Early Retirement in Spanish | Useful Phrases For Your Plan

The common Spanish term for early retirement is “jubilación anticipada,” plus variants like “retiro anticipado” in casual conversation.

Maybe you want to stop working a few years earlier and spend more time with family, or you are thinking about moving to a Spanish-speaking country for a quieter life. At some point, you will need more than basic travel phrases. You will need to describe early retirement in clear, natural Spanish.

This topic has two sides. One side is language: words for retirement, useful verbs, and the right expressions for talking with friends, lawyers, or bank staff. The other side is legal and financial: pension ages, penalties, and credits. Rules differ between countries, which is why Spanish authorities use terms like jubilación anticipada in their early retirement section, and the United States has its own rules described on the Administración del Seguro Social’s page on beneficios por jubilación.

This article stays on the language side. You will learn the main Spanish terms for early retirement, see how native speakers talk about it in daily life, and get ready-made phrases and sentence templates you can adapt to your own situation.

What Early Retirement Means In Spanish

In general, early retirement means finishing your working life before the official pension age, often with a lower monthly payment. Spanish speakers describe this with a few specific nouns and adjectives. Once you know them, you can build many sentences on your own.

Formal Term Jubilación Anticipada

The most standard term is jubilación anticipada. Jubilación is a feminine noun that means “retirement,” and anticipada means “brought forward” or “early.” Together, they describe any pension that starts earlier than the regular age. Public bodies in Spain use this wording in forms, calculators, and official explanations about how early retirement works.

Some typical sentences you might hear are:

• Estoy pensando en solicitar la jubilación anticipada. – I’m thinking about applying for early retirement.
• La jubilación anticipada reduce la pensión mensual. – Early retirement reduces the monthly pension.
• Quiero informarme sobre la jubilación anticipada voluntaria. – I want information about voluntary early retirement.

Notice the article: people say la jubilación anticipada, not just jubilación anticipada on its own. The adjective also stays in the feminine form because it matches jubilación.

Informal Ways To Talk About Retiring Early

Not every conversation sounds like a government form. In everyday Spanish, you will also hear terms such as retiro anticipado, prejubilación, and longer phrases like dejar de trabajar antes de la edad de jubilación.

• Retiro anticipado – Used more in some Latin American countries, and sometimes in Argentina in particular, as shown in dictionary entries on WordReference for “early retirement”.
• Prejubilación – Often used when a company and an employee agree on an early exit package before the normal age.
• Dejar de trabajar antes de la edad de jubilación – A plain description that fits any informal chat.

In many settings, jubilación anticipada and retiro anticipado can appear side by side with almost the same meaning. The word choice often depends on the country and how formal the situation feels.

Core Vocabulary For Early Retirement In Spanish

Spanish Term	English Sense	Use In Context
jubilación anticipada	early retirement	Formal term in laws, forms, and pension letters.
retiro anticipado	early retirement	Common in Latin America and informal speech.
prejubilación	early retirement package	Company agreement for older workers leaving earlier.
pensión de jubilación	retirement pension	Monthly payment received after retiring.
edad de jubilación	retirement age	Legal age for a full pension.
años cotizados	years of contributions	Years paying into the pension system.
coeficientes reductores	reduction coefficients	Percent cuts applied when you retire early.
pensiones reducidas	reduced pensions	Pensions lowered because of early retirement.
solicitar la jubilación	apply for retirement	Verb phrase used in applications and meetings.

These words form the backbone of any conversation about retiring early. Once they feel familiar, you can understand letters from pension offices more easily and adjust your own stories in Spanish without sounding stiff.

Early Retirement In Spanish Phrases For Everyday Use

Beyond vocabulary lists, you need full sentences. This section gives phrases you can adapt during calls with officials, visits to financial institutions, or relaxed chats with friends and neighbours.

Talking About Your Plans

Here are simple ways to say that you want or expect to retire early. You can swap the age, country, or reason to match your life:

• Quiero jubilarme a los 60 años. – I want to retire at 60.
• Me gustaría dejar de trabajar antes de la edad legal de jubilación. – I would like to stop working before the legal retirement age.
• Estoy ahorrando para poder acogerme a la jubilación anticipada. – I am saving so I can take early retirement.
• Si todo sale bien, me retiraré unos años antes. – If everything goes well, I will retire a few years early.

Notice how verbs such as jubilarse, dejar de trabajar, and retirarse carry the main meaning. You can combine them with time expressions and age to create very detailed statements.

Explaining Your Reasons For Retiring Early

Many people stop working early because of health, stress, or family responsibilities. Spanish has short phrases that express these ideas without drama:

• Quiero pasar más tiempo con mi familia. – I want to spend more time with my family.
• Mi trabajo es muy duro y necesito un cambio. – My job is very hard and I need a change.
• Tengo problemas de salud y prefiero jubilarme antes. – I have health problems and prefer to retire early.
• Después de tantos años, quiero dedicarme a otros proyectos personales. – After so many years, I want to focus on other personal projects.

With these lines, you can answer the classic question “¿Y por qué tan pronto?” without falling silent or switching back to English.

Talking About Rules, Pensions, And Numbers

Whenever you speak with officials, you will probably need words for contributions and pension amounts. Institutions such as the Administración del Seguro Social explain in Spanish how early claims affect Social Security retirement benefits, and Spain’s Seguridad Social gives details on años cotizados and reductions in its benefits pages in Spanish. To ask clear questions, phrases like these help a lot:

• ¿Qué pasa con mi pensión si me jubilo antes? – What happens to my pension if I retire early?
• ¿Cuántos años cotizados necesito para la jubilación anticipada? – How many years of contributions do I need for early retirement?
• ¿Qué porcentaje me descuentan por cada año que adelanto la jubilación? – What percentage do they reduce for each year I bring retirement forward?
• Quiero ver una simulación de mi pensión si me retiro dos años antes. – I want to see a simulation of my pension if I retire two years early.

