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Calculadora Capital

Pension Increase

Enter the monthly pension you receive today and see how much it rises in 2026.

Enter the gross pension, before income tax. The years are only used for the guaranteed minimum and can stay at zero.

Increase per month
€30.08
Updated pension
€1,230.08
Band appliedPoint b), between 2 and 6 times the IAS
Band rate2.27 %
Increase from the rate€27.24
Minimum increase for the band€30.08
Effective increase2.51 %
Increase over the year (14 payments)€421.12
Updated annual pension€17,221.12

Article 3 guarantees a minimum increase of €30.08 in this band, more than the €27.24 the rate would give. The floor keeps beating the rate up to a pension of €1,325.11.

This band runs up to a pension of €3,222.78. Above that the rate changes.

The annual figure counts 14 payments: the 12 monthly ones plus the additional amounts of July and December, which rise with the pension (articles 22 and 23).

Gross figures, before income tax. General-regime survivor pensions follow article 6 and are updated through their base pension rather than by a rate of their own.

Three rates, and the size of the pension picks yours

The annual update is not one percentage for everybody, and that is where most mental arithmetic goes wrong. Article 2(1) of Portaria n.º 480-B/2025/1 says, word for word: 2.80% for pensions equal to or below 1074.26 EUR; 2.27% for pensions above 1074.26 EUR and equal to or below 3222.78 EUR; 2.02% for pensions above 3222.78 EUR. Note how each boundary is worded, inclusive on one side and exclusive on the other: a pension of exactly 1,074.26 EUR is still in the first band. The three figures are not round numbers by accident. They are multiples of the indexante dos apoios sociais, which Portaria n.º 480-A/2025/1 set at 537.13 EUR for 2026: 1,074.26 EUR is twice the index, 3,222.78 EUR is six times it and the freeze threshold of 6,445.56 EUR is twelve times it. This covers old-age and disability pensions from the general Social Security regime and the retirement, reform and disability pensions paid by the Caixa Geral de Aposentações, which the portaria treats together.

The finding: there is a minimum increase in euros, and it removes the step

This is the part almost no published explanation covers, and it is why this page is a calculator rather than a table. Article 3 sets a floor on the update itself: the update of the pensions in point b) may not be lower than 30.08 EUR, and for point c) it may not be lower than 73.16 EUR. Now do the arithmetic the legislator did. 2.80%, the first band rate, applied to the 1,074.26 EUR boundary, gives 30.08 EUR. And 2.27%, the second band rate, applied to the 3,222.78 EUR boundary, gives 73.16 EUR. Each floor is the previous band rate measured at the boundary, to the cent. Without them, somebody one cent above 1,074.26 EUR would receive 24.39 EUR while a neighbour exactly on the boundary received 30.08 EUR: crossing a band would cost almost six euros a month. With them it does not, and the floor keeps beating the percentage up to 1,325.11 EUR in the second band and up to 3,621.78 EUR in the third. There is a third floor of 9.29 EUR in the first band, but that one is exactly 2.80% of 331.79 EUR, the amount from which it applies, so it never actually bites.

The one real step is at the top, and it costs 130.20 EUR a month

If the portaria went to the trouble of smoothing the two rate boundaries, the contrast with the third one is stark, and it is the hardest number on this page. Article 2(2) says pensions above 6445.56 EUR are not updated. There is no floor here to soften the crossing. A pension of exactly 6,445.56 EUR is updated by 2.02%, which is 130.20 EUR a month and takes it to 6,575.76 EUR. A pension of 6,445.57 EUR, one cent higher, stays where it was. Whoever is on the wrong side of that line ends the year receiving 130.20 EUR a month less than whoever is on the right side, that is 1,822.80 EUR across the fourteen payments, because of one cent. And the effect does not stop with the year: the frozen pension enters the next January on a lower base, so the gap persists. The portaria reserves two exceptions this calculator does not model and names rather than ignores: the situations in article 102 of Decreto-Lei n.º 187/2007 and in article 7(2) of Lei n.º 52/2007.

Fourteen payments, not twelve

Turning the monthly increase into an annual one involves a choice that changes the answer by almost 17%, and the portaria settles it expressly. Article 22 says the additional amounts paid in July and December are worth the same as the updated pension, and article 23 guarantees pensioners of the Caixa Geral de Aposentações a fourteenth month paid in July, equal to the pension they receive that month. So the additional amounts rise with the pension, and the gain for the year is fourteen times the monthly increase, not twelve. On an increase of 30.08 EUR a month, the difference between counting twelve and counting fourteen is 60.16 EUR a year.

