The pension will come itself: applications for insurance payments will no longer be needed

Starting next year, Russians will be able to retire without an application. Today, this scheme is used to assign disability pensions, insurance and social payments for the loss of a breadwinner, and pensions for children whose parents are unknown. And starting in 2026, the Social Fund of Russia (SFR) will take over the registration of old-age insurance pensions.

Today, they are assigned only upon application, which is submitted to the Social Fund one month before reaching retirement age. A mandatory requirement is 15 years of work experience and 30 pension coefficients.

Let us recall that this year, due to the transition period of increasing the retirement age, no one is retiring. But in 2026, this event will affect women aged 59 and men aged 64. Their predecessors, who retired in 2024, still had to wait in lines at government officials' offices, formalizing their legal payments.

But life does not stand still. Digital progress is ready to free citizens from the tedious process of standing in lines when applying for pension payments. Now there is no need to write any applications to the SFR, go to an appointment at its offices or to the MFC... You will reach retirement age - and here is your pension on a silver platter.

The Social Fund will make a decision on the payment one month before reaching retirement age. The citizen will be sent a notification about the status of his personal account and the amount of the payment. By the way, he has the right to postpone receiving the money in order to accumulate higher pension points later. In general, any whim, and completely free of charge and without any participation of the pensioner.

However, questions arise. On the one hand, it is good that now you do not need to go to pension officials and compare your work history with the SFR data. On the other hand, my heart is uneasy. Is everything taken into account in the digital data on both work experience and the presence of individual pension coefficients?

And such doubts do not arise out of thin air. Veterans remember how hard it was for them to convince consultants that the entry in the work record book confirming the length of service was genuine and the seal was clear. Unfortunately, this was not always possible and part of the work record was not counted and, accordingly, the pension amount was reduced. And some work episodes from a person's biography were not reflected in official papers at all - it was necessary to run around to restore them...

How will it be possible now, without live communication with a consultant, to restore the work experience that the SFR refused to confirm?

- Russia has been testing a technology for a long time that assumes the non-declarative nature of assigning pensions and benefits to certain categories of the population, - explains Alexander Safonov, professor at the Financial University under the Government of the Russian Federation. - This work will be fully completed in 2026, when all pensioners will switch to this scheme. Information on each individual is available in the Social Fund database. There is no point in contacting this authority.

- What kind of information is this?

- The age of reaching retirement, the availability of the required pension points, work experience. And also, what insurance contributions and for what period were transferred. This transition is important and necessary, but we must not forget about possible inconsistencies. There will inevitably be discrepancies between citizens with their employment contracts and the SFR data. In particular, the HR departments of companies and enterprises may incorrectly enter entries in the work book or fail to take into account certain features of a person's work. I mean territories affected by man-made disasters, work experience in the Far North, information on harmful working conditions ...

A separate story is the 90s of the last century, when firms and companies were created and burst en masse. During this period, the most questions about work experience arise, citizens cannot confirm their work in the company and fully realize their pension rights.

- Readers' mail contains many complaints for this period. They did not count the work experience because the stamp in the work book is unclear. And how can you put a clear stamp if the office has long been gone? Can such people restore their work experience?

- The Pension Fund of that time can be understood to some extent. It is well known that it was in those years that companies actively put seals, but people did not work for them and, accordingly, did not make any contributions to pension accounts. But if the Social Fund (the successor of that Pension Fund) for some reason refuses to confirm the length of service, although there is a work book with an entry, you should contact the city archive. When liquidating an enterprise, it is obliged to provide the superior organization with all personnel documentation. From this it will become clear: did the employer make contributions to the pension fund for you. If so, then on this basis your work experience will be restored.

If, nevertheless, the Social Fund refuses to confirm the length of service, then it is necessary to go to court. As practice shows, in the overwhelming majority of cases it takes the side of the applicant.