Pension insurance term of private sector employee

Verified 01 January 2025 - Directorate for Legal and Administrative Information (Prime Minister)

The amount of your pension depends in particular on your pension insurance period. The duration of pension insurance mainly includes periods worked and paid in. But it also includes some non-contributory periods. We present you with the information you need to know.

Video - My career and pension rights at a glance

Vidéo - My career and my pension rights

Credits : Public interest grouping "Union retirement"

What is a quarter in most basic pension plans?

The duration of insurance is expressed in quarters.

At most it is possible to validate 4 quarters per year.

The validation of a quarter does not depend on the actual duration of the work but on the income received and more precisely on the amount of income subject to contribution.

Imagine a student who works 35 hours a week at minimum wage in August.

This revenue can be used to validate a quarter.

How do I know how many quarters I have?

By creating your personal space on our website www.lassuranceretraite.fr, you can directly access your career statement with all the quarters acquired since the beginning of your activity.

There are also tools to get estimates of how much you will retire.

Which quarters are considered for my retirement?

When retiring, to determine your insurance term, we take into account different types of quarters:

Contributed quarters that resulted in contributions being paid
Accident at work The so-called assimilated quarters which correspond to periods of interruption of work: unemployment, sickness, invalidity, maternity, military service and, for employees only,
And the quarters that can be granted to you, especially if you have had or raised one or more children, if you have had a disabled adult as your dependant, or for employees only if you have a prevention professional account.

An assimilated quarter or a granted quarter has the same value as a contributed quarter to determine your insurance term.

Contributed quarters, assimilated quarters and granted quarters account in the same way.

However, the calculation of retirement also takes into account the best years of income.

A break in work can therefore have an impact on the amount of your pension.

Attention: some schemes nevertheless require a minimum period of insured contributions, such as early retirement for a long career.

For more information, visit www.lassuranceretraite.fr

Pension insurance term refers to the periods of your working life during which you establish pension entitlements.

Pension insurance term is recorded in quarters.

Your number of pension insurance quarters is one of the taken into account for calculate your pension amount.

To have right to a full pension, you must:

Either have a specified number of quarters of pension insurance
Either retire at age 67 no matter how many quarters you have.

The number of quarters required to be entitled to a pension at full rate before age 67 depends on your year of birth :

Tableau - Employee - Conditions for full rate retirement
You were born:	You can retire from:	Number of quarters required to have the full rate	Auto Full Rate Age
Between 1^er January 1958 and December 31, 1960	62 yrs	167 (41 years 9 months)	67 yrs
Between 1^er January 1961 and August 31, 1961	62 yrs	168 (42 years)	67 yrs
Between 1^erSeptember 1961 and December 31, 1961	62 years and 3 months	169 (42 years 3 months)	67 yrs
In 1962	62 years and 6 months	169 (42 years 3 months)	67 yrs
In 1963	62 years and 9 months	170 (42 years 6 months)	67 yrs
In 1964	63 yrs	171 (42 years 9 months)	67 yrs
In 1965	63 years and 3 months	172 (43 years)	67 yrs
In 1966	63 years and 6 months	172 (43 years)	67 yrs
In 1967	63 years and 9 months	172 (43 years)	67 yrs
From 1^er january 1968	64 yrs	172 (43 years)	67 yrs

If you retire before age 67 without having the number of quarters required, the amount of your pension is reduced according to the number of quarters you miss. This reduction is called a discount.

If you have worked in other sectors than the private sector and contributed to several pension funds, this is your total insurance duration, all schemes, which is taken into account in determining whether or not you are entitled to full-rate retirement pensions.

How quarters are calculated

Your pension insurance term includes periods in which you worked and contributed on a minimum wage.

Quarters are posted based on annual amount of your contributory income. The number of quarters validated does not depend on the number of calendar quarters worked except the year of retirement.

Since 2014, the minimum income that validates 1 quarter is equal to the Smic time in effect on 1^er January of the year multiplied by 150 hours, or €1,782.00.

Thus, to validate:

1 quarter, you need an annual income of €1,782.00
2 quarters, you need an annual income of 2 times €1,782.00, or €3,564
3 quarters, you need an annual income of 3 times €1,782.00, or€5,346
Four quarters, you need an annual income of four times €1,782.00, or€7,128.

Pension contributions are calculated each month within the limit of the monthly Social Security ceiling (€3,925 in 2025). So Pension Insurance is valid for a maximum of 2 quarters in one month.

Before 2014, the minimum income to validate 1 quarter was:

From 1972 to 2013 : amount of Hourly minimum in force during each period worked, multiplied by 200 hours
Before 1972 : quarterly amount of the allowance for older salaried workers (AVTS) determined at 1^er January of each year in which you worked.

The year you retired, the number of quarters selected is the combination of the number of quarters validated by your salary limited to calendar quarters worked on the date of your retirement.

In the event of retirement duringcalendar year, the statement of contributions shall end on the last day of the calendar quarter preceding the date of your admission to retirement.

For example, in the case of retirement on 1^er in september, the deductions will end on 30 june. Even if your salary is valid for 4 quarters, only 2 are retained.

Please note

Unpaid training leave shall be deemed to have given rise to contributions equal to those paid during the immediately preceding period of work of the same duration.

The number of insurance quarters is limited to 4 by calendar year.

However, quarters granted free of charge (known as insurance term increases) for children in particular are not charged to a particular year.

Included Non-Contributed Periods

Your pension insurance term also includes non-contributory periods, including:

Accident at work Periods of sick or sick leave during which you have received daily allowances: 1 quarter is validated for each 60-day period of compensation

Maternity leave during which you received daily allowances

Accident at work Periods in which you received an income from a permanent disability pension of at least 66% : 1 quarter is posted for each calendar quarter which includes 3 monthly payments of your disability pension

Periods during which you received a disability pension: 1 quarter is validated for each calendar quarter which includes 3 monthly payments of your disability pension

Periods of unemployment, subject to conditions

National Service

Periods of short-time work from 1^er march 2020: it is validated 1 quarter for 220 hours compensated

Traineeships: Traineeships you have taken as a jobseeker and the following traineeships are taken into account:
- Community utility work
- Work placements in company
- Youth Volunteer Internships
- Local Integration Programs
- Internships for the introduction to working life.
1 quarter is validated for each period of 50 days of internship.

Quarters Granted for Children

Quarters as a caregiver providing permanent care to your family home to a disabled adult whose permanent disability is greater than a rate fixed by decree which is your spouse or your ascendant, descendant or collateral or the ascendant, descendant or collateral of your spouse. You receive an additional quarter per 30-month period, up to a maximum of 8 quarters.

Extra insurance periods granted if you continue to work beyond 67

Quarters granted through a prevention business account (C2P).

Others situations may be taken into account (periods of pre-trial detention, period of inclusion on the list of high-level sportsmen, period of voluntary service, etc.).

You can consult your career record, which summarizes your pension insurance duration, on the Retirement Info site from your retirement account.

If you have worked in sectors other than the private sector, your career statement chronologically summarizes all of your different professional periods.

You can print and download your career statement in PDF format.

From 55 years, you can report to your pension plans any anomalies in your career record and by request correction : missing job, inconsistency, etc.

Retirement Info - Correcting my career

Your pension funds are directly informed. You can then follow their treatment on your pension account.