Pension security 2026: an overview of the planned innovations

Pensioners Photo: Informant

In 2026, the legislation will continue to change in accordance with the stages of the pension reorganization initiated in previous years. For future recipients of pensions, this year will be a period of increased requirements for insurance experience, but at the same time it will also bring a projected increase in payments, which depend on the main social standards. About how the calculation of pensions will be transformed in 2026, the managing lawyer of the Ivan Khomych Law Office, Ivan Khomych, told.

Increasing insurance experience The first thing that those who are planning to take a well-deserved rest should pay attention to is the change in the criteria for the length of insurance experience. In 2026, to retire at the age of 60, it will be necessary to have at least 33 years of experience. In 2025, this criterion was 32 years. This is a direct consequence of the pension reform, which provides for an annual increase of the required experience by one year until 2028.

Those citizens who do not reach the indicator at the age of 33 will need to delay retirement until the age of 63 or 65, depending on the experience they have at that time. To retire at age 63 in 2026, you need to have at least 23 years of experience, and at age 65 – still 15 years of experience.

Therefore, it is important to check information about your experience in a timely manner. This can be done on the Pension Fund’s electronic services portal, but on the condition that all experience before 2004 is transferred to a digital format and displayed in the pensioner’s personal account. Otherwise, work experience is confirmed by entries in the work book and other documents (military ID, diploma of higher education, etc.).

How the minimum pensions will change Positive changes are expected as early as January 1, 2026. The planned increase of the minimum wage to UAH 8,647 will become the basis for recalculating pensions for some categories of citizens.
According to Part 2 of Article 28 of the Law of Ukraine “On Mandatory State Pension Insurance”, for persons who have reached the age of 65 and have full experience (35 years for men and 30 years for women), the minimum amount of pension is set at 40 percent of the minimum wage. Thus, for these pensioners, the minimum pension will increase from UAH 3,200 to UAH 3,458.
At the same time, from January 1, the living wage for people who have lost their ability to work is expected to increase from UAH 2,361 to UAH 2,595. This indicator is the main one for calculating the minimum and maximum pensions, so in 2026 the minimum pension will be UAH 2,595, and the maximum pension will be UAH 25,950 (10 subsistence minimums).

In addition, the change in the size of the subsistence minimum will cause a recalculation of allowances, increases and additional payments related to it, in particular, the additional payment for overtime experience will increase from UAH 23.61 to UAH 25.95 for each year above the norm. The calculation calendar for 2026 also includes traditional spring stages.

Indexation of pensions From March 1, the annual indexation of pensions will take place, which is intended to partially cover inflationary processes and the growth of the average salary. As of April 1, the Pension Fund authorities will automatically recalculate payments for working pensioners, taking into account their updated experience or earnings over the past two years.

The situation with the indexation of payments for civilian pensioners, who were assigned a pension in the period from 2020 to 2024, requires special attention. There is a risk that the existing government formula will once again be unfair to them.

The specificity of the calculation is that due to the relatively high accrual base in the first years after retirement, the actual indexation for this category is often “absorbed” by the difference in calculations or is limited to fixed amounts. If the government does not change the regulatory approach to the indexation procedure, in 2026 the benefits of such pensioners will be increased only partially or nominally.

“At the same time, I would like to point out that this issue is not hopeless: court practice is now on the side of citizens. It is quite possible to oblige the Pension Fund authorities to carry out a full recalculation and payment of indexation without applying discriminatory restrictions in court,” says the lawyer.

Deadline for digitization of work books and annual identification

“I also want to emphasize the administrative procedures, ignoring which may cost you the loss of benefits or part of the experience. Until June 2026, the transition period for the digitization of work books ends. Citizens and employers need to finish transferring data on work activities to the register of insured persons. If you still have only a paper work book and these data are not entered into the electronic system, there is a risk of losing experience confirmation during its calculation, especially if the paper document is damaged or lost.
Also, the requirement to undergo physical identification remains unchanged. This is a procedure that must be completed annually to confirm that the person is alive and eligible for benefits. This especially applies to internally displaced persons and pensioners who are abroad,” said Ivan Khomych.

Failure to pass identification is a legal basis for suspending the accrual of pension payments until the circumstances are clarified. Therefore, I advise you not to neglect this duty and use the available identification mechanisms – through the web portal of the Pension Fund, “Diya” or consular offices, in order to avoid blocking card accounts and stopping payments in 2026.