Newly retired people in Spain will receive more than 1,700 euros per month for the first time ever

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The Spanish government's spending on pensions will close 2025 at a new record level, exceeding 210 billion euros

Lucía Palacios

Madrid

Monday, 29 December 2025, 18:11

The year will end with two new pension records in Spain being broken. For the first time ever, salaried workers who paid into the system will receive a monthly pension payment of over 1,700 euros, that's 200 euros more than just three years ago, according to data published on Friday by the Ministry of Inclusion.

These more generous pensions, which will continue to increase in the coming years and decades, are leading to record spending by Spain's Social Security system. Therefore, as is now tradition, the year ends with a new high in pension expenditure that, in 2025, has soared to surpass the 210-billion-euro mark for the first time to pay more than ten million people, mostly retirees.

Specifically, the Social Security system has allocated a total of 189.598 billion euros this year to pay 10.4 million euros in contributory benefits to 9.4 million beneficiaries (one million receive two pensions, such as retirement and widow's pensions), which represents an increase in expenditure of 6.2% given that, in 2024, 178.5 billion euros were paid out.

Some 21.8 billion euros for civil servants

The December payroll has once again set a new record, with a total of 13.75 billion euros now allocated each month for pension payments. With this latest payment, the state has paid out 162.985 billion euros for the 12 regular monthly pension payments. This figure is in addition to the 26.413 billion euros for the two extra payments distributed in June and November, bringing the final total to the aforementioned 189.598 billion euros.

However, spending on pensions exceeds the 210-billion-euro mark (around 211.5 billion) if the pensions of the more than 735,000 civil servants in the passive classes are added, to which the government has to dedicate a budget in 2025 of more than 21.8 billion euros after paying the last December payroll of about 1.71 billion euros.