Side by Side: At What Age Does the State Pension Start?

Chile’s labour minister, Tomás Rau, asked members of the private pension system on Thursday not to hurry into retirement “en la medida que se pueda postergar por unos meses,” after bets on interest-rate swaps left Fund E down 10.39% between January and September, BioBioChile reports. “La prudencia es buena consejera,” he said. So, for the passport desk: at what age may a worker draw the state pension under the rules in force this year?

United States

The full retirement age for Social Security is 67 for Americans born in 1960 or later, the end of a climb from 65 set off by “a 1983 amendment to the Social Security Act,” WRHI reports. Benefits can start at 62, but “approximately a 30% reduction in monthly payments” comes with them. Washington is the only government here that sells the early exit, and it has put a price tag on the door.

United Kingdom

The state pension age is 66 and will “gradually rise from 66 to 67 between April 2026 and April 2028,” Which? reports, a month at a time for each monthly band of birthdays from 6 April 1960 to 5 March 1961. A further rise to 68 is scheduled between 2044 and 2046, and the current review could bring it forward to 2037 at the earliest. In Britain this year, being born a month later costs a month.

Australia

The Age Pension age has been 67 since 1 July 2023 for anyone born from 1 January 1957 onwards, the Department of Social Services says, with income and assets both tested and, on one route to eligibility, at least 10 years’ residence. “Pensioners are paid under the test that produces the lower rate of payment.” Canberra reached 67 before London and kept two tests so it could pick the cheaper answer.

China

Since 1 January 2025 the statutory retirement age has been rising, within a 15-year period, from 60 to 63 for men, from 50 to 55 for women in ordinary jobs and from 55 to 58 for women in managerial and technical posts, Linklaters reports; for women who retired at 50 it rises “by one month every two months.” From 2030 the minimum years of contributions also climb from 15 to 20, by six months each year. Beijing is lengthening the working life from both ends: more years paid in before, more birthdays waited through after.

Verdict

Washington and Canberra stop at 67, London arrives there by 2028, and Beijing’s men reach 63 only at the end of a fifteen-year climb, still younger than anyone else’s today. Beijing has the furthest to travel and has given itself the longest timetable. Every capital calls its rise reform, and every worker meets it as the same job for longer. Chile’s minister called a few months’ wait prudence. The other four called years of it legislation, so that nobody had to be asked.