Frequently asked questions about your pension in the new pension scheme

Frequently asked questions about your pension in the new pension scheme

The new pension rules

  • To many employees, it is not clear how much they pay for their pension and how much they accrue. With the new pension scheme, everyone accrues pension in a plan based on paying premiums (defined contribution plan). This will determine how much you and your employer will contribute to your pension.

  • The labour market is changing. Some people stop working for a while, reduce their working hours or start working on a freelance basis. This is where the current pension rules do not fit in well, because the pension does not continue to grow. With the new rules, the capital for your pension continues to grow, even if you stop working for a while. The pension fund continues to invest your pension.
  • When the financial markets were doing well, pensions were sometimes not increased accordingly. That feels unfair. Under the new rules, the required reserve is lower. This allows quicker indexation of pensions if investments do well. On the other hand, this also means that (expected) pensions may be reduced more quickly. We will continue to do our utmost to ensure that the pensions of everyone who receives a pension remain as stable as possible. Good to know: pension money never “runs out”. Even if you live to a very old age. Together, we make sure everyone always gets a pension.

The new pension scheme is a solidarity-based defined contribution plan. We have listed the differences below. You can also watch the animation that explains the new scheme.

Click here for an overview of what is changing and to watch the animation.

Several features of the scheme will remain the same as in the current scheme. We have listed these features for you.

A solidarity-based defined contribution plan sets out agreements about the amounts paid into your pension capital. This contribution is the money that you and your employer put aside for your pension. Together, these contributions from you and the employer are called the premium. Under the new scheme, the eventual amount of your pension is not fixed.

We invest the pension contributions as a single whole. We take different age groups into account in this respect. Older people are at a lower risk due to the distribution of investment returns.

We also put money into a reserve. This is a kind of piggy bank. We use this reserve when the going gets tough. If there is enough money in this reserve, we supplement the pension. The fund can use this reserve to keep the pensions of everyone receiving a pension and their survivors as stable as possible. There is no guarantee that pensions will never go down.

Under the new scheme, the pension for your partner and children in the event of your death is covered by insurance. Your partner and children up to the age of 25 will only receive a pension if you die while you are still accruing pension with our fund.

Partner and orphan pensions from the current scheme will be transferred to the new scheme

Have you accrued a surviving dependants’ pension in the current pension scheme to provide for your partner and children in the event of your death? Then the value accrued for this survivor’s pension will be added to the survivor’s pension under the new pension scheme. This means that you do not lose this pension after switching to the new pension scheme.

In the event of incapacity for work, you will continue to accrue capital for your pension. But you are no longer required to pay your employee contribution. Are you partially incapacitated for work? Then you pay contributions to your pension for the percentage that you still work for an affiliated employer. This is arranged with your employer. In the event of incapacity for work, you may also receive a supplement to your WIA benefit. From 1 January 2026, this will no longer be arranged through our fund, but through your employer’s insurer instead. The supplement is a maximum of 70% of the portion of the pensionable salary that exceeds the legally determined maximum WIA annual salary (1 January 2025: € 75,864.87).

The amount of my pension

Before switching to the new pension scheme, we will let you know how much pension you have accrued under the current scheme. You will also receive an initial estimate of your pension under the new scheme. After the transition, you will receive another calculation from us. This estimate will be more accurate because we will not know the exact value of the accrued pension until completion of the transition.

Are you already receiving a pension benefit from us? Then your gross pension amount in the first month after the transition to the new scheme will remain the same as in the previous month. The net amount may differ, for example because tax rates change. The following month, you will receive your final pension amount under the new scheme. We may correct this with the pension you received from us in the previous month.

No. Young people will run a higher risk than older people. However, the capital is invested in such a way that even for young people, the risk of pension capital running out is ruled out. In addition, we maintain reserves to prevent negative capital.

But sometimes the reserve is not enough. In very bad situations, we may actually be forced to reduce the pensions of all pensioners. The more money we have in the reserve, the smaller that risk.

No. Your pension cannot run out. You will receive your pension for life.

TNO’s social partners (the employer and the TNO works council) have agreed that we will transfer your accrued pension to the new scheme. The sum you have accrued in the current scheme will be transferred the new scheme. We calculate the value of the pension capital you have accrued during the transition.

We will calculate the conversion of your accrued pension to the new situation as accurately and carefully as possible. Do you see something that does not seem right? Just get in touch if you want more details. Then we will review the issue together. We will check this with our data. We will obviously adjust the data if necessary. If you feel that we have not resolved the error properly, you can file a complaint with us.

The pension fund is now required to maintain lower reserves. This allows for distributing the gains made on the investments. In addition, the rules governing when a pension fund may grant indexation for accrued pensions will no longer apply. This also means that your pension can increase more quickly if things go well compared to the current situation. But, of course, the reverse also applies.

The value of our investments moves up and down. But we try to keep the pensions of pensioners as stable as possible. However, pensions may be reduced if the economy continues to perform poorly for a longer period. We try to keep that risk as low as possible.

