Requesting a refund of an overpayment of contributions

An overpayment is a contribution paid without legal reason. It can arise if you pay contributions at a higher amount than required by law or you pay at a time when you are not required to pay (e.g. during incapacity for work). The contribution thus paid does not belong to the Social Insurance Agency and must therefore be refunded to you.

I have made an overpayment, how do I proceed?

If you have made an overpayment, the Social Insurance Agency will refund it to you:

on its own initiative if it discovers the overpayment when checking the payments; or
upon written request.

If you decide to request a refund of the overpayment,

your request must include:

your identification details (name and surname, permanent address, variable symbol, birth number);
the method of refunding the overpayment – whether it should be paid by postal order or paid into an account (in this case, please also indicate the bank account number).

The Social Insurance Agency is obliged to refund the overpayment within 60 days after its discovery (if the overpayment is EUR 5 or more in total), or within 30 days after receipt of a written request.

IMPORTANT INFORMATION:

The right to a refund of contributions expires ten years after the last day of the calendar month in which the payment in question was credited to the Social Insurance Agency account.

Yes, in the case of a claim against the Social Insurance Agency, your overpayment will be used by the Social Insurance Agency to set off its claim by law.

Example

If the Social Insurance Agency registers a claim (outstanding contribution) against you with, for example, EUR 25.00 for the month of January and, at the same time, you have a contribution overpayment of EUR 10.00, the Social Insurance Agency will not refund the overpayment, but will charge it to your January account. The balance of your debt after setting off the claim will be EUR 15.00.

Please note, in any event, that contribution overpayments cannot be taken into account when assessing entitlement to individual social benefits, as they are contributions paid without legal reason.

How can I avoid contribution overpayments?

Check your contribution amounts regularly! Find out how to do this in the section: Check whether I pay the correct contributions.

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