The CGA survivor table is a different table

This is the easiest confusion to fall into, because the rates are the same and the boundaries are not. Article 7 covers survivor pensions, blood-price pensions and others paid by the CGA, and applies 2.80% up to 537.13 EUR, 2.27% above that and up to 1,611.39 EUR, and 2.02% above 1,611.39 EUR. That is one and three times the index, against the two and six times of article 2. A pension of 900 EUR falls in the first band under article 2 and in the second under article 7, which gives 25.20 EUR in one case and 20.43 EUR in the other. Article 8 gives this table the same anti-step floors, 15.04 EUR and 36.58 EUR, and the identity repeats: 2.80% of 537.13 EUR is 15.04 EUR and 2.27% of 1,611.39 EUR is 36.58 EUR. One difference worth keeping: the freeze above twelve times the index is written in article 2 and is not repeated in article 7, so this calculator does not apply it to those pensions. General-regime survivor pensions follow a third path and are out of scope, as explained below.

The guaranteed minimum can lift the result

After the percentage there is still a floor, and it depends on the career. Article 4 guarantees old-age and disability pensioners in the general regime a minimum pension of 341.08 EUR with under 15 years of contributory career, 357.80 EUR from 15 to 20 years, 394.82 EUR from 21 to 30 and 493.52 EUR at 31 years or more. For the Caixa Geral de Aposentações, article 5 uses years of service and a different table, from 318.76 EUR to 526.60 EUR, and article 9 gives survivor pensions exactly half of those values, from 159.38 EUR to 263.30 EUR, which is the 50% share of a surviving spouse. If the updated pension lands below the minimum for your career, it is raised to it, which is why this calculator asks for the years. One important and little-known caveat: article 4(3)(b) excludes from those minimums the pensions brought forward under the flexible retirement-age regimes, so anyone who retired early that way does not get this floor.

Where this year rates come from

The portaria does not invent the numbers, it applies two indicators, and it names them in its own preamble. The update takes as reference indicators the real growth of gross domestic product, measured as the average annual growth over the last two years ending in the third quarter of the year before the update, and the twelve-month average change of the consumer price index excluding housing available in December of the preceding year. For 2026 the preamble publishes both: average GDP growth over the two years to the third quarter of 2025 was 2.12%, and the average CPI change excluding housing available in December 2025 was 2.27%. Note the arithmetic coincidence: the second band rate is exactly the CPI figure, the first sits above it and the third below it. The rules that connect those indicators to each band live in articles 4 to 7-A of Lei n.º 53-B/2006, which the portaria cites as its legal basis and which this module does not reproduce because it could not be read from a primary source. What the calculator applies are the percentages the portaria fixes, and those are express text.

What this calculation does not do

Everything is stated rather than approximated. General-regime survivor pensions are not updated by a rate of their own: article 6 applies their own calculation percentage to the already-updated invalidity or old-age pension that serves as their base, so anyone receiving one should first update the base pension here and only then apply their share. Also out of scope are the regimes whose pension is not updated but set at an amount: the special regime for agricultural activities, fixed at 314.85 EUR by article 14, and the non-contributory regime and the transitional agricultural regimes, fixed at 262.40 EUR by articles 16, 18 and 19. The coefficient table of article 21 is out too, because it updates the contributory share of pensions in cumulation rather than the amount received. And so is income tax: the figures on this page are gross, and a pension is subject to withholding under the tables that apply to pensioners.

Worked example

A pension of 1,200 EUR a month. It is above 1,074.26 EUR, so it falls in point b) and the rate is 2.27%, which would give an increase of 27.24 EUR. But article 3(2) guarantees a minimum of 30.08 EUR, which is more, so that is what applies: the pension becomes 1,230.08 EUR and the effective increase is 2.51% rather than 2.27%. Across the fourteen payments of the year that is 421.12 EUR more. Now compare two neighbours. Somebody on 900 EUR is in the first band, gets 2.80%, that is 25.20 EUR a month and 352.80 EUR over the year, and the pension becomes 925.20 EUR. Somebody on 6,445.57 EUR gets no increase at all, because they are one cent above the 6,445.56 EUR threshold, and so they lose 130.20 EUR a month, that is 1,822.80 EUR a year, against somebody exactly on the boundary.

