Is the German gov’t planning to raise the retirement age?

According to a Bild report, the German government is planning to raise the statutory retirement age to 70. The government says it still needs time to make a decision. What do we know so far?

Bild reports gov’t to raise retirement age

The tabloid newspaper Bild has reported that Chancellor Friedrich Merz (CDU) plans to raise the statutory retirement age from 67 to 70. Bild reported that the retirement age would be raised from 67 to 68 in the 2040s, to 69 in the 2050s and eventually to 70 in the 2060s.

The newspaper also claimed that the CDU/CSU-SPD coalition government’s pension committee was working on a proposal to slightly reduce the pension level (Rentenniveau). 

The pension level is a statistical measure indicating how much a retiree is likely to receive in state pension payments. It is the ratio of the so-called standard pension to the average income of all insured persons in Germany and currently sits at 48 percent.

The statutory pension system is based on working-age people funding the pension payments of those currently in retirement. A declining birth rate and longer life expectancy rates mean the German pension system is falling out of balance. 

In 1992, 2,7 working-age people funded the pension payments of one retiree; in 2022, this burden fell on 2,0 working-age people and by 2030, just 1,5 people will be responsible for paying the pension of one retiree, according to figures from the Demografieportal.

Gov’t still needs time to make a decision

Following the Bild report, the government’s 13-person pension committee said it has not yet reached a decision about raising the statutory retirement age. SPD and a pension committee member, Annika Klose, told the AFP that the government still needs “four to five weeks”.

However, members of the CDU/CSU parliamentary group have expressed public support for raising the retirement age. Speaking to RTL, 37-year-old Sepp Müller said he thought it was “appropriate” that those currently in their 30s would work until age 70 in the 2050s. Fellow CDU member Thorsten Frei told Welt he believed raising the retirement age was “very reasonable”.

DGB criticises plan to raise retirement age

Meanwhile, the German Trade Union Confederation (DGB) and representatives of opposing parties have rejected proposals to raise the statutory retirement age or pension level.

DGB representative Anja Piel said raising the retirement age would amount to a “pension cut for all workers and punishes those who can no longer work or are no longer hired by companies”. 

Ver.di representative Frank Werneke said the change would likely lead more employees to opt for early retirement and take the financial hit of reduced pension payments, and that pension payments were already low in Germany compared to other European countries. The Left Party co-leader Heidi Reichinnek called the proposal "incredibly socially callous". 

Early retirement is possible in Germany, provided you are at least 63 years old and have made at least 35 years’ worth of contributions to the statutory scheme. However, for each month that you would have had to work to reach retirement age, 0,3 percent is deducted from your pension entitlement.

According to figures reported by Berliner Zeitung, only 40 percent of the people who retired in 2024 worked until they reached the statutory retirement age, a 0,72 percent increase on the number of people who took early retirement in 2023.

An information request submitted by the AfD in April 2026 found that between 2022 and 2024, the average Bundestag member retired at 63,1 years old.