What can be bought back, and up to what limit

Eleven missing quarters cost 2 899,63 € of annual pension to an employee whose average annual salary reaches 30 000 € : 15 000 € gross at the full rate, against 12 100,37 € once the reduction applies. Buying back quarters exists to close that gap, within a ceiling of twelve quarters.

Three families of periods, one single ceiling

Buying back quarters means paying contributions voluntarily so that periods left uncovered are nonetheless counted at the moment of departure. The basic pension scheme then treats them as acquired quarters, according to the option chosen by the applicant.

Three families of periods account for the bulk of applications: years of higher education that led to a diploma, incomplete calendar years, and company internships that began after 14 March 2015 under a formal agreement.

• Years of higher education completed in a higher education institution, a higher technical school, a grande école or a preparatory class
• Calendar years during which the professional activity did not allow four quarters to be validated
• Compulsory internships of at least two months, held under a tripartite agreement and giving rise to a stipend
• Admission to a grande école or to a preparatory class, which counts as obtaining a diploma

The ceiling is shared. Twelve quarters in total may be bought back, all grounds combined: years of study, incomplete years, periods as a registered high-level athlete and local elected mandates draw on the same envelope. No calendar year may ever hold more than four quarters.

The age conditions are not the same

For studies and incomplete years, the application opens at 20 and closes at 67. It assumes the pension has not already been claimed. For studies, the general scheme must have been the first pension fund to which the applicant contributed after leaving education.

Internships follow a far narrower calendar: the application may be filed from the age of 25, at the latest on 31 December of the year of the thirtieth birthday, and within the two years following the end of each internship. Once that window closes, the right is lost.

A single study period of ninety days straddling two calendar years may be attached to either one of them. That choice is not neutral: it allows an already partly covered year to be completed rather than an empty year to be opened for nothing.

Studies completed in a country of the European Economic Area, in Switzerland, or in a State bound to France by a social security convention are bought back on the same conditions. The foreign diploma then counts as a diploma, with no separate equivalence procedure to run.

What the buy-back does not bring in

A bought-back quarter is not a contributed quarter for every purpose. Quarters validated as a result of a buy-back are not taken into account when the conditions opening the right to an early retirement are examined by the fund.

The consequence is concrete: buying back twelve quarters does not open an early departure for a long career to someone who had no right to it. The buy-back acts on the amount of the pension, never on the date at which it may begin.

A second limit concerns the scheme. The buy-back described here operates with the general pension scheme, therefore on the basic pension. Years of study and incomplete years may be the object of a separate purchase of points with the Agirc-Arrco supplementary scheme.

Finally, some less common situations also open a voluntary payment: a period of penal labour, a period spent as an unpaid carer for a disabled relative, or registration on the ministerial list of high-level athletes. The last two draw on the same envelope of twelve quarters.