Pension provision

Pensions, ways to get out of work sooner

The options: from the early quota 103 to measures for women and the precocious. But constraints and disincentives have reduced exits before old age

by Matteo Prioschi

27 July 2025

3' min read

Key points

The six-month review
The Open Roads

3' min read

Time for the last choices in 2025 for those approaching retirement. And time to assess, before possible interventions in the manoeuvre, whether the options for an early exit are viable with a quick vademecum such as the one we are proposing today. Not least because the data from the beginning of the year, on this front, certify a slow progress of early retirement.

The balance of six months

The 98,356 early pensions disbursed by the Inps in the first half of this year compared to 118,550 in the first half of 2024 (see Il Sole 24 Ore of 24 July) give a good idea of how difficult, or less opportune, it has become to access retirement before reaching the age of 67 required for old age retirement. After the 'golden age' of early retirement, consisting of the introduction of quota 100 and, later and in part, quota 102, as well as the original version of the women's option, the government has gradually put in place stakes and disincentives to limit early retirement. Thus if on the one hand, also thanks to the reduction in life expectancy due to Covid, from 2019 the 'ordinary' requirements have remained unchanged, on the other hand shortcuts have become less feasible.

The Open Roads

But let us see which roads remain open. The main alternative, not to wait until the age of 67, is the ordinary early retirement pension, which requires 42 years and 10 months of contributions (one year less for women) regardless of age. A window of 3 months must elapse between the accrual of the requirement and the starting date, which becomes 4 months if the pension is paid by the local authority employees' fund, the fund for health workers, the fund for bailiffs and the fund for teachers of kindergartens and primary schools. Apart from the gradual widening of this last window (from 4 to 9 months for those who will meet the requirements from 2028), it is essentially the only form of advance that does not entail economic penalties or excessively stringent requirements.

The planned early retirement pension with 64 years of age and at least 20 years of contributions is still not very usable for age reasons. An exit that provides for a threshold amount of at least three times the social allowance. Moreover, until reaching the age for old age the amount paid will not be more than five times the minimum, even if one is entitled to a higher amount.

The years of contributions, again irrespective of age, drop to 41 for 'precocious' workers, i.e. those who have accrued at least 12 months of employment contributions before the age of 19. But at the same time they must fall into one of the categories considered deserving of this discount (unemployed, civil invalids, care givers, and those assigned to heavy or arduous tasks).

The 41 years of contributions must coexist with at least 62 years of age to access quota 103, which, however, entails calculating the amount of the cheque using the contribution method (generally more unfavourable than the mixed method), a window of 7 months for the private sector and 9 months in the public sector, and a ceiling on the amount (currently EUR 2,413.60 gross per month) until the age for an old age pension is reached.

Given these constraints, serious consideration should be given to waiting to accrue the requirement for ordinary early retirement, perhaps benefiting in the meantime from the new version of the 'Maroni bonus' introduced by the last Budget law.

The retirement channel for women has also been throttled in recent years. In this case the obligation to calculate with the contribution method was no longer a deterrent (there were more than 25,000 exits in one year) and so the requirements were raised and it was made accessible only to unemployed women or employees of companies in crisis, care givers and civil invalids. As a result, this year an estimated 2,600 female beneficiaries must also meet the two main requirements of the 'woman option': at least 61 years of age and at least 35 years of contributions accrued by 2024. And then they must wait for a window of 12 months if they are employees and 18 months if they are self-employed.

Equally residual is the use of retirement for those who perform 'usurious' activities, which allows access to retirement with a quota mechanism (age + contributions) starting from a minimum age requirement of 61 years and 7 months. Finally, there remains the Apesociale card: a pension chute paid by the state for workers in difficult conditions. It is a temporary allowance that accompanies the old age pension starting at 63 and 5 months.