Russian citizens, who have no permanent residence address, can have their social pension assigned to the actual place of residence, consistent with the amendments to the state pension assignment regulations that took effect in March. Social pension applicants can certify their residence in Russia with a statement personally filed with the PFR or documents issued by social service institutions, correctional institutions, or educational institutions where the person is registered with.
Please note that a mandatory condition for the assignment of a social pension is permanent residence in Russia. Before the amendments took effect, the only valid proof of permanent residence was a passport with the registered permanent address, a temporary identification document, or the Interior Ministry’s certificate of registration of residence. In order to provide pensions to persons without registered residence, the Pension Fund assigned social pensions in case of persons’ registration with social service, medical, or correctional institutions.
Now pensioners without a registered address are compelled to certify their permanent residence in Russia with a statement personally filed with the PFR once a year. There is no need for confirmation if the pension is delivered to a home or is paid to the pensioner in the cash office of the delivery organization. There is no need for the statement either if the pensioner is staying in a medical, correctional, or educational institution (the latter case applies to orphans and children deprived of parental care).
In accordance with the federal law on state pensions, the right to a social pension is given to the following categories of persons permanently residing in Russia:
- Disabled persons, disabled children, and persons with lifelong disabilities receive disability social pension;
- Children younger than 18 who lost one or both parents, internal students younger than 18, and children of a deceased single mother receive survivor social pension;
- Children whose both parents are unknown receive social pension for children of unknown parents;
- Indigenous people of the North older than 55 or 50 (men and women, respectively) receive old-age social pension;
- Men older than 65.5 and women older than 60.5 *, who are not entitled to old-age insurance pension, receive old-age social pension;
- Foreign citizens and stateless persons who permanently reside in Russia for at least 15 years and are older than 65.5 (men) or 60.5 years (women) * receive old-age social pension.
Social pensions are paid to 3.2 million pensioners. Most of them (98.5%) receive disability and survivor pensions. Adjustments made to the pension system in 2019 do not apply to these types of pensions. By law, they are assigned irrespectively of the legal retirement age.
* The retirement age in 2019; it will be increasing annually during the transitional period.