We take good and bad years into account. That’s why we maintain a reserve. When you are younger, we take higher risks with your capital. Higher risk means a better chance of accruing a higher pension. We reduce the risk on your investments as you age. This serves to optimise gains and stability of your pension.

We invest your pension capital in such a way that the amount of your pension is as stable as possible by the time you start receiving your pension. The closer you get to retirement age, the lower the risk we take with your investments. But developments on the financial markets can always have some influence on the amount of your pension. There is no guarantee that pensions will never go down.

The amount of your pension under the new scheme depends largely on how long we can invest the contributions. In the current pension scheme, every euro contributed yields the same amount of pension. Whether you are young or old. In the new pension scheme, the pension is linked to the number of years we can invest the contributions for you. This is beneficial for young people, because on average there are more good years than bad years, and their contributions are expected to yield a higher pension.

Older employees have less time to invest their contributions. People who are close to retirement have already accrued most of their pension.

The transition is therefore mainly disadvantageous for the middle group. They have their younger years behind them. The pension they will accrue depends largely on the number of investment years. Calculations by the social partners of TNO show that participants between the ages of 35 and 67 will be disadvantaged by the switch to the new scheme. The social partners want the transition to be as fair as possible for everyone. Those who are accruing a pension (employees and disabled participants) and who are disadvantaged by the new scheme will receive ‘compensation’. The transition plan sets out the agreements on compensation.

Please note: A change, such as a different job or changing the number of contractual working hours, can affect the compensation for abolishing the career average system*. This also applies to your retirement date. You can read details about the compensation in the transition plan. If necessary, also consult the transition plan of your new employer’s pension fund.

*With the switch to the new pension scheme on 1 July 2026, the career average system will be discontinued. Under the new scheme, the amount of the pension pay-out depends on factors such as contributions, investment results and interest rates.

No. The pension scheme of our fund is not related to the AOW (state pension) you receive from the government. The pension scheme concerns the pension that you are currently accruing or have accrued through your employer.

  1. You pay pension premiums jointly with your employer
  2. Investment as a single capital
    We invest the pension contributions as a single whole. We take different age groups into account in this respect. The older you get, the lower the risk we take. This keeps your pension as stable as possible.
  3. Solidarity reserve
    We also put money into a reserve. This is called the solidarity reserve. This is a kind of piggy bank. The fund can use this reserve to keep the pensions of pensioners as stable as possible. There is no guarantee that pensions will never go down.

You and your employer together contribute approximately 26% of your pension base to your pension. The pension base is the part of your salary that counts as the basis to calculate your pension premium. This concerns a pension for yourself, but also for your partner and children in the event of death or occupational disability. And certain costs for the administration of your pension scheme. You can see how much you pay on your pay slip.

Every year, we calculate how much pension you can expect to receive on your retirement date. We base this calculation on the pension capital you have already accrued and on the capital you expect to accrue in the future. We also estimate the deposit, the expected return on the investments and the expected interest rate and life expectancy.

In addition to your expected pension, you will see an estimate of your pension in the worst case scenario. And an estimate of the pension in the best case scenario. Just like now, you will receive this information via the Uniform Pension Overview.

When you are young, the estimate of your future pension may fluctuate considerably. Are you older? Then we ensure that the estimate of your pension gradually fluctuates less. This means we distribute the risk of the investments of younger and older employees differently. The older you get, the more accurate the estimate of your (expected) pension becomes.

The return on investments affects your pension. You will immediately see this impact reflected in the capital for your pension and the pension you are expected to receive later.

We invest the pension contributions as a single whole. We take different age groups into account in this respect. The older you get, the less risk we take with the investments.

We also put money into a reserve. This is a kind of piggy bank. We use this reserve when the going gets tough. If there is enough money in this reserve, we increase the pensions of all pensioners and surviving dependants in order to ensure maximum stability of the pensions. There is no guarantee that pensions will never go down.

The transition to the new scheme

A lot needs to be arranged to ensure a controlled and correct transition. Our pension administrator has chosen to completely replace its computer systems in order to implement the new scheme. Our pension administrator is paying for most of this system change, and the remaining portion is reimbursed by the pension administrator’s clients. This is not only the case for TNO Pension Fund; all pension funds in the Netherlands are affected by this issue. Of course, we do our best to keep the migration costs as low as possible.

We plan to switch to the new scheme on 1 July 2026.

The transition plan sets out the agreements made by the social partners (the employer and the TNO works council) for the new pension scheme. View the transitionplan.

The implementationplan was drawn up on the basis of the transition plan. It sets out how we can administer the agreements made by the social partners from 1 July 2026. This includes key topics such as data quality, adapting IT systems and administration, and how we ensure that all data transfers are complete and correct. The implementation plan sets out the choices made based on due consideration of all stakeholders and interests, and the consequences for the pensions of all participants. The plan also sets out an analysis of costs, potential risks and control measures to be taken.

Part of the implementation plan is the communications plan. We believe it is very important to keep you well informed about the new pension scheme and what this means for your pension. The communication plan states how, when and about what we will inform you, for example by email, in online meetings or by post. That way, you know exactly what will change, when it will happen and what it means for your pension.