How to confirm work experience for a pension? Basic methods

In what cases is it necessary to confirm work experience?

The need to confirm work experience arises when a citizen retires. Depending on the years of work, the labor pension is calculated, and its size is determined.

Elena Smirnova

Pension lawyer, ready to answer your questions.

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Before the pension reform, which began in 2002, length of service was the main indicator for pension calculations. And after the innovations, the main factor became the insurance period and the amount of monthly contributions to the Pension Fund.

However, for persons whose working activity began in the pre-reform years, length of work experience remains an important indicator. It is equivalent to modern insurance experience, with points accrued for each year worked on the principle of valorization - converting years worked into the monetary value of insurance premiums.

In some cases, having a certain amount of work experience makes it possible to retire early, before a person reaches retirement age. This applies to a number of specialties with particularly difficult working conditions:

• MORF military personnel.
• Workers in hot shops.
• Workers in industries with harmful and hazardous working conditions.
• Employees of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, FSB, Ministry of Emergency Situations, National Guard and other federal departments, with paramilitary conditions of service.

The length of service, in addition to the actual time of work in production or service in an institution, includes:

• Conscript service in the army.
• Caring for a newborn baby.
• Caring for an incapacitated disabled person.
• Time spent on registration in the central registration center.
• For spouses of military personnel, the length of service includes time spent living in remote garrisons where employment was impossible.
• The term of imprisonment if the citizen was later rehabilitated.

Thus, confirmation of work experience will be relevant for all persons whose working life began before 2002. — before the introduction of a point system for calculating pension payments.

In addition, the number of years worked in production also affects the amount of a number of social benefits - for example, when paying sick leave, or calculating maternity payments during pregnancy. In addition, some employers impose conditions for job applicants, among which a frequently encountered requirement is that they have a certain amount of work experience in the proposed specialty.

What is included in the insurance period

The Law on Insurance Pensions divides the length of service into two periods.

First. Periods of employment of employees who are entitled to receive an insurance pension:

• citizens of the Russian Federation insured in the compulsory insurance system;
• foreign citizens and stateless persons who permanently live in the territory of our country and pay contributions to the Pension Fund from their salaries.

The work could be performed both on the territory of the Russian Federation and abroad.

Second. Periods of “non-working” activity that are taken into account when assigning a pension and are included in the length of service:

• military and fire services, service in the police department, drug control agencies, etc.;
• temporary disability and receiving benefits from the social fund. insurance;
• caring for a child up to one and a half years old, but not more than 6 years in total (only one parent is included in the length of service);
• being registered with the employment service and receiving benefits, participating in public works;
• being in custody (applies only to people who were unjustifiably detained and convicted, and then acquitted and rehabilitated);
• caring for a disabled child, a disabled person of the 1st group and an elderly person over 80 years old;
• living with a husband/wife who served under a contract in an area where there was no opportunity to find a job (no more than 5 years of experience);
• living with a husband/wife who worked in representative offices of our institutions abroad (no more than 5 years of experience);
• exercise of judicial powers by judges.

The listed periods are taken into account when calculating length of service if there were periods of work from point 1 before or after them.

09.08.2019

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Ways to confirm work experience

The main way to confirm work experience today is a special document that displays all the information about a citizen’s work activity - a work book. In recent years, there have been numerous conversations about the need to transfer these paper documents into electronic format and enter them into a common data system.

But, as of 2021, such a transfer has not been made, and entries in the work book still remain the main way for an employee to confirm his length of service. However, a paper book is not durable and may become unusable or accidentally get lost. What are the possibilities for confirming work experience in this case?

Methods and procedure for confirming work experience

Work experience is one of the main conditions for obtaining the right to a pension, which also affects its size. When applying for a pension, citizens provide documents indicating that the person has worked a certain number of years at a particular enterprise.

