Partner pension after death (nabestaandenpensioen) in the Netherlands

If you do nothing

• An unmarried partner who is not registered with your pension fund may receive nothing at all.
• Risk-based cover often ends the day you leave a job — a gap most people never notice.
• Your partner discovers the shortfall at the worst possible moment, with no time to plan around it.

If you decide now: 10 minutes on mijnpensioenoverzicht.nl to see the actual figure, and register an unmarried partner with each pension fund. Record the result in Stage 3 (Money & Accounts) of the Personal Portal.

What nabestaandenpensioen is

Nabestaandenpensioen is the survivor's pension paid by an employer's pension fund (or insurer) to the partner — and sometimes the children — of someone who dies while building up or already drawing a pension. It is separate from AOW (the state pension, which has its own survivor logic) and from ANW (the state survivor's benefit, which only applies in narrow cases).

It comes in two parts:

• Partnerpensioen — a monthly payment to the surviving partner, often for life.
• Wezenpensioen — a monthly payment to children, usually until age 25.

Whether your partner gets it, how much they get, and for how long, depends entirely on the rules of the specific pension fund the deceased belonged to. Pension funds in the Netherlands are not uniform. Each sectoral or company fund (ABP for government, PFZW for healthcare, BPFBouw for construction, and many others) sets its own scheme within the legal framework.

[Source: Pensioenfederatie, the umbrella body of Dutch pension funds, pensioenfederatie.nl.]

What the 2023 WTP reform changed

The Wet Toekomst Pensioenen — the Future Pensions Act — became law in July 2023. Pension funds have until 1 January 2028 to fully transition their schemes to the new system [Source: Rijksoverheid, on the WTP transition]. Many are doing so in stages between 2024 and 2027.

For nabestaandenpensioen, the reform did three concrete things.

1. Standardised the basis of cover to "risk basis" while you are working. Under the old system, partnerpensioen could be either built up over your career (opbouwbasis, accrual basis) or insured year by year (risicobasis, risk basis). Under the new system, partnerpensioen for active employees is uniformly on a risk basis. This means: as long as you are employed and paying into the scheme, your partner is covered if you die — but if your employment ends, the cover ends too (with a transition window, see below).

2. Linked the size of the partnerpensioen to a percentage of your salary, not your years of service. Under WTP, the maximum partnerpensioen is set at up to 50 percent of your pensionable salary at the moment of death [Source: Rijksoverheid; Pensioenfederatie]. The exact percentage is decided by the social partners (employers and unions) per scheme. In practice, partnerpensioen typically amounts to 25–35 percent of pensionable salary.

3. Shortened the gap when changing jobs — but not to zero. The new system includes an automatic uitloopperiode (run-off cover) after employment ends, and a default rule that, if you start a new job within a set period, your previous fund's risk cover continues until the new fund's cover starts. This was designed to fix a long-standing gap.

What did not change: any partnerpensioen that was already accrued under the old system stays in place as accrued rights, even after a fund transitions. The two systems coexist for a generation of employees.

Opbouwbasis versus risicobasis — why the distinction matters

The most important practical difference is what happens when you stop contributing.

Opbouwbasis (accrual-based). Each year of service adds a small piece of guaranteed partnerpensioen. If you leave the employer, the accrued piece stays in the fund and is paid out to your partner whenever you die — even decades later, even if you never worked another day in pension-covered employment.

Risicobasis (risk-based). Cover exists only while you are actively paying premium. The day you leave the employer, the cover ends (subject to the run-off and carry-over rules below). If you die one year later, having moved to a non-pension-covered job or to self-employment without arranging your own cover, your partner gets nothing from that fund.

Under WTP, partnerpensioen during active employment moves to risicobasis as the default. This makes coverage cheaper and more flexible during careers but increases the risk that gaps appear when people change jobs, become self-employed, or take a career break.

For people already retired, the partnerpensioen they have built up under the old system is paid out from the fund regardless of when they die. The reform mainly affects people still working.

What happens when you change jobs

This is where the 2023 reform tries to fix the largest historical gap. Under the old system, an employee who left one job and started another after a few months could find that the partnerpensioen cover from the old fund had lapsed, and the new fund's cover had not yet begun — meaning that if they died in that gap, the partner received nothing.

