Contributions · EOBI · Old-age benefits
EOBI Pension Calculator
Insurable wage × years of insurable employment ÷ 50. Below fifteen years the pension gives way to a grant — and the wage that counts is the one contributions were actually paid on.
Step by step
How the pension is built
Take the insurable wage
What contributions were paid on — usually the notified minimum wage, not your actual salary.
Count insurable years
Only years with contributions actually paid count towards the fifteen-year qualifying period.
Apply the formula
Wage × years ÷ 50. Thirty years gives roughly sixty per cent of the insurable wage.
Apply the floor
Where the formula gives less than the notified minimum pension, the minimum is paid.
Reading the result
Your actual salary does not raise the pension
The pension is computed on the insurable wage, which is tied to the notified minimum wage rather than to what you earned. A senior employee and a junior one with the same years of insurable employment arrive at a similar figure.
That surprises people who assume contributions scale with salary and expect a proportionate pension. They do not, and it does not.
Fifteen years is the cliff
Below the qualifying period the entitlement is an old-age grant rather than a pension — a one-off payment instead of a monthly income. Someone a few months short is in a materially different position from someone just over, which makes the exact insurable service record worth confirming well before retirement.
Gaps in the record are the common problem
What counts is contributions actually recorded against your registration. Periods where an employer deducted but did not deposit, or registered the establishment but not you individually, leave holes that surface at the point of claim — by which time the employer may no longer exist.
Check your record with EOBI during your working life, not at the end of it.
Where this stops
This applies the formula to the wage and service you enter. EOBI's own record of your insurable employment is what determines the entitlement, and survivors' and invalidity benefits follow separate rules.
FAQs
EOBI pension FAQs
How is the EOBI old-age pension worked out?
Average monthly insurable wage multiplied by the number of years of insurable employment, divided by fifty. Thirty years of service therefore produces a pension of about sixty per cent of the insurable wage, and fifteen years about thirty per cent — before the notified minimum pension is applied, which lifts most low-service pensions to a floor.
What is the qualifying period?
Fifteen years of insurable employment for the old-age pension, with contributions paid. Reaching pension age with fewer than fifteen years does not leave you with nothing: an old-age grant is payable instead, based on your years of service, which is why the calculator switches to that figure below the threshold.
At what age can I claim?
Sixty for men and fifty-five for women, in each case with the qualifying period completed. There is separate provision where employment ends early in specified circumstances, and an invalidity pension where a person becomes permanently incapacitated — different tests from the ones modelled here.
Which wage is used — my actual salary or the minimum wage?
The insurable wage, which is the wage on which contributions were actually paid, and for most workers that has tracked the notified minimum wage rather than a higher actual salary. Enter what contributions were genuinely based on. Using your gross salary when contributions were paid on the minimum wage will overstate the pension substantially.
What is the minimum pension?
A floor notified by the government and revised periodically, so it is an input here rather than a printed figure that would go stale. Where the formula produces less than the notified minimum, the minimum is paid. Check the current figure before relying on either number.
What happens to the pension when the pensioner dies?
A survivor's pension is payable to the widow or widower, and the scheme also provides for a surviving dependent parent in defined circumstances. It is a proportion of the pension, shown above as an indication; the entitlement rules are set out in the legislation and are worth checking against your own family situation.
Do I contribute anything myself?
The employer pays the larger share and the employee a small fixed proportion of the insurable wage. Contribution amounts are worked out on the EOBI Contribution Calculator; this page deals only with what comes out at the end.
Is the pension taxable?
Pension income has its own treatment under the income tax law, and is generally not taxed in the same way as salary. That treatment is separate from the scheme itself and has been subject to proposals for change, so confirm the position for the year in question rather than assuming.
Related tools
Checking what goes in each month?
Employer and employee contributions are worked out separately.
Open EOBI Contribution Calculator