Retiring at 60 with all your quarters requires meeting specific conditions, related both to the duration of insurance and the nature of the accumulated quarters. The legal retirement age has been raised by the reform, so retiring before this age necessarily involves a derogatory scheme, the most common of which remains the early retirement for long careers.
Validated quarters and contributed quarters: a distinction that changes everything at 60
The confusion between these two concepts regularly blocks early retirement applications. A validated quarter includes all the quarters recorded on the career statement, regardless of their origin: employee contributions, periods of compensated unemployment, sick leave, military service, child-rearing increases.
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A contributed quarter, on the other hand, only covers periods that have resulted in actual contributions on a salary or professional income. For the long career scheme, the condition mainly concerns contributed quarters, not broadly validated quarters.
In practice, a person who has enough validated quarters to meet the required insurance duration may still be denied retirement at 60 if too large a portion of those quarters comes from assimilated periods (unemployment, illness). As detailed in articles published on Gagnez Net, checking the distribution between contributed and validated quarters on one’s statement is the first step before any projection of retirement date.
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Long career: conditions for early retirement at 60
The long career scheme allows for retirement before the legal age under two cumulative conditions: having started working early (before the end of the calendar year of turning 20 for retirement at 60) and justifying a sufficient duration of contributed insurance.
The condition of starting work
To qualify for retirement at 60, one must have validated at least four or five quarters (depending on the birth date and exact age of starting work) before the end of the calendar year of their 20th birthday. The quarters considered at this stage include contributed quarters, but also certain periods of national service.
The required duration of contributed insurance
The required duration of insurance depends on the year of birth. It generally corresponds to the duration required for the full rate of the concerned generation, sometimes increased by one or two quarters. Periods of compensated unemployment are capped in this calculation: only four quarters of unemployment maximum can be counted as quarters deemed contributed for the long career.
This capping penalizes career paths marked by long employment interruptions, even if the total number of validated quarters seems sufficient on the statement.
What changes on September 1, 2026, for retiring at 60
Two recent developments significantly modify the conditions for accessing the long career scheme, particularly for insured individuals born in 1964 and 1965.
- The required duration of insurance is readjusted downwards starting September 1, 2026, making early retirement accessible to profiles that would have been excluded under previous criteria.
- Up to two quarters related to children can now be included in the calculation of the long career. This measure opens the scheme to more mothers (and fathers) whose account of deemed contributed quarters was insufficient.
- The rules for considering periods of unemployment and illness remain capped, but the combination with child-related quarters may be enough to bridge the gap for some borderline cases.
For individuals born after 1965, the final criteria have not yet all been published. Checking one’s career statement on the Retirement Insurance website remains the most reliable way to know one’s individual situation.
Progressive retirement at 60: working less without waiting for the legal age
Progressive retirement is an alternative for those who do not meet the criteria for a long career but wish to reduce their activity starting at 60. This scheme allows one to receive a fraction of their pension while continuing to work part-time.
The access conditions require having reached the legal age reduced by two years and justifying a minimum duration of insurance. The amount of the pension paid is proportional to the reduction in working hours: part-time work generates the payment of about half of the calculated pension.
The contributed quarters during progressive retirement count towards the calculation of the final pension. At the time of definitive retirement, the pension is recalculated to include these last quarters, which can improve the final amount compared to a complete cessation of activity.
Check your career statement before taking any steps
Errors on career statements are not uncommon: missing quarters related to a vanished employer, periods of military service not recorded, child-rearing quarters absent. Each missing quarter can delay the retirement date by three months.
The statement can be viewed online on the Retirement Insurance website or via the Info Retraite portal. In case of an anomaly, a request for correction should be initiated several months before the desired retirement date, as processing times can exceed six months depending on the funds.
Checking this as early as 55 allows time to correct any potential errors and consider, if necessary, repurchasing quarters for higher education or incomplete years. The cost of repurchasing varies according to age and income, but it is comparable to the cumulative pension loss over several years of delay.
Retiring at 60 with all your quarters remains accessible, provided you know precisely the nature of each quarter recorded on your statement and verify your eligibility for the long career scheme as it will apply to your generation.