These are the pensioners who will receive the Christmas bonus in 2021 (and how much they will receive)

The month of November is very important for the vast majority of pensioners, since it will arrive with an anticipated incentive: the so-called Christmas ‘extra pay’, which together with the summer, in June, are the two largest and expected throughout the year for this group.

Thus, a good part of people who receive a pension in Spain will receive twice what they receive in a normal month, since an additional monthly payment is added to the amount of the standard pension for this extra Christmas pay.

According to Social Security legislation, many pensions are charged in 14 payments. It is the reason that, to the monthly pension, these two aforementioned extra payments are added. Specifically, pensioners who collect contributory pensions for retirement, permanent disability due to non-occupational accident or common illness, widowhood, orphanhood and in favor of family members will receive this extra pay in November.

Along with them, two groups that collect non-contributory pensions (those of workers who have not managed to contribute enough for contributory pensions): retirement and disability, which will also have extra Christmas pay.

All these groups will see their pensions (and the amount of the pay) paid at the end of November, around the 23rd, 24th and 25th of the month. They are dates slightly ahead of what is required by law (between the first business day and the fourth calendar day of the month), an advance that banks have implemented as custom, especially after the toughest months of the coronavirus pandemic.

How much money is charged in the Christmas bonus of pensioners

To know what money they will charge, pensioners must know that the amount is the same as a normal month. Thus, if in any given month they receive (for example) 900 euros of pension, they will receive double in November: 900 euros of the pension they receive every month and another 900 of the extra pay for a total of 1,800 euros.

And how to calculate the amount of the pension? Social Security establishes a calculation method that takes into account the years worked by the contributor and the contribution bases of the last 24 years to calculate the regulatory base that will mark the possible maximum amount of the pension.

Adding the contribution bases of the last 24 years (in 2022 it will change to 25 years) and dividing them by 336 (the divisor will be 350 in 2022), the regulatory base will be obtained. If there are periods without contributions, employed workers may use the integration of gaps to fill those gaps with fictitious contributions of the minimum base for 48 months and 50% of the minimum base for the following months.

With this regulatory base, the worker only needs to know what percentage of it he will charge. For 15 years of contributions, you will be entitled to 50% of the regulatory base, and from then on for each of the first 106 months it will add 0.21% of the regulatory base, while for each of the 146 following months it will have a 0.19% more. With 36 years of contributions, the worker will be able to collect 100% of his pension.

Limits are applied to this method, both high and low. Thus, there is a maximum amount of pensions (located at 2,707.49 euros per month) and minimum amounts that depend on the type of pension and that were updated in January with Decree-Law 46/2021, of January 26, which raised the contributory pensions 0.9% and non-contributory ones 1.8%.

By 2022, a new mechanism for raising pensions will come into force, which is part of the changes in the reform of José Luis Escrivá, Minister of Inclusion, Social Security and Migration. Thus, taking into account the accumulated inflation up to the month of November, contributory pensions will be raised automatically in January. Minimum and non-contributory pensions will rise above the CPI, 3% that has already been confirmed by the Government.