🇳🇿 German Pension Refund for New Zealand Citizens

A working-holiday year in Munich, a skilled job in Hamburg, a master's in Berlin — and now you're back in New Zealand or settled across the Tasman? The pension contributions deducted from your German pay can come back to you as a single payment, and New Zealand citizenship itself carries no contribution-month limit: 11 German months or 110, the refund route stays open. Three conditions decide it — your citizenships, where you live, and 24 months since your last contribution month — each explained below. A second citizenship can change the rules: New Zealand–Australian dual citizens need fewer than 60 German contribution months.We check your eligibility, prepare your application and payment documents, and coordinate your claim with our German partner law firm, which reviews and submits it. Along the way you get plain-English explanations of your pension-office letters, regular updates, and support that continues after the decision. No refund, no service fee.

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✅ No contribution-month limit for New Zealand citizens — 60 German months or more stay refundable (New Zealand–Australian dual citizens: fewer than 60, see below)
✅ Across our retained completed paid cases — all nationalities — refunds averaged around €11,600; completed refunds on record run from under €200 to over €53,000
✅ No German bank account required
✅ More than three quarters of our 300 most recent completed refunds reached the client escrow account within three months
✅ No refund, no service fee

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Do I qualify for a German pension refund as a New Zealand citizen?

Yes, if three things hold on the day the application is filed — none of which is the number of months you worked in Germany. Germany has no social security agreement with New Zealand, and that is exactly why no contribution-month cap exists for New Zealand citizens: the 60-month caps that bind some other nationalities come from agreements granting a right to voluntary German insurance. A New Zealander with no other citizenship who lives outside the EU, the UK and India has no such right, and German law refunds the contributions of everyone without it, however many months they paid. The three conditions below are the whole test.

Citizenship — every citizenship you hold counts, including one you may hold without knowing

As a New Zealand citizen you pass the citizenship test as long as you hold no German, EU, EEA, Swiss or British citizenship as well. One such citizenship blocks the refund before German retirement age on its own — your New Zealand citizenship does not outvote it. New Zealand allows dual citizenship, and for New Zealanders the case to check is usually British: under UK law, British citizenship is normally passed down automatically to the first generation born outside the UK, so if one of your parents was born in the UK you may hold British citizenship without ever having applied for it or held a British passport — whether you do depends on when you were born and your parents' circumstances (GOV.UK sets out the rules). Irish, Dutch or German citizenship through a parent can work the same way. (One narrow exception exists for people who left mandatory German insurance as civil servants or in a similar status; the complete guide covers it.)

The other common second citizenship is Australian — it does not block the refund, but it brings Australia's 60-month limit with it: a New Zealander who is also an Australian citizen can claim before retirement age only with 59 or fewer German contribution months (the same goes for any other 60-month country listed further down).

Which day matters? The day your application is filed: the pension office assesses citizenship, residence and the waiting period as they stand on that date and ignores what changes afterwards. Australian or British citizenship acquired after filing therefore leaves a valid claim untouched; acquired before filing, it changes the result. A UK-born parent, an Australian citizenship application in progress, any second citizenship in your plans: tell us before anything is filed, and we check the sequence with you first.

Residence — outside the EU, the UK and India

Your address on the filing date is the second test, and a New Zealander passes it almost everywhere — at home, in Australia, in Asia, in North America, and in Norway, Iceland, Liechtenstein or Switzerland, which sit outside the EU for this purpose. Living in the EU or the UK blocks the refund for as long as you live there (a visit is fine; living there is not): the London years of an overseas experience are the classic case, and Ireland counts as the EU. India is the one exception outside Europe — under the Germany–India agreement, a single German contribution month gives anyone living there a right to voluntary German insurance, which closes the refund for everyone but Indian citizens (our India page explains it). Living in Türkiye or an ex-Yugoslav state is fine in itself; paying into the state pension insurance there blocks the refund while it lasts and restarts the 24 months.

The 24-month waiting period — counted from your last contribution month, not from the day you left

The third test is time. Between your last month of mandatory pension insurance in Germany, the EU, the UK, Türkiye or an ex-Yugoslav state (Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Serbia) and your application, 24 full calendar months must pass — Deutsche Rentenversicherung describes the waiting period here. The anchor is the contribution month itself, not the day you deregistered, flew out or let your visa lapse. Twenty-four full months after it, on the first day of the 25th month, the claim can be filed — a month earlier and the office rejects it rather than holding it.

