Retiring as a couple: two AOWs, two pensions, one plan

When you can both stop

A couple usually waits for four pensions: two AOWs (the Dutch state pension) and two pensions through work (pillar 2), each starting in its own year. Until they start, your savings pay for everything. In 2026 a full AOW is €14,571 a year before tax for each partner living together.

So you can both stop once your savings and investments cover two things:

• every year until the last of your pensions starts, paying what the pensions that have started don't cover yet
• what your pensions don't cover after that, until the younger of you is 90

The stretch until the last pension starts is the Pension Bridge. For a couple it runs to the later of the two partners' pensions, not the earlier.

A rule of thumb you'll find online says a couple needs 33 to 50 times their yearly spending. For this couple that's €1,584,000 to €2,400,000. The rule ignores the AOW and pensions, which pay almost all of their budget from 2060. The savings they really need are about half the rule's lowest figure.

Two AOW ages, two pensions

The age gap between you sets how long the bridge is. Every year between the older partner's first pension and the younger partner's last one is a year your savings still pay part of the budget.

Your AOW age depends on your date of birth, and it isn't fixed yet for anyone born after September 1964. With a gap of a few years, each of you can have a different AOW age, not only a different year. The AOW guide has the table.

A pension through work starts at the age in your scheme, often 68, and many funds let you start it earlier. Starting the younger partner's pension sooner shortens the bridge, but that pension is then lower for life. The employer pension guide explains what starting early costs.

The AOW for a couple

The AOW is paid per person, at a lower rate for people living with a partner: a full AOW is €14,571 a year each before tax in 2026, against €21,203 for someone living alone. The AOW guide explains who counts as living with a partner.

The older partner gets the rate for people with a partner from their own AOW age, even while the younger one is still too young for theirs. There used to be a partner allowance (partnertoeslag) to fill that gap, but it stopped for new claims in 2015. So in the years between your two AOW ages, only one of you gets AOW, at the lower rate.

Each of you builds up your own AOW, 2% for every year you live in the Netherlands. If one of you moved to the Netherlands later, your two AOWs differ. In the example, the partners have 42 and 38 of the 50 years, so they get 84% and 76% of a full AOW.

Box 3 as fiscal partners

Each person has their own tax-free amount in Box 3 (tax on savings and investments): €59,357 in 2026. Fiscal partners have €118,714 together, and can divide their joint savings and investments between them on their tax return however they like. The Box 3 guide works out the tax for a couple.

You're fiscal partners if you're married or in a registered partnership. If you live together without either, you're fiscal partners when you're registered at the same address and at least one more condition applies, such as:

• a notarial cohabitation contract
• a child together
• a home you own together and both live in
• being registered as each other's partner with a pension fund

Two Jaarruimtes, and a partner without income

A lijfrente (pillar 3) is your own pension savings, with tax back now. How much you can put in each year is your Jaarruimte, and it's worked out from your own income and your own pension through work. So each of you has your own Jaarruimte, and you can't use your partner's. The Jaarruimte guide shows how it's worked out.

A partner with no income of their own has no Jaarruimte and builds no pension through work. If they worked in the last ten years, they may still have room left from those years. They do build up AOW, because the AOW comes from living in the Netherlands, not from working. Money they save or invest themselves falls under Box 3, like the rest of your savings.

For your plan, that means the earning partner's pensions, plus your joint savings, have to pay for both of you.

If one of you dies

A plan for two assumes you both live to 90. If one of you dies first, three things can pay the partner left behind:

• A partner's pension (partnerpensioen) from the pension through work of the partner who died. Most pension funds include one, but not all. Your fund's yearly statement shows it.
• An Anw benefit from the SVB, the agency that pays the AOW. It's only paid before your AOW age, and only if you care for a child under 18 or can't work for at least 45%. It goes down with your income.
• A life insurance policy, if either of you took one out.

If the partner left behind then lives alone, they get the AOW for people living alone from their AOW age, which is higher than the rate for people with a partner. The household's AOW still goes down, from two payments to one.