The basic rules for confirming work experience are set out in

Federal Law of December 28, 2013 N 400-FZ (as amended on March 6, 2019) “On Insurance Pensions” Article 14. Calculation rules and procedure for confirming the insurance period1. When calculating the insurance period, the periods provided for in Articles 11 and 12 of this Federal Law are until the citizen is registered as an insured person in accordance with Federal Law No. 27-FZ of April 1, 1996 “On individual (personalized) registration in the compulsory pension insurance system” are confirmed on the basis of individual (personalized) accounting information for the specified period and (or) documents issued by employers or relevant state (municipal) bodies in the manner established by the legislation of the Russian Federation. 2. When calculating the insurance period, the periods provided for in Articles 11 and 12 of this Federal Law, after registration of a citizen as an insured person in accordance with the Federal Law of April 1, 1996 N 27-FZ “On individual (personalized) registration in the compulsory pension system insurance" are confirmed on the basis of individual (personalized) accounting information. 3. When calculating the insurance period, the periods of work on the territory of the Russian Federation, provided for in Article 11 of this Federal Law, before registering a citizen as an insured person in accordance with the Federal Law of April 1, 1996 N 27-FZ “On individual (personalized) accounting in the system compulsory pension insurance" can be established on the basis of the testimony of two or more witnesses if work documents are lost due to a natural disaster (earthquake, flood, hurricane, fire and the like) and it is impossible to restore them. In some cases, it is possible to establish length of service based on the testimony of two or more witnesses in the event of loss of documents and for other reasons (due to careless storage, intentional destruction and similar reasons) not through the fault of the employee. The nature of the work is not confirmed by witness testimony. 4. The rules for calculating and confirming the insurance period, including using electronic documents or based on testimony, are established in the manner determined by the Government of the Russian Federation.

Documentary using official documents of citizens. In this order, you can confirm all types of work experience: general, continuous, insurance.

Witness's testimonies. This method is used in the absence or shortage of official documents, it is auxiliary, with its help only the period of the citizen’s total length of service is proven.

The rules for documenting length of service are divided, in turn, into 2 stages:

Before registering as an insured person on the basis of N 27-FZ “On individual (personalized) registration in the compulsory pension insurance system”, they are confirmed on the basis of individual (personalized) registration information.

Based on the Federal Law “On Labor Pensions,” the procedure for calculating the length of service earned by citizens during different periods of their working life is regulated. All established facts are confirmed in the form of various documents, which are stored in the prescribed manner at the place of work.

How to confirm your experience?

The procedure for restoring information about experience is regulated by the provisions of Government Resolution No. 1015, adopted in 2014. It spells out the necessary actions in case of loss of official documents or the presence of a certain work experience. According to this resolution, there are two main methods of confirmation:

• Documentary - when information is confirmed by extracts and copies of official documents indicating that this citizen was on the staff of the organization, served in a military unit, etc.
• Testimony of witnesses . They are accepted for consideration only in the absence of official documents, or as additional evidence when calculating the duration of work.

What will you need?

The procedure for a citizen who needs to obtain certain evidence of work experience is determined by current regulations and consists of the following steps:

1. Drawing up an application for the need to obtain documents and certificates confirming work experience. Submitted to the former employer.
2. Obtaining appropriate confirmation from the archives. If no documents have been preserved in the archives, you will need to obtain a certificate about this. If data about an employee is lost due to the fault of the employer, he must provide an explanation. If the documentation is destroyed as a result of certain force majeure circumstances, the organization submits a certificate of the incident that occurred - fire, flood, etc.
3. If it is impossible to obtain supporting documentation, the only way out is to provide testimony.

Necessary documentation and certificates

In a situation where the HR department of an enterprise or the employee himself has lost his work book, the following documentation is allowed to be used as confirmation of work experience:

• An employment contract concluded with the employee.
• Any certificates issued by the human resources department signed by the head of the organization.
• Extracts from internal orders for the enterprise.
• Documentation on the calculation and issuance of wages, vacation pay, maternity and other payments passing through the organization’s accounting department.
• Copies of payment documents confirming the employer’s transfer to the tax service, pension, medical and social funds of payments for this employee.
• Certificates from the military commissariat or military unit where the citizen served.
• Certificate from the social insurance fund regarding payment of sick leave benefits.
• Characteristics issued by the management of an enterprise to its employee.
• Certificate of a member of a trade union organization with notes on the payment of trade union dues for a certain period of time.

Step by Step Actions

The entire procedure for confirming work experience consists of several stages. To do this, first of all, you will need to contact your former employer. All information relating to each specific employee must be stored in the archives of the enterprise for a clearly established period of time, after which it is transferred for storage to the city archives.

When five years have not yet passed since the employee’s dismissal, you should contact the company’s human resources department for supporting documentation. After this period, it goes to the city archives.

