Conditions for voluntary insurance

You can take out voluntary insurance if you were insured in the Netherlands under the AOW and Anw schemes for the entire year before you left the Netherlands. 

In the year before you left the Netherlands, you may have been insured for some months under the national insurance system of another country of the European Union (EU). If so, those months of insurance will probably count towards the 1-year requirement for the Netherlands.

For your voluntary insurance, we look at the 50 years before your AOW pension age. You can take out voluntary AOW insurance if, during this 50-year period:

• you start living or working outside the Netherlands, and
• you apply for voluntary insurance within 1 year of the date on which you start living or working outside the Netherlands
• you had not yet reached your AOW pension age

You can take out voluntary Anw insurance if:

• you start living or working outside the Netherlands, and
• you apply for voluntary insurance within 1 year of the date on which you start living or working outside the Netherlands

We recommend that you apply for voluntary Anw insurance immediately after you start living or working outside the Netherlands. If you should pass away without having applied for voluntary Anw insurance, your partner and children will not be able to get an Anw benefit.