The clock restarts when new mandatory insurance begins in one of the listed places — and the UK is one of them. Two years in London after Berlin mean UK insurance from the start of an ordinary job: no refund while you live there, and a fresh 24 months that only start after your last UK contribution month. Work in New Zealand, Australia, the USA or Canada leaves the clock alone, and for a New Zealand citizen so does mandatory insurance in Switzerland, Norway, Iceland or Liechtenstein. There is no deadline for a first application for your own contributions, but the years before you apply earn no interest. Our waiting-period calculator gives you the exact date.

What we do for you — and what it costs

Before anything is filed. You provide your details, documents and signatures; we do the rest of the preparation. We check your eligibility, obtain and review the relevant DRV account information during the managed process where required, prepare your refund application and payment documents, identify the recommended first pension office from your record and coordinate the claim with our German partner law firm, which reviews and submits it.

While the pension office works. Pension-office letters for your claim are received at a German address, scanned to you and explained in plain English. After submission you receive a status update at least every four weeks, and sooner when something happens — sometimes the update is simply that the office has not answered yet. We keep track of known response and objection deadlines within the agreed scope; if a letter reaches you directly, forward it to us straight away with the date you received it — only deadlines known to us or our partner law firm can be protected.

After the decision. We check the decision for obvious errors and assist with available evidence or a straightforward objection; if legal assessment or formal representation is needed, the matter is referred to the external law firm and handled only after you agree the scope and any separate cost. If an approved refund does not arrive, we follow it up within the managed scope with the pension office and Renten Service until the payment is resolved.

Our fee is 9.75% of the refunded amount, capped at €2,500 including VAT, with no upfront payment and no minimum fee. No refund, no service fee. The fee covers the agreed managed administrative scope, including our partner law firm's support within that scope. We do not provide legal services, advice or representation; separate representation in an objection, appeal or court proceeding is not included automatically. German deregistration is available as an optional €50 add-on including VAT, payable with the service fee after your refund reaches escrow — and if your German pension insurance number went missing somewhere between Munich and Marlborough, we can help identify or recover it.

More than three quarters of our 300 most recent completed refunds reached the client escrow account within three months. In our analysis calculated on 25 August 2026, 229 of these 300 completed paid refunds (76.3%) reached escrow within 90 days of complete submission. Individual processing times vary — see the full data and methodology. Processing and payment dates depend on the responsible pension office and the payment route, so a specific date cannot be guaranteed; the process is designed to avoid preventable delays.

Is there a 60-month limit for New Zealand citizens?

No. The limit exists for citizens of the USA, India, Canada, Australia, Brazil, South Korea, the Philippines, Albania, Moldova, North Macedonia and Uruguay — and for Japanese citizens, recognized refugees and stateless persons living in Japan — who can claim a refund before retirement age only with 59 or fewer German contribution months, and only German contribution months count toward those 60. New Zealand citizens are outside that group: one working-holiday year or ten years in Hamburg, the whole refundable balance comes back once the three conditions hold. A New Zealander who also holds one of those eleven citizenships — Australian above all — carries that country's limit, and a recognized refugee or stateless person living in one of those countries is treated like a citizen of it.

A long record changes what you should decide, not whether you qualify. Sixty German contribution months also mean a New Zealand citizen has earned a German old-age pension, payable at German retirement age anywhere in the world, New Zealand included — and the refund replaces that pension rather than adding to it: one payment of the entire refundable balance, after which the old insurance relationship is dissolved and the refunded months never turn back into pension months (later German work builds new entitlements from new contribution periods). With many German years, put both options side by side before choosing; a lifelong pension can outweigh a single payment. At German retirement age itself, a refund without any waiting period remains possible under five qualifying years (allgemeine Wartezeit); from five years you have a pension, and the refund option that formally stays open to New Zealand citizens would trade it away for good — ask us before deciding.

One New Zealand-specific point belongs in that comparison, and it is about timing. If you expect New Zealand Superannuation, a German pension may not simply add to it: Work and Income deducts a qualifying overseas state pension from NZ Super dollar for dollar, and if you or your partner qualify for an overseas pension, Work and Income requires you to apply for it (Work and Income's overseas-pension rules). In practice, then, the refund-or-pension choice is one to make before German retirement age: a one-off payment of your own contributions now, or a German pension later that Work and Income would set against your NZ Super. How Work and Income would treat the refund itself is not something we can tell you. Check both questions with Work and Income before you choose; which option suits you is your decision, and we do not provide individual tax, pension or legal advice.