Proof

If a citizen worked at an enterprise on a general basis, then if he loses his work book, he can request the above documents as supporting documents: a copy of the employment contract, extracts from orders, etc. But in a number of cases, there are types of activities in which there is no work book as the main document confirming experience and qualifications. All these cases are provided for by current legislation:

• Fulfillment of labor duties on the basis of a civil law agreement. In this situation, the time from the moment the contract is signed until its expiration is counted.
• For individual entrepreneurs and farmers, the proof document will be a certificate from the Federal Tax Service or the Pension Fund of the Russian Federation about making tax and pension payments within a certain time frame.
• Employees of the Armed Forces, the Ministry of Internal Affairs and other paramilitary services that do not require work records can confirm their length of service with certificates from military commissariats and unit personnel departments.

Witness's testimonies

If it is impossible to find any documentary evidence of work in a certain organization, a citizen, to confirm his case, has the right to attract two witnesses. This right is stated in Federal Law No. 173 of 2001. They may be persons who previously worked with the citizen at the same enterprise at the same time.

Witness testimony can be used to confirm work experience in a variety of organizations that maintain personal records of citizens - a branch of the Pension Fund of Russia, at an enterprise that requires information about a previous place of work.

To do this, submit an application supported by the following documents:

• Confirmation of the fact of loss or damage to the work book due to the fault of the employee - fire, natural disaster or careless storage.
• If a document is lost due to the fault of the employer, an explanatory note from the HR department is provided.
• When documents are not found in the city/district archive, you should present a certificate about this issued by the archive employees.

Witnesses, before giving evidence, must present documents confirming their identity, as well as the fact of work (service) in a certain institution. In terms of time, the terms of their work must coincide with the time of work in the same organization of the citizen in whose favor they testify.

Requests to the archives

To confirm your work experience through the archives, you will need to fill out a specific application form. It is a form where you need to enter the following information:

• The name of the archive where the application is submitted.
• Individual details of the applicant - full name, date of birth.
• Address of residence and registration.
• The time period for which the applicant needs information.
• The name of the institution where the applicant worked and his position.
• The basis for issuing a certificate is, in this case, the loss of a work record book.
• At the bottom of the application is the date of preparation and signature.

Elena Smirnova

Pension lawyer, ready to answer your questions.

Ask me a question

You can submit an application during a personal visit to the institution, or with the help of the territorial MFC. Within two weeks, archive staff process the data and issue the applicant with the necessary certificates or extracts from documents.

What can be evidence?

When applying for a pension, a citizen’s length of service is calculated on the basis of the employee’s main document – ​​the work book.
They have always been maintained and are used today in all enterprises, regardless of their type of ownership, and are stored and accounted for by the company’s human resources department. They apply to workers who take permanent jobs, as well as seasonal, temporary, and freelance jobs. All entries are made in the book upon hiring in accordance with the Labor Code. The entries must match the text of the order. In addition, entries relating to personnel issues after the issuance of an order for the enterprise are made:

• about transfer to another position;
• about awards and incentives;
• about dismissal.

If for any reason the work book is missing, or the entries were made with inaccuracies or errors, then the following documents can be used as documents confirming the length of service:

• Employment contracts.
• Certificates issued by the HR department and confirmed by the head of the enterprise.
• Extracts from orders.
• Personal accounts and other accounting documents regarding the payment of wages.
• A document from the Pension Fund of the Russian Federation or the tax service on the payment of taxes and mandatory transfers.
• Certificate of payment of a single tax on imputed income of an individual entrepreneur, which is issued by the tax service.
• Certificates from the military registration and enlistment office, military unit, archive for military personnel.
• Certificate from the Social Insurance Fund regarding the period of payment of benefits due to temporary disability.
• Certificate from the employment center about receiving unemployment benefits, from the archive.
• Statements of payment of wages in cash.
• Characteristics of the employee during work.

Thus, official institutions have the right to issue certificates confirming the length of service of citizens in the absence of a work book. There are cases when citizens do not have any official documents. In this case, confirmation may include, for example, certificates of membership in a trade union organization confirming the fact that the employee has paid membership dues.

How is work experience confirmed through the court?

