Overview

• Around 500,000 German pensioners living abroad or holding foreign bank accounts received the annual life-certificate forms in June and July.
• Retirees in countries such as Belgium, Italy and Spain benefit from automatic death-record exchange and are exempt from manually submitting a certificate.
• Certificates can be submitted digitally with a personal QR code via the Renten Service platform or returned in paper form through Deutsche Post.
• Pensions will be suspended on November 30 for missing certificates after the October 17 deadline and permanently halted if not received by April 2026.
• The DRV has clarified that most pensioners residing in Germany are unaffected and that social media reports suggesting otherwise are incorrect.