The Czech pension insurance system has reported a deficit of 11.7 billion crowns in the first quarter of 2025, marking a significant improvement compared to previous years. While still in the red, the deficit has more than halved from the 23.4 billion recorded last year.
In a positive development, the system logged its highest-ever quarterly revenue, reaching nearly 169.1 billion crowns. Meanwhile, pension and administrative expenses totaled approximately 180.8 billion crowns, showing a slight decrease of 1.4 billion from the previous year.
The Czech Social Security Administration manages a substantial portfolio of pensions, including 2.37 million retirement pensions, 415,600 disability pensions, and 65,300 widow, widower, and orphan pensions. The average retirement pension currently stands at 20,680 crowns.
Recent reforms have begun to show their impact. The government has implemented stricter rules for early retirement and introduced a new pension reform this year. While the calculation of new pensions is gradually decreasing, minimum pensions have been set at 20% of the average wage.
Despite these improvements, experts note that the system hasn’t recorded a first-quarter surplus since 2013, with the lowest deficit of 0.6 billion crowns observed in 2019 during the economic peak.