Since 1996 Russia has introduced a system of personal records of all employees, for the maintenance of which the Pension Fund is responsible. But until 1996 There was no unified pension record of employees, therefore, if a citizen loses his work book, he can confirm his length of service only through the judicial authorities. Before going to court, you will need to prepare the necessary documentation and evidence:

• Statement of claim.
• Personal documents.
• Witness's testimonies.
• Documentation directly or indirectly confirming the fact of work at the enterprise at such and such a time.

Preferential experience

Today, about ¼ of the population has the opportunity to receive a preferential pension. There are lists approved by Resolution of the Cabinet of Ministers of the USSR No. 10 dated January 26, 1991, according to which, under certain conditions, you can apply for a preferential pension. List No. 1 contains a list of particularly dangerous and harmful industries, list No. 2 contains heavy and harmful ones. According to the 1st list, the pension is assigned 10 years earlier than that established for the entire population if they have about 10 years of experience in the given industry. According to the second, you can receive a benefit in the form of 5 years of early retirement if you have 12.5 years of experience in heavy production.

Early assignment of old-age insurance pension

To confirm such a benefit, a large number of different papers are required. If the occupation record in the work book does not correspond to the unified tariff and qualification directory, then without additional confirmation you can forget about early retirement. May require:

• order for admission, transfer;
• staffing schedule;
• time sheet;
• payment and settlement papers.

For example, an entry in a work book reads “refrigeration unit operator.” It does not provide the right to a preferential pension. If there is an addition to this phrase “ammonia refrigeration”, the employee will be able to retire 5 years earlier.

To assign monthly old-age payments, you must not only reach a certain age, but also work the legal time required at the enterprise. How secure your well-deserved rest will be depends on your length of service. Often, just a work book is not enough to confirm the time of work. A large list of other papers is required.

Statement of claim for confirmation of experience

The restoration of lost work experience is within the jurisdiction of district or city courts - this is where the application should be submitted. The application is either written by hand or compiled on a computer and then printed on a printer. The structure of the statement is as follows:

1. In the upper right corner, a “header” is filled in, where the name of the court and the plaintiff’s passport details are indicated.
2. The main text contains information about the enterprise where the applicant worked. Hours of work and position he held.
3. Requirements for the court. In this case, please establish the fact of the length of service from the date of hiring to the date of dismissal.
4. The following is a list of documents and certificates attached to the application.
5. The application is certified by the personal signature of the submitter, and the date of its preparation is indicated.

Judicially

In 1996, a unified system of individual registration of the working population was introduced on the territory of the Russian Federation. The main function is performed by the pension fund, since it is there that information about insurance contributions for employees is received.

Thanks to this data, future pensions for citizens are subsequently calculated. Thus, all information about employment, the number of years worked and savings made is securely stored in the state system. There is no need to confirm work experience after 1996.

If necessary, you can confirm work before 1996, since not the entire period could be included in the pension program. This will require a trial, at the conclusion of which a decision will be made on the crediting of work experience in a particular organization. To go to court you will need the following package of documents:

• a statement requesting that specific periods of work be included in the length of service;
• certificates from the archives confirming employment with the company;
• any documents from the company (contracts, extracts, certificates of employment, salary statements, etc.);
• former colleagues who are ready to confirm the person’s employment.

All this will help confirm your length of service in the company, which will affect the change in pension calculation.

Further actions

All legal proceedings, according to the procedural legislation of the Russian Federation, are adversarial in nature. That is, in order to make a decision in favor of the applicant, a strong evidence base must be presented to the judge’s attention. In this situation, this may be indirect documentary evidence or testimony. Based on the results of the consideration, the judge makes a decision to satisfy the claim for reinstatement of length of service or to reject it.

If a positive decision is made, the plaintiff submits a copy of it to the territorial branch of the Pension Fund, on the basis of which the employees make adjustments to the citizen’s personal data.

Help for confirmation

The main bodies that can confirm work experience are the pension fund and the archive, where you can apply with a written application. The document can be drawn up either in free form or according to an established template.

In the paper, it is important to note what specific period of work needs to be confirmed and the full name of the organization. Since the letter has an official status, it is worth indicating in whose name it is being written and for what purpose. An example of an application to the archive is given below.

Features of confirmation of experience during the liquidation of an organization

Another difficulty arises for citizens when they need to confirm their work experience in a defunct organization. To do this, you should contact the tax authorities. Where to find out whether a closed organization has a legal successor. It is also possible that the company merged with another organization. In such a situation, all archival documentation should be located in these organizations.

