Pension in Czechia for Ukrainians

This page is for people who work in Czechia and are thinking about their pension, for people of retirement age who moved from Ukraine, and for those who receive a Ukrainian pension while living in Czechia.

# Who is entitled to a Czech old-age pension?

Someone who has reached retirement age and has the required insurance periods. The main rule is 35 years of insurance. If you do not have that many, there are fallback options:

• 30 years of insurance for which contributions were paid (without periods that are only credited), at the normal retirement age;
• 20 years of insurance at an age at least 2 years above the retirement age of a man born in the same year;
• 15 years of insurance with contributions at that same higher age.

Periods without contributions that the law counts as insurance, such as registration as a job seeker, count at 80%. Personal care for a child under 4, care for a person who depends on help, foster care and care for a child under 3 by agreement with the parents count in full, at 100%. Czech insurance after 1995 is time for which pension contributions were paid in Czechia; employees with an employment contract are insured. The law sets no citizenship conditions here, so in our reading this also applies to protection holders who work in Czechia.

You can retire early no more than 3 years before retirement age if you have 40 years of insurance; such a pension is permanently lower.

# What is the retirement age?

Retirement age depends on the year of birth and, for women, also on the number of children they raised. An extract from the annex to the law:

For women who raised three or more children, the age can be even lower; the exact value is in Annex 1 to Act 155/1995 Sb. (Sb. stands for Sbírka zákonů, the official Collection of Laws of the Czech Republic). A child counts as raised if the conditions of the law are met, in particular if the woman personally cared for the child for at least 10 years. Neither the current law nor the already published version from 1 January 2027 changes the retirement age.

# How is the pension amount calculated?

A pension has two parts: a basic amount (základní výměra), the same for everyone, and a percentage amount (procentní výměra), which depends on your insurance periods and earnings.

• The basic amount from 1 January 2026 is 4,900 Kč a month.
• The percentage amount for pensions granted in 2026 is 1.495% of the calculation base for each year of insurance.
• The percentage amount cannot be lower than the basic amount, so the minimum old-age pension in 2026 is 9,800 Kč a month.
• For each child raised, 500 Kč is added; from 1 January 2027 the conditions of this supplement change, and the percentage amount for new pensions will be 1.490% per year of insurance.
• Pensions granted before 2026 were increased from 1 January 2026: the percentage amount by 2.6% (except early pensions granted after 30 September 2023 to people who had not reached retirement age by 1 January 2026), and the basic amount to 4,900 Kč.

If the pension is granted under an agreement with another country, the basic amount and the minimum are reduced in proportion to the share of Czech insurance periods in the total.

# Will your Ukrainian insurance periods count?

Yes, for the right to a pension. A social security agreement between Czechia and Ukraine applies: it was signed in Kyiv on 4 July 2001 and has been in force since 1 April 2003. In Czechia it covers pensions, sickness and maternity benefits, the funeral grant, unemployment benefit and child benefits, and it ensures equal treatment for citizens of both countries.

How it works:

• if the insurance periods in one country are enough for a pension, that country pays a full pension under its own law;
• if not, the periods of both countries are added together to check the right to a pension, and each country pays a partial pension in proportion to its own periods;
• if the periods in one country add up to less than a year and do not give a right to a pension there, the other country takes them into account;
• each country calculates the pension only from earnings on its own territory: a Czech salary is not counted in a Ukrainian pension;
• a pension is not reduced or stopped because the person lives in the other country.

Insurance periods before 1 April 2003 belong to the country where the person had permanent residence on 1 April 2003 (or last before that date). For most people who came to Czechia with temporary protection, this is Ukraine, so all their periods before April 2003, even those earned in Czechia, are considered Ukrainian.

# Where do you apply?

Applications for a Czech pension are accepted by any territorial social security office (územní správa sociálního zabezpečení) or its contact office; on the ČSSZ pages they are still called OSSZ, in Prague PSSZ and in Brno MSSZ. You can also apply online through the ČSSZ ePortál. It also has the Informative Pension Application (Informativní důchodová aplikace), which shows your insurance periods and an estimate of your pension.

