Public servant pension
The right to public servant pension is an integrated part of the terms of employment for public servants.
The rules on public servant pension are set out in Consolidation Act on Public Servant Pensions (Bekendtgørelse af lov om tjenestemandspension) and in Consolidation Act on Pensions Governed by Previous Public Servant Acts etc. (Bekendtgørelse af lov om pensioner efter tidligere tjenestemandslove m.v.).
Public servants employed in the state sector and in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Denmark as well as surviving spouses and children of such public servants are entitled to public servant pension, see section 1(1) of the Danish Act on Public Servant Pension (Tjenestemandspensionsloven).
The provisions of the Danish Act on Public Servant Pension which concern surviving spouses of public servants also apply to registered partners, see section 1(3) of the Danish Act on Public Servant Pension.
Private pension
As a general rule, it is a condition for retiring with private pension due to age, health or other unforeseeable cause that the employee has been employed for 10 years of full-time equivalent employment in a position with pension entitlement.
For a public servant who has not reached early retirement age and whose capacity for work has been reduced to one-third or less, and where the public servant is dismissed for this reason, the public servant is entitled to pension, and the reckonable service is determined as if the public servant had been in full-time equivalent employment from the time of dismissal and until the month in which the person in question reaches the age of 70, see section 7 of the Danish Act on Public Servant Pension.
If the dismissal is due to a work-related injury, the pension is calculated on the basis of 37 years of reckonable service, see section 8 of the Danish Act on Public Servant Pension.
If the public servant retires due to age after having achieved early retirement age, the pension is reduced by an early retirement pension contribution, see section 6 of the Danish Act on Public Servant Pension.
Special rules apply to the calculation of the pension if the public servant has been appointed with limited tenure.
In accordance with the Danish Act on Public Servant Pension, the pension is calculated based on the public servant’s reckonable service and the pensionable salary.
Pensions are calculated by the Danish Agency for Governmental Management.
Further information on reckonable service, increased reckonable service, calculation of private pension, spouse’s pension etc. is set out in the State Employer’s Authority’s Administrative Guidelines (Personalestyrelsens Administrative Vejledning (PAV)).
Public servants and other employees entitled to a public servant pension will find a statement of the pension at tjenestemandspension.dk, where it is also possible to calculate the pension amount at retirement on a chosen date. The pension statement normally shows the pension amount at retirement at the age of 60, 62 and 65; however, the site also contains a feature where the user can select another retirement age, such as 61 or 64.
