Pension directory — field reference

Schema version 1.0.0 · JSON · CSV

Fields

Field	Type	Meaning
country	string	The country's name in English.
country_code	string	ISO 3166-1 alpha-2, uppercase. Stable — this is the key to join on.
continent	string	One of americas, europe, asia, oceania, africa.
currency	string	The currency the country's pensions are denominated in. Human-written: usually an ISO 4217 code, occasionally prose.
retirement_age_early	number \| null	The earliest age a pension can normally be drawn, where the country allows early claiming. Null where it doesn't.
retirement_age_full	number	The age at which an unreduced pension is normally payable.
retirement_age_max	number \| null	The latest age to which claiming can be deferred for an increase, where the country allows it.
pension_system_summary	string	A paragraph describing how the country's system works.
has_totalization_treaties	boolean	Whether the country has social-security agreements allowing periods abroad to count.
official_portals	{ name, url }[]	Government portals where a person can reach their own record or the authority. The free official route.
depth_pattern	string \| null	What PensionChart can establish for this country, as a descriptive category — never a ranking. Null until a human has attested it.
statement_guide_url	string \| null	Our published step-by-step guide to retrieving your own statement, where one exists. Null where none is published.
last_verified	string \| null	The date a person checked this entry against the named official source. Null means not yet human-verified.
verification_status	string \| null	Our threshold applied to last_verified: Current under 180 days, Review due at 180+, Outdated at 365+.
pensionchart_country_page	string	The public page this record is drawn from.
system_type	string \| null	How the first pillar is organised — contributory, residence-based, provident fund, and so on. Human-written prose, not a fixed vocabulary.
pillar_structure	string \| null	What the country's pillars are and what each one covers.
replacement_rate_gross	string \| null	Gross pension as a share of prior earnings, as published by the country or the OECD. A national average, not a personal estimate.
min_qualifying_period	string \| null	The minimum contribution or residence period before any pension is payable.
min_qualifying_partial	string \| null	The shorter period that earns a reduced pension, where the country pays one.
aggregation_rules	string \| null	How periods worked in other countries count towards this country's qualifying period.
totalization_partners	string[]	Countries this one has a social-security agreement with. Empty where we hold none.
contribution_rates	object \| null	Employee, employer and self-employed contribution rates, with the earnings ceiling where one applies.
voluntary_contributions	object \| null	Whether gaps can be filled voluntarily, on what terms, and by when.
adjustment_rates	object \| null	What claiming early or late does to the amount.
access_options	object \| null	The forms the pension can be taken in — annuity, lump sum, drawdown — and any conditions.
tax	object \| null	How the pension is taxed in-country, and the withholding position for non-residents.
indexation	object \| null	Whether payments rise after they start, against what, and how often.
portability	object \| null	Whether the pension can be paid to an address abroad, to whom, and with what conditions.
claiming	object \| null	How to claim from outside the country: lead time, documents, proof-of-life requirements, contact routes.
schemes	object[]	The named schemes operating in the country, with the authority or provider that holds each.
cross_border_notes	string[]	Points that only matter to someone who worked in more than one country.
retrieval_guide	object \| null	The full step-by-step guide to retrieving your own statement, including what to have ready and what to do when the usual route fails. Present only where a person has walked it and dated it.

What a verification date means

last_verified is the date a person checked this entry against the named official source. verification_status applies our own thresholds to that date: Current (under 180 days), Review due (180+), Outdated (365+). An absent date means the entry has not yet been human-verified.

This is the field worth comparing against any other pension dataset. Ours says when a person last looked, per country, and applies the same thresholds everywhere.

Stability

The schema is versioned. Fields are added in a minor version; a field is never removed or repurposed without a major one. country_code is the key to join on and will not change.

Citation

PensionChart (2026). PensionChart Pension Directory. Retrieved from https://pensionchart.com/pension-directory.json (CC BY 4.0)