Alicante, Málaga, Valencia, Barcelona: thousands of French retirees spend their retirement in Spain on a pension that France keeps paying. The pension itself travels smoothly —EU coordination sees to that—, but the paperwork does not: the moment the Oficina de Extranjería, a bank or any Spanish authority asks for proof of income, the documents arrive in French and require sworn translation by a MAEC-accredited translator. Here is the map of French pension documents and the Spanish procedures where they show up.
Who pays the pension: Assurance retraite and Agirc-Arrco
The French system rests on two pillars:
- State pension: managed by l'Assurance retraite, meaning the CNAV at national level and the regional CARSAT offices (Caisses d'assurance retraite et de la santé au travail). Functionally, the equivalent of Spain's INSS for the general scheme.
- Complementary pension: for private-sector employees, paid by Agirc-Arrco, the mandatory complementary scheme.
A typical French retiree therefore receives two pensions from two different bodies, each with its own documents. Keep that in mind when building a file: proving only the state pension leaves part of the real income out.
The relevé de carrière
The relevé de carrière is the French contribution record: a document issued by the CNAV/CARSAT listing, year by year, the periods worked, the income that generated contributions and the validated quarters (trimestres). It can be downloaded from the personal account at lassuranceretraite.fr or info-retraite.fr.
In Spain it is mostly requested in pension coordination files (where the person contributed in both countries, see below) and whenever a working life needs to be reconstructed. It is a long document, dense with technical terms (trimestres, régimes, salaires reportés) that the sworn translation must render precisely.
Titre de pension, notification de retraite and attestation de paiement
Three documents that are easily confused:
- Notification de retraite (also called titre de pension): the official document the pension fund sends automatically once the pension is settled. It proves the pension exists, since when, and for what awarded amount.
- Attestation de paiement: the statement of amounts actually paid over a period (3 months, 12 months...). Downloadable from the Assurance retraite personal account or info-retraite.fr. It is the standard proof of income requested by banks and authorities.
- Attestation fiscale: the annual summary of amounts, for tax filing purposes.
For a Spanish procedure requiring proof of means, the usual pair is notification de retraite + a recent attestation de paiement, both with sworn translation into Spanish.
The certificat de vie: the Spanish exception
French pension funds periodically ask their retirees living abroad for a certificat de vie (life certificate); if it is not returned on time, pension payments can be suspended. Through info-retraite.fr a single certificate covers all funds, and the "Mon certificat de vie" app validates it by biometric recognition, with no trip to an office.
The good news: France and Spain exchange death-record data automatically, so French retirees living in Spain are, in principle, exempt from the annual certificate. If your fund requests one anyway, answer within the deadline: the suspension is real.
The Spanish counterpart, when the roles are reversed, is the fe de vida y estado, issued free of charge by the Registro Civil.
Contributions in France and Spain: Regulation 883/2004
Anyone who worked in both countries loses nothing: Regulation (EC) 883/2004 requires the contribution periods completed in Member States to be aggregated when checking whether the minimum for pension entitlement is reached, after which each country pays the share proportional to the years contributed on its territory. A single application is filed with the body of the country of residence (the INSS for residents of Spain), which coordinates it with the French CARSAT. In these files, the relevé de carrière is the key piece.
Which Spanish procedures ask for translated versions
- EU citizen registration certificate: French nationals are EU citizens, so no visa of any kind is needed (forget the "non-lucrative visa" — it does not apply to them). Their procedure is registering with the Registro Central de Extranjeros, proving sufficient economic means —the French pension, precisely— and health coverage, which for pensioners is generally borne by the State paying the pension. Full guide: EU registration certificate.
- Non-EU family members: the residence card for family members of an EU citizen also requires proof of means, with the same documents.
- Tax office and banks: the Agencia Tributaria or a bank may ask for proof of the French pensions. For the tax treatment of a pension, speak to an adviser: this article is only about documents.
- Life in Spain: buying a home or getting married open their own files of French documents; we cover both in buying property in Spain as a French citizen and getting married in Spain as a French citizen.
In short
French pension documents form an ecosystem of their own —relevé de carrière, notification de retraite, attestation de paiement, plus the Agirc-Arrco set— and almost any Spanish procedure touching income will eventually require one of them with sworn translation FR→ES. At Textualia we translate these documents daily, with a MAEC-accredited sworn translator who is also registered with the Consulate General of France in Barcelona: tell us which procedure you are preparing and we will confirm, before starting, which pieces of the file actually need translation.