Do KiwiSaver or NZ Super affect the refund?

No. KiwiSaver contributions, New Zealand Superannuation and any private or employer scheme at home never block the German refund, never restart the 24 months, and never count toward any German month total. Germany treats exactly one kind of foreign insurance like its own here — mandatory pension insurance in the EU, the UK, Türkiye or an ex-Yugoslav state — and a scheme matters because it is on that list, not because it is compulsory or state-run. A KiwiSaver member in Auckland with two German years therefore has two German years for the refund and a clock that started with the last German contribution month. The refund is paid to you, not into KiwiSaver.

Two illustrative journeys — the working-holiday year, the engineer who went via London

The working-holiday year. Eleven months in Munich on a Working Holiday visa — Germany issues it to New Zealand citizens aged 18 to 30 — in a hotel job at €2,400 gross a month, then home to Wellington in August 2025. Pension contributions of €223.20 a month add up to roughly €2,450 in refundable employee contributions. Earliest application date: 1 September 2027 — the first day of the 25th month after August 2025 — from Wellington or anywhere else outside the EU, the UK and India. Eleven months is a short record; for a New Zealand citizen the length never mattered.

The engineer. Five years in Hamburg (60 months, 2019–2023) at €5,200 gross, then two years in London, then Sydney from 2026. In London the refund is blocked and the UK contributions restart the 24 months; from Sydney the claim opens on the first day of the 25th month after her last UK contribution month — 60 German months are no obstacle for a New Zealand citizen: €483.60 a month, roughly €29,000 in refundable employee contributions. One thing to time carefully: if she takes up Australian citizenship before filing, Australia's 60-month limit applies to her and those 60 months close the refund route before retirement age; taken up after filing, it leaves the valid claim untouched.

Run your own months through the free refund calculator.

Which of your years in Germany actually paid pension contributions?

Only months with statutory pension insurance produce a refund, so each stretch in Germany has to be sorted — working holiday, skilled work, training, study, self-employment:

Working-holiday jobs and jobs on an EU Blue Card or a skilled-worker permit are ordinary insured employment: pension insurance from the start, every month counts, the employee share is refundable — apart from a short seasonal job your employer registered as insurance-free short-term employment, which produced no contributions. One catch for hospitality and farm pay: for months in employment covered by the Übergangsbereich rules for the relevant year (in 2026, regular pay between €603.01 and €2,000 a month), the refund is half of the total pension contributions paid for those months — a special rule, so 9.3% of gross pay is the wrong sum there.
Ausbildung and dual-study contracts are insured employment too, and the Übergangsbereich rules never apply to them, whatever the pay.
Werkstudent jobs keep pension insurance even though students are exempt from health, care and unemployment insurance: above the minijob limit the months count and the contributions come back — at half of the total contributions where the student job falls within that band.
Minijobs split two ways: the small employee top-up (the default since 2013) is refundable; an opted-out minijob produced only flat-rate employer contributions, so there is nothing of yours to refund — and those months neither block nor restart the 24-month waiting period.
A scholarship or stipend without an employment contract produced no contributions at all.
Freelance or self-employed work is usually not mandatorily insured; where voluntary or compulsory self-employed contributions were paid, half comes back.

Payslip memories are estimates; the official insurance record (Versicherungsverlauf) is the count that matters — and in a managed claim we obtain and review it where required.

How much comes back — and what about tax in New Zealand?

The refund is your employee share — 9.3% of gross pay since 2018, charged up to the monthly ceiling (Beitragsbemessungsgrenze: €8,450 in 2026, €8,050 in 2025) — and as a rule all of it; the employer's half stays in the system, and pay above the ceiling never carried contributions. The main exceptions change the sum: voluntary contributions and the compulsory contributions of self-employed people come back at 50%; months in employment covered by the Übergangsbereich rules for the relevant year are refunded at half of the total contributions paid for them; and a benefit once funded by Deutsche Rentenversicherung — a rehabilitation programme, say — limits the refund to the contributions paid after it, while the completed refund still closes the whole record. We check these before anything is filed. The legal basis is § 210 SGB VI.