Under the agreement, you apply to the institution at your place of permanent residence, and an application filed in one country counts as filed in the other. Temporary protection holders mostly have their permanent residence in Ukraine; ČSSZ does not explain separately where exactly they should apply. The Pension Fund of Ukraine (PFU) writes that you do not need to travel abroad to have a Czech pension granted: you can apply at any of its service centers.

# What can people of retirement age without Czech insurance periods do?

A Czech pension is granted only if you have insurance periods and have reached retirement age, so without Czech insurance periods you will not get one. We did not find a separate social pension without insurance periods for protection holders in the law, and the new state social benefit is closed to them. In 2022 ČSSZ wrote that it cannot pay a Czech pension instead of the Pension Fund of Ukraine.

The main support for people of retirement age with temporary protection:

• the humanitarian benefit at the rate for vulnerable people (the law considers vulnerable, among others, people over 65): 4,860 Kč a month, also after 150 days, plus housing costs of 6,000 Kč; with officially assessed limited self-sufficiency the benefit is higher. A Ukrainian pension counts as income. Details are on the page Humanitarian benefit and other payments to Ukrainians in Czechia;
• health insurance for people aged 65 and over continues to be paid by the state, and you do not need to tell your insurance company about it;
• social services are free if you cannot pay for them. The law does not give protection holders the care allowance (příspěvek na péči).

# What happens to your Ukrainian pension?

Temporary protection holders abroad are considered persons who live outside Ukraine temporarily, unless they have arranged permanent residence abroad. For them, the rules of Cabinet of Ministers Resolution No. 299 of 11 February 2025 apply:

• identification every year by 31 December. If the Pension Fund has no data on it as of 31 December, payment stops from 1 January. On 18 September 2026 the fund sent a reminder to these pensioners’ personal accounts;
• ways to complete identification: logging in to the Pension Fund’s web portal or mobile app with Diia.Signature (you need two devices); video identification via Google Meet, Signal, Telegram, Viber, WhatsApp or Zoom, booked at portal.pfu.gov.ua or through the contact center 0800 503 753, (044) 281 08 70, (044) 281 08 71; a certificate from an embassy or consulate of Ukraine that the person is alive, sent by post with an application or uploaded with a qualified electronic signature. Identification at the authorized bank in Ukraine through which your pension is paid also counts;
• payment only into an account at an authorized bank in Ukraine;
• renewal: payment is restored and the missed months are paid if you complete identification within a year after the stop, or if you file an application through Diia.Signature or the Pension Fund’s web portal, where your identity is confirmed by video link; for the second option, in our reading, the resolution sets no one-year deadline. Temporary protection holders can send the renewal application by post.

These rules do not apply to people whose pension is already paid under an international agreement. The agreement between Czechia and Ukraine allows a Ukrainian pension to be paid in Czechia, but the officially described procedure concerns people who moved to Czechia for permanent residence. According to the Pension Fund’s 2018 guide, after moving they contact the Czech institution, and the Pension Fund of Ukraine decides on the transfer. We did not find an official explanation of whether temporary protection holders can do the same; in 2022 ČSSZ wrote that such transfers were unlikely to be possible for refugees because of the war.

Under the double taxation agreement, a state pension from Ukraine is taxed only in Ukraine.

Where there is no official explanation, we say so directly, and we mark our own conclusions from the text of the law with the words “in our reading”.

# What mistakes should you avoid?

• Missing identification with the Pension Fund of Ukraine by 31 December 2026: from 1 January 2027 payment will be stopped.
• Counting on a full Czech pension for Ukrainian insurance periods: Czechia pays only for Czech ones.
• Not checking your insurance periods in the ČSSZ Informative Pension Application.
• Taking the retirement age from publications about a cap of 65: the current law contains no such cap.