Do you think that retirement only comes at the age of 65 or 66 and with a modest pension? There are professions in Portugal that allow you to leave the job market earlier and enter retirement and, in some cases, without cuts or with more advantageous rules for calculating your pension.
Not all Portuguese workers need to wait until the legal age to retire.
There are careers that benefit from special pension access schemes, with fewer years of service required or lower minimum ages, and which also allow for more favorable calculation conditions to be maintained, explains the With Portugal portal, citing the European Commission and Social Security.
Legal age and general regime
According to Portuguese legislation, the normal retirement age set for 2025 is 66 years and 7 months. However, the law provides for the concept of “personal pension access age”, which allows four months to be reduced for each additional year of contributions beyond 40, never falling below 60 years of age.
This mechanism rewards those who started their working life early and maintained a long contributory career.
Anyone who started working at age 16 and has 46 years of discounts can retire at age 60, without application of the sustainability factor or penalty of 0.5% per month, under the very long contributory careers regime. Retirement before 60, however, remains legally prohibited.
Careers with special regimes
Some professions, due to their demanding nature or associated risk, maintain their own regimes or special conditions. In Public Administration, specific rules remain for the careers of the PSP, GNR, Prison Guards, military and municipal firefighters, covered by the convergent regime (CGA).
At the same time, the Government recognizes by its own diploma activities considered painful or exhausting, such as miners, seafarers, fishermen, dancers, air traffic controllers, port workers and embroiderers in Madeira.
In all these situations, the access age is lower than that of the general regime and the pension calculation may include specific bonuses depending on the nature of the profession.
Early retirement with or without penalty
In the general Social Security regime, there are two main frameworks:
- Age flexibility (60/40): access to retirement from the age of 60 with 40 or more years of discounts. The sustainability factor does not apply, but there is a reduction of 0.5% per month in advance in relation to personal age.
- Very long careers (60/46 or 60/48 starting before 17): access without cuts or sustainability factor, as long as legal requirements are met.
Outside of these regimes, early retirements imply penalties that can be significant. For example, a two-year advance translates into a 12% reduction in the value of the pension.
What determines the final value of the pension
The value of the pension depends on the contributory career and reference remuneration, in accordance with Decree-Law No. 187/2007.
There are also minimum amounts guaranteed by years of discounts: in 2025, anyone with 31 years or more of contributions will receive at least 480.08 euros per month, according to Social Security.
Retiring early is possible, but it requires planning
In summary, there are three profiles of workers who can retire early without penalty:
- Anyone over 40 years old receives discounts, benefiting from the personal access age;
- Professionals covered by special regimes, such as security forces and firefighters;
- Workers with very long careers (46 or 48 years of deductions, depending on the case).
For the remainder, early departure remains possible, but implies relevant cuts in the value of the pension.
The recommendation, according to , is to check the contribution history and simulate the value of the pension before making any decision.
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