What retirement pension will you get later?

You have been able to consult your pension file on Mypension.be for a few years now. This platform offers information and simulations for your statutory pension and for the supplementary pension you are building up with your employer or with a private supplementary pension for the self-employed (VAPZ/PCLI), for example.

Visit Mypension.be and log in. You will need to identify yourself to gain access to your personal file. You can do this with an eID card reader or itsme. Your file will show the answers to the following questions:

• On what date will I start receiving my statutory pension?
• What is the retirement pension I will receive from the government (gross and net)?> Please note that these amounts do not take into account future changes in your career and may be indexed over time.
• How much pension will I receive if I retire earlier or later?> You can set the number of years yourself and see the impact.
• What supplementary pension reserve have I accrued?> Please note that these are gross amounts. They will be subject to social security contributions and taxes, which will be deducted.
• How much will my beneficiaries receive in the event of my death?> A supplementary pension plan often includes death cover. This means that your beneficiaries (such as your partner or children) will be paid an amount in the event that you die before your retirement.
• What contribution do I need to pay to have my years of higher education included in the calculation of my statutory retirement pension, and by how much will this increase my pension?

Four pillars

The Belgian pension system is based on four pillars. This means that there are four ways to build up a pension.

First pillar: this is the pension you receive from the government. This is also known as the statutory pension. The monthly amount depends on factors such as:

• Your status (civil servant, self-employed person, employee), which may or may not be mixed
• Your family situation
• The number of years you worked
• The income you earned

Second pillar: this is the supplementary pension that you have arranged together with your employer (as part of a so-called group insurance), or that you have taken out yourself as a self-employed person (VAPZ/PCLI). In some cases, some civil servants can also benefit from group insurance.

Third pillar: this includes all the schemes that allow you to save for your pension yourself with tax relief. There is a maximum amount you can save.

Fourth pillar: this refers to your own efforts to build a nest egg. You will not receive any direct tax benefits for those efforts. The fourth pillar includes savings and investments in stocks, real estate and other areas.

Important: Mypension.be will only show your details for the first and second pillars.

Will I have enough later?

Pensions are a concern for many Belgians, with the younger generations, in particular, having very low expectations about their future retirement pension. According to a survey by the Federation of Enterprises in Belgium (VBO/FEB), half of all young people do not think that they will receive a statutory pension in the future.

When you calculate your future statutory pension on Mypension.be, you will probably not be jumping for joy either. Your statutory pension will be significantly lower than your most recent income. You will not be able to keep up the same standard of living with your statutory pension alone.

Statutory pensions are also costing the state more and more money. We are experiencing certain demographic changes: the number of retired people is rising, while their life expectancy is also on the up. At the same time, the number of Belgians in employment is proportionately falling, meaning fewer and fewer working Belgians are required to support an increasing number of retired citizens.

So, what is a potential solution?

You can build up your pension by using the second and third pillars as a nice bonus. But even with those accumulated savings, there's a good chance that you will not be able to enjoy your retirement to the full.

That's why it is a good idea to actively work on your pension yourself. You can do this with savings, for example. Only: the return on savings accounts is so low that the purchasing power of those savings will go down. Prices in stores are rising more quickly than the return on your savings each year. The result is that you literally get less and less value for money.

Investments can generate a higher potential return. The more risks you take, the higher the potential return. Fortunately, there is a simple solution to spread the inherent investment risks: you can invest in funds periodically via KEYPLAN, for example.

It works like this. You deposit an amount in one or more investment funds each month or quarter. Those funds contain dozens or even hundreds of different stocks and/or bonds to spread the risks. Each fund is managed by a team of investment experts. You can choose the funds that suit you best depending on your risk appetite, financial goals and interests. By investing periodically rather than using all your money at once, you also avoid entering the market 'at the wrong time' – when the stock markets are high.