EYT (Age Pensioners); It is called people who have completed the premium day and working period required to retire but are waiting to reach the age specified in the law. In other words, it refers to a group of people affected by social security reforms affecting the retirement age and conditions in Turkey. These people, who started working before 1999 but were adversely affected in terms of retirement age and number of premium days due to the amendment of the social security law made in 1999, are popularly known as ‘EYT’. The EYT regulation entered our lives with the amendment made on 8 September 1999 in the abrogated Social Insurance Law No. 506. Before 8 September 1999, employees who completed their insurance period and premium days could retire. There was also no age requirement. With the amendment made to the Social Insurance Law, an age requirement was added to these two criteria. In this way, the retirement age changed with the amendment to the Social Insurance Law in force in 1999.
Before the amendment to the Social Insurance and General Health Insurance Law No. 5510, which replaced the Social Insurance Law No. 506; 20 years of insurance for women and 25 years of insurance for men were among the retirement conditions if the premium requirement specified in the law was met.
With the Unemployment Insurance Law No. 4447 adopted on 8 September 1999, the retirement age became 58 for women and 60 for men.
In 2008, the retirement age increased to 65 with the Law No. 5510 for those who started to work as insured for the first time. In other words, with the amendment made in 2008, people whose insurance premium is full can retire if they wait until the age of 65 to retire.
This problem of those who are stuck in retirement age and waiting for the insurance period despite completing their premium days has been solved with the EYT Law published in the Official Gazette dated 03/03/2023. The issue of those who are stuck in retirement age (EYT) has been on Turkey’s agenda for a long time and was a problem waiting to be resolved. Following intensive efforts to resolve the problem, the Law on the Amendment of the Social Insurance and General Health Insurance Law and the Decree Law No. 375, which includes regulations on EYT, was published in the Official Gazette on 03.03.2023 and entered into force. Now, people with insurance entry before 1999 will be able to retire regardless of the age requirement. After the EYT law entered into force, there are 2.25 million citizens whose premium and insurance period is complete. 1.6 million of these citizens made their application in March 2023. They are now waiting to receive a pension.
In general, in order for a person to retire from the old-age insurance branch (except for exceptional cases), as a rule, ‘insurance period’, ‘number of premium days’ and ‘age requirement’ must be fulfilled together. With the new regulation, 20 years of victimisation has been eliminated and EYT people have gained the right to retire. However, those who retire within the scope of EYT and whose pension is incorrectly connected can apply to the Provincial Directorates of Social Security with a written petition and request a correction. While the pension binding procedures continue within the scope of those who are stuck in the Age of Retirement (EYT), there are nearly 200 thousand files that have not yet been completed. Many of those who have been salaried think that the wrong calculation has been made. For this reason, if you think that the wrong EYT salary is tied, you can object to the institution with a petition and request a recalculation. The legal regulation on those who are stuck in retirement age (EYT) was published in the Official Gazette. Approximately 2 million EYT people applied to the Social Security Institution directorates and requested retirement. Here, while applications were mainly made via e-government, there were also many EYT people who filled out the form in person.