Life-course savings scheme

The life-course savings scheme is a statutory arrangement that gives each employee in the Netherlands the opportunity to save part of the gross salary tax-free in order to finance a period of unpaid leave in the future. You can use the life-course savings scheme for each form of unpaid leave:

In fact you save for extra leisure time. With the Life-course savings scheme, the government intends to enable people to better combine their work and private life. The introduction of the Life-course savings scheme is closely related to the abolishment of the VUT (early retirement) and the prepension arrangements including the FPU (flexible pension and retirement).

Life-course savings scheme and salary savings scheme

From 1 January 2006 you can deposit money in the Life-course savings scheme. Participation in the Life-course savings scheme is not obligatory. If you choose for the Life-course savings scheme, you cannot participate in the Salary savings scheme at the same time. From 1 January 2006, every year you can choose the scheme in which you wish to participate: the Salary savings scheme or the Life-course savings scheme. Because your situation and personal preferences may change, you are allowed to change schemes every year. Therefore you cannot deposit money in the two schemes in any one calendar year, but you may take up money from the two schemes in any one calendar year.

At the moment much is still unknown about the Life-course savings scheme. As a result of this, many staff members cannot yet state their choice between the Life-course savings scheme and the Salary savings scheme. For this reason recently a proposal has been made on the basis of which it is possible to postpone the choice for the salary savings scheme or the life-course savings scheme until later in 2006. Precisely how this will be done is still unknown. In the following newsletter we will inform you about this in more detail.

Financial contribution employer

The employer can contribute to the Life-course savings scheme. If the employer makes a financial contribution, this contribution must also be provided to employees not participating in the Life-course savings scheme. Whether or not university employers will also contribute, is currently unknown: the Life-course savings scheme is still the subject of debate in negotiations about collective labour agreements between the VSNU and the trade unions.

Collective contract

The employer can take out a collective contract with a financial institution offering life-course products (e.g. life-course savings). Participation in such a collective contract can have certain advantages, but is not obligatory. You are free to choose a life-course product from another financial institution. The UT is still in negotiation with several financial institutions. We hope to inform you in more detail about a collective insurance in the course of December.

When participating in the Life-course savings scheme, the employer and employee have to lay down in writing a number of matters. The Human Resources department will prepare a model agreement for this.

Over the next few months the Human Resources department will inform you about all the relevant developments relating to the Life-course savings scheme.

Click here for a detailed summary of the main elements of the Life-course savings scheme.