Retiring early in the Netherlands: the years before your AOW

What the Pension Bridge is

Retire before your AOW age, 67 for anyone reaching it in 2026 or 2027, and your savings and investments pay for everything until your pensions start. In 2026 a full AOW is €21,203 a year before tax for someone living alone. That stretch, from the year you stop to the year your last pension starts, is the Pension Bridge.

Your AOW starts at your AOW age, and most pensions through work at the scheme's own age, often 68. Once every pension pays, your savings only have to cover what the pensions don't. Before that, they cover all of it. So the bridge is where most of the money goes.

The two layers of the bridge

The bridge often comes in two layers:

1. From the year you stop to your first pension. Your savings pay for everything you spend.
2. From your first pension to your last. One pension has started, so your savings pay less each year, until the last one starts.

A pension through work and the AOW often start in different years. If you have a partner, your two AOWs and two pensions can start in four different years. The bridge runs until the last of them, so for a couple it ends at the younger partner's pension, not the older one's. The guide to retiring as a couple shows how the age gap between you changes it.

Why the bridge decides how much you need

Every year you stop earlier adds a year of full spending to the bridge, and takes away a year of saving. That's why retiring at 55 instead of 60 asks for much more than five years' spending: the bridge is longer, and you've had less time to build up the money for it.

In that example the bridge is more than three quarters of what they need.

The example household's bridge, year by year

This is how the same couple's savings and investments go down during their bridge, in today's euros. Each year they also pay Box 3 (the tax on savings and investments) on what's left, and the mortgage until 2054.

From 2060 their AOWs and pensions pay almost all of their budget, and what's left in savings grows again. It has to last until the younger of them is 90, in 2082.

After the bridge: a safe withdrawal rate

Once every pension pays, what's left has to last until you're 90, and nobody knows the returns that far ahead. So it's safer not to count on an expected return there, and to plan with a withdrawal rate that has held up in history, from 4% a year down to 3%, lower the longer the money has to last. Does the 4% rule work in the Netherlands? explains the rates, and what Box 3 does to them.

The bridge itself can be planned at an expected return, after Box 3 tax: it's a fixed number of years, and the money is spent as it goes.

Starting your pension through work early

The law lets a pension through work start up to 10 years before your AOW age, so from 57 in 2026. Many funds now allow that, and you don't have to stop working to do it. The pension is paid for longer, so it's lower for life: consumer sites quote 5% to 7% less for each year earlier, but each fund works it out its own way, and its planner shows yours.

Some funds also let you take a higher pension first and a lower one later, or start part of it early and the rest at the usual age. Each of these shortens the bridge, at the cost of a smaller pension after it. The employer pension guide explains the choices.

An early-retirement scheme from your employer: RVU

Some employers pay an early-retirement benefit under an RVU (regeling vervroegde uittreding), often agreed in a sector's collective agreement (CAO). It can be paid for up to three years before your AOW age. In 2026, up to €2,357 a month before tax is free of the extra tax employers otherwise pay on such schemes. Ask your employer or check your CAO whether you have one.

A lijfrente during the bridge

A lijfrente (pillar 3) can start paying when you stop working. Payouts that start before your AOW age have to last at least 20 years plus the years you're younger than your AOW age, so each one is small: start at 55 and they last at least 32 years. They still help, and while your income is low they're taxed at a low rate. The lijfrente guide explains when to start them.

Other ways to make the bridge shorter

• Spend less during it. Each year of the bridge costs a year of spending, so every €1,000 a year less takes close to €1,000 off what you need for each year of the bridge.
• Stop a little later. Each year later is a year less of bridge and a year more of saving.

The AOW age itself can't be moved: the AOW never starts early.