You hear it a lot, and it is wrong: "I worked five years in London, those years are lost." They almost never are. But nobody will remind you they exist, and that is precisely the problem.
A career spread across several countries produces a pension file scattered between as many institutions, which only talk to each other when you retire, sometimes badly, and only if you hand them the right details. Here is how it actually works, and what to do now.
The principle: your periods are totalled, but each country pays its own share
Across the European Economic Area, Switzerland and the United Kingdom, the EU coordination regulation (883/2004) sets out two rules that must not be confused.
1Your periods
Every country you paid into keeps yours, inside its own system.
2Totalisation
To check that you qualify, each country adds up all your periods, foreign ones included.
3Pro-rating
But each country pays only the share matching its own years of contributions.
Several pensions
One payment per country, at each one's retirement age, with its own indexation rules.
Two rules of EU regulation 883/2004 that almost everyone conflates. Totalisation decides whether you qualify; pro-rating decides how much. So you will not receive one pension, but several, at different ages and under each country's own rules.
Aggregation. To check whether you qualify for a pension at all, each country adds up your insurance periods in every country involved. If France requires a minimum duration and you only contributed there for three years, your German or Spanish years count toward opening that right.
Pro-rata payment. Each country then pays only the share matching its own contribution years. You will not receive a full pension from each country: you will receive several partial pensions, paid separately, each at its own country's retirement age and under its own rules.
The practical consequence is the one most people discover too late: you will not get one pension, but three or four separate payments, starting at different ages. A German pension may begin at a different age than the French one, and a Swiss pension follows different rules again.
Outside Europe: it all depends on a bilateral agreement
Beyond Europe, automatic coordination disappears. What remains is the network of bilateral social security agreements France has signed with around forty countries, including the United States, Canada and Quebec, Japan, Brazil, India, Morocco and Tunisia.
Where an agreement exists, it usually provides for aggregation comparable to the European mechanism. Where there is none, the years worked there simply do not count toward your French pension. That is the only case where "lost years" is accurate, and it is exactly the case that needed planning ahead.
Planning ahead has a name: the Caisse des Français de l'Étranger or, depending on the situation, buying back quarters. Contributing voluntarily while abroad costs money immediately, but it is often the only way to avoid a permanent hole in a long career.
The cross-border case: Switzerland and Luxembourg
Cross-border workers add one more layer. Someone employed in Switzerland contributes to the AVS (first pillar) and usually to the second pillar (LPP occupational pension). These two layers do not follow the same rules when you leave.
The AVS follows coordination logic and will pay a pension proportional to your Swiss years. The second pillar is capital accumulated in your name: depending on your situation and the type of holding, it may be paid as a pension, as a lump sum, or transferred. Many cross-border workers have no idea how much is sitting on their vested-benefits account, sometimes years after leaving an employer.
The useful habit: ask for your second-pillar statement every year and check where each successive employer's holdings ended up. A forgotten vested-benefits account at an old insurer is more common than you would think.
Rebuilding the file: start now, not at 62
Here is the part nobody enjoys hearing. Rebuilding an international career requires evidence, and evidence ages badly: companies dissolved, institutions merged, payslips lost, foreign membership numbers untraceable.
The method that works, in order:
- Create your account on info-retraite.fr. The single career statement there gathers your French schemes. It is your starting point, and it is free.
- Check it line by line. Gaps, years with zero quarters, missing employers: note them down. Errors are common, and the longer you wait the harder they are to fix.
- List every country, employer and period with exact dates. Add your local insurance number (Swiss AVS number, UK National Insurance, US Social Security…). That number is what lets them find your file.
- Gather the evidence while it still exists: contracts, first and last payslips of each period, employer certificates, local tax notices. Scan everything into one folder.
- File a single claim when the time comes. In Europe you submit one application in your country of residence, which then contacts the other institutions. Allow plenty of time: these international exchanges routinely take months, sometimes over a year.
The three most expensive traps
Assuming the claim is automatic. No institution will pay you anything without a claim. An unclaimed foreign pension is simply never paid.
Forgetting taxation. A foreign pension is in principle taxable, but where? That depends on the tax treaty between France and the paying country, and the rules differ for private versus public pensions. Two retirees with identical careers can end up taxed differently. Handle this with a professional before you claim, not after.
Ignoring currency risk. A pension in Swiss francs or pounds remains exposed to exchange rates. Over a twenty-five-year retirement, the swings are not trivial, and they hit your real budget.
What stays true everywhere
The more international the career, the more uncertain the state pension becomes in both amount and timing. That is no reason to give up on claiming it, as the sums are often considerable over time. But it is an excellent reason not to rest your retirement on it alone.
Wealth you control depends on no bilateral agreement, no file lost in a foreign institution, and no statutory retirement age in a country you no longer live in.
Where IgniFI comes in
An international career also produces international wealth: a brokerage account left abroad, a Swiss second pillar, an Anglo-Saxon employee share plan, several currencies. IgniFI consolidates all of it in one place, in euros as well as the original currency, converted at the current rate.
The numbers are prepared; checking them before filing is on you.
The rest is method: start the file now, while the evidence still exists.