Frequently asked questions

How much does my pension go up in 2026?
It depends on the pension you receive today, and there are three cases. Up to 1,074.26 EUR the increase is 2.80%; above that and up to 3,222.78 EUR it is 2.27%; above 3,222.78 EUR it is 2.02%. There is then a floor in euros that can give more than the percentage: 30.08 EUR in the second band and 73.16 EUR in the third. And there is a ceiling: above 6,445.56 EUR the pension is not updated. Enter your pension in this calculator and it tells you which band you land in, how much it rises per month and what that is worth over the year.
Why did my neighbour get more than me on a similar pension?
Most likely because one of you is below a boundary and the other above it. The rates change at 1,074.26 EUR and at 3,222.78 EUR, and the update stops altogether above 6,445.56 EUR. At the first two boundaries the portaria protects whoever is above with a minimum increase in euros, so the difference is small. At the third it does not: a pension of 6,445.57 EUR is not updated and one of 6,445.56 EUR receives 130.20 EUR a month. If you are both in the same band and still receive different amounts, check whether one of you is on the guaranteed minimum for their career, which is a floor rather than a percentage.
What is the 30.08 euro minimum increase?
It is a guarantee in article 3 of the portaria: anyone in the 2.27% band never receives less than 30.08 EUR of increase, even when the percentage gives less. It exists to remove the step at the boundary. 2.80%, the rate of the band below, applied to 1,074.26 EUR, gives exactly 30.08 EUR, so somebody who crosses the boundary by a cent still receives as much as somebody who stayed on it. In practice the floor beats the percentage up to 1,325.11 EUR. The third band has the same protection, with 73.16 EUR, which is 2.27% of 3,222.78 EUR, and it holds up to 3,621.78 EUR.
My pension is high and it did not rise at all. Why?
Because article 2(2) of the portaria provides that pensions above 6,445.56 EUR, twelve times the indexante dos apoios sociais, are not updated. It is a rule about the amount, not about the regime: it applies to Social Security pensions and to those paid by the Caixa Geral de Aposentações. The portaria itself reserves two exceptions, in article 102 of Decreto-Lei n.º 187/2007 and in article 7(2) of Lei n.º 52/2007, which depend on the individual situation and which this calculator does not assess. Note also that the freeze is written in article 2 and is not repeated in article 7, which covers survivor and blood-price pensions paid by the CGA.
Does the increase count twelve or fourteen times a year?
Fourteen. Article 22 of the portaria says the additional amounts paid in July and December are worth the same as the already-updated pension, and article 23 guarantees the fourteenth month to pensioners of the Caixa Geral de Aposentações. Because those payments track the pension, the gain for the year is fourteen times the monthly increase. On an increase of 30.08 EUR a month that is 421.12 EUR a year rather than the 360.96 EUR twelve months would give. That is why this calculator always shows both readings, monthly and yearly.
Where do these percentages come from?
From two indicators that the preamble of the portaria publishes. The first is real growth of gross domestic product, measured as the average annual growth over the last two years ending in the third quarter of the preceding year, which was 2.12%. The second is the twelve-month average change of the consumer price index excluding housing available in December of the preceding year, which was 2.27%. The rules that combine those indicators into the rate for each band live in articles 4 to 7-A of Lei n.º 53-B/2006, which the portaria invokes. This page applies the percentages the portaria fixes, because those are the ones in force for 2026 and they are express text.
I receive a survivor pension. Does this calculator apply?
It applies if yours is a survivor pension, a blood-price pension or another paid by the Caixa Geral de Aposentações, and in that case pick that option, because article 7 has boundaries of its own at 537.13 EUR and 1,611.39 EUR. If yours is a survivor pension from the general Social Security regime, the route is different: article 6 gives it no rate of its own and instead applies your calculation percentage to the already-updated invalidity or old-age pension that serves as its base. In that case update the base pension here first and then apply your share, which is 60% with a single beneficiary and 70% with several.
My pension falls below the minimum. What happens?
It is raised to the minimum guaranteed for your career. In the general regime, article 4 guarantees 341.08 EUR with under 15 years of contributory career, 357.80 EUR from 15 to 20 years, 394.82 EUR from 21 to 30 years and 493.52 EUR at 31 years or more. At the Caixa Geral de Aposentações article 5 uses years of service, from 318.76 EUR to 526.60 EUR, and article 9 gives survivor pensions half of those values. Enter the years in this calculator to see the floor that applies to you. One exception matters: article 4(3)(b) excludes from these minimums the pensions brought forward under the flexible old-age retirement regimes.

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Author: Thorben Rasmus Idel · Reviewed by: Nahar Geva · Last reviewed: 2026-08-31