlandsche Bank supervises the implementation plan and can hold up a transition it considers unbalanced. An individual who believes the conversion has harmed them can use the fund internal complaints procedure and, after that, the Geschilleninstantie Pensioenfondsen (Pension Funds Disputes Body), which has been open to participants since 1 January 2024. The civil courts remain available.For schemes placed with an insurer the position is different. There is no collective conversion by default; the starting point is that accrued entitlements stay where they are unless the individual participant agrees to a value transfer. Employers who assume that their insured back book will move across automatically are usually mistaken.What happens to survivor pension
For death before the retirement date, the survivor pension becomes a risk-based cover of at most fifty per cent of pensionable salary, no longer dependent on the number of years the employee has worked. That is a real improvement for younger employees with short service, whose partners previously stood to receive very little. It also removes a long-standing source of confusion, because the level of cover no longer varies between schemes in ways that nobody can compare.Risk-based cover has a sharp edge: it has no value once it ends. Cover stops when the employment ends, and the Act therefore provides a run-off period afterwards, continued cover for as long as the former employee receives unemployment benefit, and a right to keep the cover voluntarily. The practical risk sits with people who change jobs, become self-employed or take a career break and do not read the letter that explains this. Orphan pension is simplified as well, with a fixed end age of twenty-five, so the old argument about whether a child is still studying disappears.The lump sum at retirement does not yet exist
There is currently no statutory right to take part of your Dutch pension as a lump sum at retirement. The option was created in principle by the Wet bedrag ineens, RVU en verlofsparen, but the lump-sum part of that Act has never been brought into force. The Wet herziening bedrag ineens, which reshapes it, is still before the Eerste Kamer, and the government has moved the intended commencement date to 1 January 2029. Commencement is by koninklijk besluit (royal decree), so that date is an intention and not a certainty.This matters for employers and providers drafting employee communication now. Telling employees that they will be able to take ten per cent in cash is premature, and scheme documentation that assumes the right already exists will have to be corrected. If and when the option does arrive, how attractive it is will depend largely on the income tax and benefit consequences in the year of payment. That is a question for a tax adviser rather than for a lawyer, and we say so plainly to clients who ask.Retirement age, early retirement and phased retirement
The AOW age is set by statute and moves with life expectancy, and the law requires it to be announced five years in advance, so nobody within five years of retirement can be caught out by a change. The occupational pension has its own retirement date, which does not have to coincide with the AOW date. Most schemes allow the pension to be brought forward or deferred with an actuarial adjustment, and many allow it to be taken in part while the employee continues to work part-time.For physically demanding work, collective agreements often use a regeling voor vervroegd uittreden (early retirement arrangement), under which the employer pays an allowance bridging the period to the pension date. Whether such an arrangement is affordable depends on a temporary exemption in tax legislation, with a threshold amount and an end date set by the legislature. Confirm the current position with a tax adviser before committing to it in a collective agreement or a settlement.Deadlines, documents and what employers must do now
The hard date is 1 January 2028. Every scheme must comply with the new rules by then. The extension to that date was granted by a separate Act that the Eerste Kamer adopted on 2 December 2025, which also moved the setting of transition dates to an algemene maatregel van bestuur (order in council), so the timetable can be adjusted again without a full legislative procedure.Three documents carry the transition. The transitieplan (transition plan) is the employer responsibility and sets out the new scheme, the reasons for choosing it, the effects on each group and the compensation. The implementatieplan (implementation plan) belongs to the provider and goes to De Nederlandsche Bank. Communication to employees is a statutory duty in its own right, and it is the part most often left until it is too late to be useful.Two checks come first. Establish whether your company falls under a compulsory industry-wide pension fund (verplichtgesteld bedrijfstakpensioenfonds), because if it does, the fund timetable governs and your freedom to choose is limited. Then establish who has to agree. A pension scheme is a term of employment: changing it requires agreement, and where the scheme is not covered by a collective agreement the works council has a consent right under article 27 of the Wet op de ondernemingsraden. A change pushed through without that consent stays open to challenge long after the transition date has passed.Where the transition goes wrong
The most common mistake is treating 1 January 2028 as the moment to start. Funds, insurers and actuaries work in queues, and an employer who begins in the final year will find the good slots taken and the negotiating room gone. The second is treating the switch as an administrative exercise for the payroll department rather than a change to the terms of employment, which is where the consent and consultation problems begin.After that the pattern is familiar. Compensation for the middle cohort is promised in general terms but never quantified. Survivor cover is allowed to lapse when someone changes jobs. A lump sum is promised that does not exist. Cross-border employees are left out of the analysis altogether, even though a secondment or a move abroad can determine whether the Dutch scheme continues at all. Each of these is far easier to prevent than to repair.Law and More advises employers, works councils, pension funds and individual participants on the move to the new system, from the transition plan and the works council procedure to disputes about invaren and about survivor cover. We work in Dutch and in English and set out the legal position without dressing it up. See our overview of tulafono penisione ma matou taiala tulafono faigaluega, po o fetaui Law & More to discuss your scheme.Soo fesili
O a poutū e tolu o le faiga penisione a Holani?
O le tulafono o penisione a Holani e fa'avae i luga o poutū e tolu: le penisione a le setete (AOW), penisione faigaluega e ofoina atu e le pule, ma fa'atulagaga penisione a le tagata lava ia. O lo'o agai atu le faiga mai fa'atulagaga fa'atasi agai atu i le tele o teugatupe penisione a le tagata lava ia ae o lo'o fa'asoa fa'atasi nisi o lamatiaga.
E faʻapefea ona suia le faʻalagolago i tausaga o le penisione i lalo o tulafono fou?
I lalo o le faiga fou, o le pasene tutusa o le totogi e alu i le penisione a le tagata faigaluega e tusa lava po o le a le matua, e sui ai le auala muamua lea na maua ai e tagata faigaluega matutua se fua faatatau maualuga atu o le sao. O le sini ia aveese le faailoga tagata i tausaga i le aoina o penisione ma ia faamanino atili le faiga mo tagata uma.
O loʻo faʻatupulaʻia pea ea le matua litaea o le penisione a le setete (AOW)?
Yes, the state pension retirement age continues to rise in line with life expectancy, and the new pension rules change how this age interacts with occupational pension schemes and widen the options for phasing into retirement gradually.
E faʻapefea ona aʻafia e le toe fuataʻiga o penisione tagata faigaluega e faʻalagolago a latou penisione i taunuʻuga o tupe teufaafaigaluega?
O fa'amanuiaga a tagata faigaluega e fa'alagolago tele i taunu'uga o tupe teufaafaigaluega nai lo o aofa'iga mautu ma fa'amaonia fa'atasi, lea e mafai ona fa'ateleina ai tupe maua ae aumaia ai fo'i le tele o le le mautonu. E fa'amalosiauina tagata faigaluega ia malamalama i a latou filifiliga mo tulaga lamatia ina ia mafai ai ona latou faia ni filifiliga e fetaui ma o latou tulaga patino.
O a mea e tatau ona mafaufau i ai tagata e faigaluega tuto'atasi i Netherlands i lalo o tulafono fou o penisione?
Atonu e tatala e tulafono fou le faitotoʻa mo tagata e faigaluega tutoʻatasi e auai i polokalame penisione faʻatasi, ae e taua pea le fausiaina o ni tupe teu litaea e lava mo i latou lava e ala i oloa penisione o loʻo avanoa poʻo teugatupe faʻafaigaluega, talu ai e leai se sao o le pule e faʻalagolago i ai.