If there is no successor company, data on former employees should be in the archive. Depending on the level of subordination of the enterprise, all its documentation during liquidation is transferred to the municipal or regional archive. Information about where all the archival papers of the closed enterprise were transferred can be obtained from the same tax service.

Documentation

Confirmation of the working period are documents signed with the employer. Usually these are employment contracts and additional agreements to it, a completed work book, which contains records of admission, transfers and dismissal from work, certificates from the place of work.

In addition, these may be certificates of employee income, salary slips and documents for reporting to government bodies (pension fund, social insurance and tax police), certificates from the social insurance fund, bank accounts and cards, data from a personal account and individual insurance number.

In a word, all documents, certificates and extracts that, one way or another, reflect the presence of a person in a particular organization.

Confirmation of Soviet work experience

Another relevant case is how to confirm the presence of work experience from Soviet times, when there was neither a modern pension system nor personal registration of citizens. The only way to confirm this is an entry in the work book, or other documents from the place of previous work. If documents are lost, recognition of experience through the courts will be required.

To do this, you will need to collect the available evidence, including indirect documents and testimony of witnesses who previously worked with the applicant at the same enterprise. For example, until 1991 the only mandatory payments collected from every working citizen were contributions to state social insurance. Of course, it is difficult to find in the archives documentary evidence of payments made thirty years ago, but it is worth trying. In this case, you will receive 100% confirmation of work experience during Soviet times.

If you find an error, please select a piece of text and press Ctrl+Enter.

What documents confirm

The list of documents with which a pensioner can confirm periods of work is indicated in Government Decree No. 1015 of 10/02/2014. These are written contracts, certificates from employers or municipal authorities, GPC agreements (if insurance premiums were paid), extracts from orders, pay slips.

If you don’t have a work record book, you can prove your work experience for a pension in two ways:

• documentary;
• testimony.

Employment history

Check in advance that all entries in it are readable, without corrections. If there are inaccuracies, take care to confirm the disputed periods in advance so as not to encounter this after contacting the Pension Fund.

Treaties

If you have agreements in your hands from previous places of work, you don’t have to worry about how to confirm the entries in the work book, just show them to the Pension Fund as evidence. There are no special requirements for employment contracts, with the exception of one thing - compliance with the provisions of the labor law that were in force at the time of its conclusion. If PF employees refuse to include the period of work under a contract in the total length of service, such a refusal is unlawful and can be appealed in court.

Not only employment contracts are allowed to confirm periods of work. If you performed services or produced something under a GPC agreement, its validity period also adds length of service if insurance payments were transferred from the remuneration paid. The agreement itself and the document confirming the payment of contributions serve as confirmation.

Certificate from employer

If there is no record of any place of employment, contact your former employer for a certificate containing information about your activities in this organization. It is issued free of charge and certified by the manager. The issuance period is 3 days from the date of application.

What to do if the company is liquidated?

Pension Fund specialists will provide assistance in finding documents confirming service at a liquidated enterprise. To receive confirmation of work experience for a pension, write a corresponding application there. Upon liquidation of an enterprise, the documents are transferred to the legal successor, who will issue the necessary certificate at the request of the pension fund. In the absence of a successor, PF employees will contact the archive.

Another way

— request to the tax office directly or through the MFC. You will be given information about the successor or merger of this organization with another. In the same place, specify where the documents were transferred if there was no accession/successor.

How to make a request for work experience at an existing company

The application for establishing work experience must include the following information:

• position, full name of the addressee;
• information about the applicant: full name (including premarital or changed), date of birth;
• please confirm your experience with an archival certificate;
• division, period of work, position;
• list of attached documents;
• postal address with zip code to which the archived certificate will be sent;
• date of application, signature of the applicant.

Photocopies of the passport, work record book, and marriage registration certificate are attached to the application.

A sample request for work experience is available at this link.

Next, the request is registered and sent to the responsible person to issue a certificate. The specialist checks the information and issues the document to the applicant. Issuing a certificate is a socially significant service, for which there is no charge.

The document preparation period is 1 month from the moment a person applies for a certificate. If it is necessary to extend the application period, the organization notifies the applicant about this, indicating the reasons and the changed deadline for submitting the document.