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Submitting a pension application

To receive a pension, you must first file an application. You can file the application during nine months: during six months preceding the pensionable age, or
in three months after attaining the pensionable age.

You can file the pension application:

At the customer service or by mail, present all documents required for calculating your pension amount. The list of required documents is available here.

The decision about your pension is made in 15 working days as at the forwarding of the last required document.

What happens after you submit a pension application?

The time of reviewing the pension application depends on whether the right to receive pension already exists and whether we have all the information for calculating the pension.

Please note that if you submit the pension application before the right to pension has been created (such as before reaching the retirement age), we can still make the decision when the right to pension exists.

Also, the size of your future pension can be calculated only then. The reason for this being that if you work until you retire, the social tax calculated on your wages also increases your pension.

  • After we have collected all the correct documents, we will make the decision within 15 days as of the day when the right to pension was created
  • If it appears during the review of the documents that we need to make further inquiries from institutions or the archives, the decision-making may be postponed. In this case we will make the decision within 15 days as of receiving the last document necessary for granting the pension

If necessary, we will contact you at the contact details indicated in the application. Further inquiries from the institutions where you have worked or from the archives will be made upon agreement with you. Please note also that a fee is charged for the inquiries from the archives. Read more here

When the decision has been made, we will send it to the e-mail address that you have provided. You may also collect the decision from our customer service.

We will send you the pension certificate by post within 10 working days after making the decision.

The first pension will be paid to you as soon as possible after making the decision. Hereinafter you will receive the pension on the 5th day of each month. If the day of the bank transfer falls on a public holiday or other holiday, the working day which immediately precedes the holiday shall be the payment day.

If you have questions about applying for pension and processing the application, contact the Estonian National Social Insurance Board

Last updated: 17.02.2023