Across our retained completed paid cases — all nationalities — the average refund was €11,571.66 and the median €10,327.10 (calculated 24 August 2026), with completed refunds on record from under €200 to over €53,000. Our refund calculator applies the actual statutory employee contribution rate and monthly ceiling (Beitragsbemessungsgrenze) of every year back to 1975 — including Deutsche-Mark periods and East/West differences — rather than a flat percentage.

On the German side there is no income tax on the refund — the exemption is written into German law and confirmed by the Federal Fiscal Court. New Zealand is a different question: Inland Revenue has its own rules for lump sums received from foreign superannuation schemes, and their effect depends on your residence history. Whether those rules reach a German contribution refund in your situation is a question for a local adviser — we do not provide individual tax, pension or legal advice.

Which German pension office handles a New Zealand citizen's claim?

No single office handles New Zealanders, and Berlin is not the default address. The responsible office is found in a set order — your insurance record first, then citizenship, then residence. DRV Knappschaft-Bahn-See comes first if you were ever insured there, then DRV Bund if it was the last office holding your account. The citizenship step is skipped for New Zealanders, because New Zealand has no liaison office — unless a second citizenship brings one in: for an Australian citizen that is DRV Oldenburg-Bremen, wherever they live. For everyone else it comes down to residence and record: a New Zealander living in Australia starts with DRV Oldenburg-Bremen, one living in the USA or Canada with DRV Nord, one living in another country that has a social security agreement with Germany with that country's liaison office, and anyone else — in New Zealand, Singapore or anywhere without an agreement — with the regional office that holds their account. Misaddressed claims keep their filing date, but weeks disappear in the forwarding.

Our guide to the responsible pension office walks through the rules and includes the office finder; in a managed claim, our German partner law firm files the claim with the recommended office we identify from your record.

Getting paid in New Zealand — or in Australia

No German bank account is required. In a claim we manage, your refund is paid through the escrow account operated by our German partner law firm; after the agreed service fee is deducted, the remaining balance is transferred to the bank account you nominate — a third-party account can be used where the required account-holder declaration and compliance checks are satisfied. Account-holder checks, international sanctions and banking restrictions can limit where — and in which currency — the money can be sent, so the route for a transfer to New Zealand or Australia is checked shortly before the money moves.

Digital for most clients — and the paper route if you apply yourself

Most clients can complete their entire part of the process digitally: you submit your details and sign online. Every client has their identity and signature confirmed using their passport or an accepted equivalent; depending on the route, that confirmation can be completed digitally or by an accepted notary or public authority, and any local notary or certification cost is borne by the client. When DRV Oldenburg-Bremen is responsible for your refund — where a New Zealander living in Australia, or a New Zealand–Australian citizen anywhere, usually lands unless DRV Bund or Knappschaft-Bahn-See holds the account — we prepare your power of attorney and payment declaration and ask you to send us the signed originals; for everyone else this is a limited exception rather than the rule.

You may apply directly to Deutsche Rentenversicherung without using our service; the pension office charges no application fee. From New Zealand or Australia that route is paper: form V0901 travels by post, because ordinary email is not accepted for identity reasons and fax is no longer available. In a self-filed claim, the official application form provides for your personal data to be certified on the form itself — so the application travels to the certifying body. In a managed claim, the analog step is a single page we prepare for you. Our V0901 guide walks through the form section by section, and the pension-office guide tells you where to send it.

Living in New Zealand with another citizenship?

Living in New Zealand never blocks a German pension refund and never restarts the waiting period — but it does not open one either: your citizenship decides. A British, German, EU, EEA or Swiss citizen living in Auckland cannot claim before German retirement age (apart from the civil-servant exception mentioned above); a citizen of one of the eleven 60-month countries carries that country's limit wherever they live — see our India page, USA page, Australia page or the complete guide; and a citizen of any other country — South Africa, say — has no limit at all, exactly like New Zealanders.

A family member's German contributions

When a spouse, registered partner or parent dies with German contributions on record, a refund of those contributions can be available to the closest family — the surviving spouse or registered partner and, in the cases the law provides for, the children — where no German survivor's pension is payable because the deceased had not met the five-year qualifying period (allgemeine Wartezeit). That test is not a simple count of German months: foreign periods that count toward the German qualifying period (New Zealand periods never do — there is no agreement), and the rules that treat it as met in special cases, have to be checked first. No 24-month wait applies to survivors, but the claim can become time-barred four years after the end of the year of death, so early action pays. Where the qualifying period is met, the family may instead be entitled to a German survivor's pension, payable worldwide, New Zealand included. Our German widow's pension guide and the survivors chapter of the complete guide explain who can claim, in which order and with what evidence.