Being able to form questions like these helps you combine language practice with real decisions about dates and money.

Grammar Tips For Early Retirement Vocabulary

You do not need advanced grammar books to talk about retiring early in Spanish. A few patterns cover most real situations. This section shows you how to handle gender, age, and common verb forms.

Nouns, Gender, And Articles

The main nouns you saw earlier follow regular patterns:

• la jubilación anticipada – feminine noun with a feminine adjective.
• el retiro anticipado – masculine noun with a masculine adjective.
• la pensión de jubilación – feminine noun, often followed by a preposition.

In practice, this means you say esta jubilación anticipada (this early retirement, feminine) but este retiro anticipado (this early retirement, masculine). If you match the article and adjective to the noun, native speakers will understand you even if your accent is strong.

Talking About Age And Contributions

Early retirement often appears in sentences with numbers: years of age and years of payments into the system. Official pages such as Spain’s guide to prestaciones y pensiones de la Seguridad Social describe these conditions in dense language. You can express similar ideas in simpler form:

• Me quiero jubilar a los 63 años. – I want to retire at 63.
• Tengo 37 años cotizados en el sistema. – I have 37 years of contributions in the system.
• Solo me faltan tres años para la edad de jubilación. – I am only three years away from the retirement age.
• Con mis años cotizados, la pensión será suficiente. – With my years of contributions, the pension will be enough.

Use a los X años for age, and años cotizados to talk about how long you have paid into the scheme.

Expressing Intentions And Conditions

To describe what you plan to do, Spanish often uses verbs like querer, pensar, ir a, and conditional forms such as me jubilaría (I would retire). Here are a few patterns that fit almost any early retirement scenario:

• Me jubilaría antes si tuviera más ahorros. – I would retire earlier if I had more savings.
• Voy a seguir trabajando unos años más. – I am going to keep working a few more years.
• Quiero combinar la jubilación parcial con un trabajo ligero. – I want to combine partial retirement with light work.

Once you are comfortable with these structures, you can describe not only your current plan but also the conditions that would lead you to change it.

Sample Sentences By Situation

Situation	Spanish Sentence	English Translation
Telling a friend about your plan	Si todo marcha bien, me jubilaré cinco años antes.	If everything goes well, I will retire five years early.
At a pension office	Quisiera saber qué requisitos tiene la jubilación anticipada.	I would like to know what requirements early retirement has.
Talking to a financial adviser	Necesito calcular cómo cambiaría mi pensión con el retiro anticipado.	I need to calculate how my pension would change with early retirement.
Explaining a previous decision	Me prejubilé porque la empresa ofreció buenas condiciones.	I took early retirement because the company offered good terms.
Describing family plans	Mi pareja piensa jubilarse pronto y vivir en otro país.	My partner plans to retire soon and live in another country.
Negotiating with an employer	Estoy dispuesto a aceptar una prejubilación si el acuerdo es claro.	I am willing to accept an early retirement package if the deal is clear.
Checking details by phone	Quiero confirmar la edad mínima para acogerme a la jubilación anticipada.	I want to confirm the minimum age to take early retirement.

You can treat this table as a mini phrasebook. Change the age, number of years, or reason, and you already have sentences suitable for calls, emails, or meetings in Spanish.

Putting Early Retirement Spanish Into Conversation

Once you understand the terms and structures, short dialogues help everything stick. Here is a simple chat between two friends talking about retiring early:

Carlos: ¿A qué edad te quieres jubilar?
Lucía: Si puedo, a los 62. Me gustaría acogerme a la jubilación anticipada.
Carlos: ¿No te preocupa que la pensión sea más baja?
Lucía: Un poco, pero tengo bastantes ahorros y quiero tiempo libre.

And here is a more formal example at a pension office:

Funcionario: Buenos días, ¿en qué puedo ayudarle?
Usted: Buenos días. Quiero información sobre la jubilación anticipada.
Funcionario: De acuerdo. ¿Cuántos años cotizados tiene?
Usted: Treinta y ocho años, todos en el mismo sistema.
Funcionario: Entonces podemos revisar una simulación de su pensión si se retira dos años antes.

Reading these short exchanges aloud trains your ear for normal speed and common patterns. You also become more ready for real-life versions at a bank window or government office.

Next Steps For Building Your Early Retirement Spanish

To move from recognition to fluency, give yourself regular contact with this vocabulary. One simple routine is to write a short paragraph every week in Spanish about your retirement plans: when you would like to stop working, where you would like to live, and how you picture your days. Reuse phrases such as jubilarme a los X años, años cotizados, and pensión de jubilación.

You can also read real documents in Spanish. The Seguridad Social in Spain explains conditions for different types of jubilación, while the Administración del Seguro Social and USA.gov give guides in Spanish for people who want to calculate U.S. Social Security retirement benefits. Even if you do not live in those countries, the vocabulary in these pages is clear and reusable.

Finally, try using these phrases in conversation. Talk with Spanish-speaking friends about when they would like to retire, ask teachers or language partners to correct your sentences, and repeat the lines from this article until they feel natural. Early retirement is a big life change, and having the right Spanish for it gives you more control over how you explain your plans wherever you decide to live.