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Expatriates, how not to lose big on your French retirement

Last Updated on Sunday, 22 May 2011 08:40 Written by Administrator Wednesday, 30 July 2008 20:27

Working abroad is often an opportunity to boost his career and compensation. It can also have disastrous consequences for his future retirement.

No pension contribution is, in fact, donated Pension French, except in the case of an assignment as the insured continues to rely on French legislation or, of course, decide to make voluntary contributions to pension funds French .

However, the retirement of the expatriate will not be penalized if the country has entered a social security agreement with France or is part of the European Union. The quarters will be made properly accounted for, as well as the quarterly "French". However, if this country has no social security agreement with France, quarters worked abroad are unfortunately lost.

Take the example of a person born in 1952 who has worked 35 years (140 quarters) in France and 6 years (24 quarters) in a foreign country without a contract with France. This ensured total thus including the period abroad, 164 quarters, the number of quarters required to achieve the full rate. Still, when that person will wind up his pension at the legal age, 60 years and 8 months, the rate of liquidation will be only 36.25% for the basic plan (instead of 50%), and 78% for supplemental Arrco and Agirc (instead of 100%).

If that person had worked the 6 years in Spain, she suffered no reduction factor on his French pension.

To avoid this loss, you must either make voluntary contributions to fund French (CFE, CRE, IRCAFEX) or, if still possible, buy the periods spent abroad. But beware, these operations have a cost and, following the career, the return on investment is not necessarily favorable. In this case, it is better to compensate for the loss of mandatory pensions by investing their savings in other media (life insurance, real estate ...).