The new system introduces three protective rules:

• Uitloopperiode (run-off cover). After your employment ends, the previous fund's risk-based partnerpensioen continues for a defined transition period — typically three to six months, depending on the scheme. [Source: Pensioenfederatie; check the specific scheme rules.]
• Carry-over to the new fund. If you start a new job in pension-covered employment within the run-off period, the new fund's cover takes over without a gap.
• Voluntary continuation (vrijwillige voortzetting). When you become self-employed or take a sabbatical, you can request to continue partnerpensioen cover at your own expense, usually for up to three years. This must be arranged actively — it does not happen by default.

What still falls through the cracks: people who change jobs after the run-off has expired, people who go from employee to fully self-employed without arranging voluntary continuation, and people whose new job is in a sector with no pension fund at all. For each of these situations, the protective answer is either private term-life insurance (overlijdensrisicoverzekering) or active voluntary continuation through the previous fund.

A specific note for unmarried couples

Cohabiting partners — couples who live together without marriage or registered partnership — are the highest-risk group for missing out on nabestaandenpensioen.

Most pension funds require that an unmarried partner be formally registered with the fund as a "partner for pension purposes." Some funds also require a notarial cohabitation agreement (samenlevingsovereenkomst), and most require that the couple has lived at the same address for at least six months.

If the partner is not registered, the fund may pay nothing, even if the couple has been together for thirty years. This is the most common avoidable cause of an unpaid partnerpensioen. The fix takes one form, sent once.

How to verify your partner's coverage in 30 minutes

There is one place that aggregates almost everything: mijnpensioenoverzicht.nl.

Mijnpensioenoverzicht is the official government-backed portal that pulls together pension data from all Dutch funds and the SVB (state pension). Login is via DigiD. Once logged in, you can see:

• Which pension funds you have rights with (current and former employers).
• Your projected AOW (state pension) start date and amount.
• Your projected own pension at retirement.
• Your projected partnerpensioen — what your partner would receive if you died today, and what they would receive if you died after retirement.

A short checklist, for both partners to do separately:

1. Log in at mijnpensioenoverzicht.nl with your own DigiD.
2. Look at the partnerpensioen line. Note the gross monthly amount projected on death today, and on death after retirement.
3. If the amount is zero or very low, log in to the relevant fund's own portal (the link is provided) and check whether your partner is registered.
4. If you are unmarried, check the fund's specific requirements for partner registration. Send the form if needed.
5. Repeat for every fund you have ever been enrolled in. Old, small funds from earlier jobs are easy to forget.

For the deceased's side after a death, the same portal can be reached with the deceased's DigiD if the partner has access, or through the employer's HR department. Pension funds also need to be informed actively — they do not always learn of a death automatically. A funeral director, a notaris, or the surviving partner can do this, with a copy of the akte van overlijden (death certificate).

A note on ANW and AOW

Nabestaandenpensioen from an employer fund is separate from the two state systems.

• AOW (Algemene Ouderdomswet) — the state old-age pension. It does not have a true "survivor's pension" in the partner sense; the surviving partner continues to receive their own AOW based on their own residence history.
• ANW (Algemene nabestaandenwet) — the state survivor's benefit. Strictly limited: the surviving partner must either have a child under 18 in the household, or be at least 45 percent disabled. Most surviving partners do not qualify [Source: SVB, svb.nl/anw, 2026 amounts as published December 2025].

For most families, the employer's nabestaandenpensioen — together, sometimes, with private overlijdensrisicoverzekering — is the main financial cushion after a partner's death. The state benefit is rarely enough on its own.

In the app

In the Personal Portal you record where you (and your partner) have pension rights, the funds involved, and the projected partnerpensioen amounts pulled from mijnpensioenoverzicht.nl. The app prompts you to check partner-registration status with each fund — and reminds you to repeat the check whenever you change jobs, marry, separate, or pass a major life milestone.

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Sources

1. Pensioenfederatie — the umbrella body of Dutch pension funds, on the WTP transition and partnerpensioen rules. https://www.pensioenfederatie.nl/
2. Rijksoverheid — Wet Toekomst Pensioenen, transition timeline and partnerpensioen on risk basis. https://www.rijksoverheid.nl/onderwerpen/pensioen
3. SVB — Algemene nabestaandenwet (ANW) eligibility and 2026 amounts. https://www.svb.nl/nl/anw
4. Mijnpensioenoverzicht — official portal for checking pension and partnerpensioen rights. https://www.mijnpensioenoverzicht.nl/