Whether you can take out voluntary insurance depends on your situation.

If you leave the Netherlands, your AOW pension will stop growing, and your partner and children will not get an Anw survivor benefit or orphan’s benefit in the event of your death. To prevent this, you can take out voluntary insurance under the AOW scheme, the Anw scheme, or both.

you can apply for voluntary insurance if you:

• were insured in the Netherlands before you left, and
• you meet the conditions for AOW and/or Anw insurance

Send in your application on time. This is especially important for Anw insurance.

You will be asked to pay a contribution every year. The contribution is a percentage of your total income from the Netherlands and other countries for that year.

Every year, the Dutch government determines the contribution rates for that year. There is a minimum and a maximum contribution.

In general, you can take out voluntary insurance for up to 10 years. This is also true for your partner and children. However, there are exceptions. In some cases, the insurance period could be longer or shorter. 

See the conditions and calculate your contribution.

Because you started living or working in the Netherlands at a later stage in your life, you will have missed a period of AOW pension insurance. 

You can take out voluntary AOW insurance for the years before you started living or working in the Netherlands. In other words: you can buy back insurance. These years will then count towards your entitlement to AOW pension. 

It is not possible to take out voluntary insurance under the Anw scheme for a period in the past.

You can buy back AOW insurance for past years if:

• you started living or working in the Netherlands within 50 years of your AOW pension age, and
• your application for buying back insurance is made within 10 years after you first came to live or work in the Netherlands, and
• you have been insured under the AOW scheme on the basis of residence or employment in the Netherlands for at least 5 years.

You cannot buy back AOW insurance if you:

• have reached the AOW pension age, and
• are covered by the pension system in another country of the European Union (EU ) and you receive a pension from that country

You will be asked to pay a contribution every year. The contribution is a percentage of your total income from the Netherlands and other countries for that year.

Every year, the Dutch government determines the contribution rates for that year. There is a minimum and a maximum contribution.

You can take out voluntary insurance for the years you were not covered under the AOW scheme. (You can build up AOW pension rights during the 50 years before your AOW pension age.) By taking out voluntary insurance, you can insure yourself for the missing years.

See the conditions and calculate your contribution.