Frequently asked questions

Is there a 60-month limit on the German pension refund for New Zealand citizens? No. The limit binds citizens of the USA, India, Canada, Australia, Brazil, South Korea, the Philippines, Albania, Moldova, North Macedonia and Uruguay, and Japanese citizens, recognized refugees and stateless persons living in Japan — and even for them only German contribution months count toward the 60. A New Zealand citizen who also holds one of those eleven citizenships — Australian, most often — carries that limit; a recognized refugee or stateless person living in one of those eleven countries is treated like a citizen of it. Every other New Zealand citizen has no limit: 60 German months or more stay refundable as long as the three general conditions hold — no German, EU, EEA, Swiss or UK citizenship alongside, a home outside the EU, the UK and India, and 24 full calendar months since the last mandatory pension insurance in Germany, the EU, the UK, Türkiye or an ex-Yugoslav state. With 60 months or more a New Zealand citizen has also earned a German pension at retirement age, so the refund is a choice: a completed refund pays out the whole refundable balance and dissolves the pension entitlement.

One of my parents was born in the UK — does that stop my refund? It can. Under UK law, British citizenship is normally passed down automatically to the first generation born outside the UK, so a New Zealander with a UK-born parent may hold British citizenship without ever having applied for it or held a British passport — whether you do depends on when you were born and your parents' circumstances — and any German, EU, EEA, Swiss or UK citizenship you hold blocks the refund before German retirement age on its own (apart from a narrow exception for people who left mandatory German insurance as civil servants or in a similar status — see the complete guide). Irish, Dutch or German citizenship through a parent can work the same way. If a UK-born or EU-born parent is in your family tree, raise it with us before anything is filed.

I am a New Zealand and Australian citizen — can I still claim? Yes, but under Australia's rule: as a citizen of one of the eleven 60-month countries you can claim before German retirement age only with 59 or fewer German contribution months, and only German contribution months count toward the 60; with 60 months or more, a New Zealand-Australian citizen has a German pension at retirement age instead. The pension office assesses your citizenship on the day the application is filed and does not take later changes into account: Australian citizenship taken up after filing leaves a valid claim untouched; taken up before filing, it applies.

Do KiwiSaver or NZ Super affect the German refund? No. KiwiSaver contributions, New Zealand Superannuation and any private or employer scheme at home never block the refund, never restart the 24-month waiting period, and never count toward any German month total. The only foreign insurance that blocks a refund or restarts the waiting period is mandatory pension insurance in the EU, the UK, Türkiye or an ex-Yugoslav state.

Does the 24-month waiting period start when I leave Germany — and do my years in London matter? Neither your deregistration nor your departure date starts it: the clock runs from your last mandatory contribution month in Germany, the EU, the UK, Türkiye or an ex-Yugoslav state, and the first day of the 25th month after it is the earliest application date. Years in London matter twice — living in the UK blocks the refund while you are there, and UK contributions restart the count from the month they end. A job in New Zealand, Australia, the USA or Canada does neither.

I live in New Zealand but hold another citizenship — can I claim? Living in New Zealand never blocks a German pension refund and never restarts the waiting period; your citizenship decides. British, German, EU, EEA or Swiss citizens living in New Zealand cannot claim before German retirement age (apart from the narrow exception for people who left mandatory German insurance as civil servants or in a similar status); citizens of one of the eleven countries with a 60-month limit — Australia and the USA among them — can claim before retirement age only with 59 or fewer German contribution months; citizens of any other country have no limit, exactly like New Zealanders.

Ready to claim?

For the eligibility tables, month counting, survivors, retirement age, forms and objections in full, read the complete 2026 guide. Our eligibility check walks through citizenship, residence and the 60-month and 24-month rules — a preliminary indication in under a minute. Starting your claim takes less than one minute — start here →

Germany Pension Refund is a private service operated by ATLAES GmbH, Berlin. We are not part of or affiliated with Deutsche Rentenversicherung or any German government authority. You may also apply directly to Deutsche Rentenversicherung without using our service; the pension office charges no application fee.

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