Altersvorsorgedepot: What is already certain and why you shouldn’t act rashly now

Five points for people with 30 seconds to spare

1. Riester is being phased out. From 1 January 2027 there will be no new Riester contracts, the Altersvorsorgedepot takes over. The law has been passed.
2. The subsidy is simple and strong. 50 cents from the state for every euro on the first 30 euros of monthly contribution, up to 540 euros basic allowance a year, 300 euros per child on top, a 200-euro bonus for everyone under 25.
3. The self-employed and members of professional pension schemes are finally included. Freelancers, business owners, doctors, lawyers, architects. Around four million more people, eligible in their own right for the first time.
4. No more compulsory guarantee. Your money can really work in funds and ETFs.
5. Already have a Riester contract? Existing rights are protected, nothing is pressing. Switching is a one-way street and can even lower your subsidy. Do the maths first, then decide.

The long version, for one or two cups of coffee.

Why shouldn’t you act rashly? Because there simply aren’t any products yet. But the usual suspects are already collecting addresses, advertising with bonuses and, without any factual explanation, would love you to make the fateful click today and transfer something. That has nothing to do with advice. It is exploiting a trend, and I consider it irresponsible.

There is no call for panic. You have all the time in the world. Let’s use it and sort the subject out. What is really certain, what is open, and where is it worth thinking ahead now?

What has been decided

The law is through. The Bundestag passed the reform in March 2026, the Bundesrat approved it in May. That ends the Riester world for new contracts. Anyone who still wants to take one out can only do so until December 2026; from 1 January 2027, the Altersvorsorgedepot starts.

Behind it are three product routes, and they differ more than the advertising will later admit.

The standard product is deliberately simple. At most two funds, a reduction in yield of at most 1.0 per cent a year, no guarantee (it isn’t even permitted there). Every provider who wants to offer other variants has to carry it.

The investment account solution is the free route. A wide choice of ETFs and funds, or a savings plan under discretionary management, with no cost cap; guarantees are possible via the fund company.

The unit-linked policy is the route via the insurer. Well-known plans with a wide fund selection, optionally without a guarantee or with an 80 or 100 per cent contribution guarantee, with no cost cap.

So the contribution guarantee is no longer compulsory. Those who want it choose it in the policy or the investment account; those who don’t need it let their money work without a brake. It is exactly this brake that cost many Riester contracts their return. The 100 per cent guarantee forced the money into low-yielding paper or partially successful guarantee models.

One detail I personally like a lot. Acquisition costs may no longer be taken upfront from the first contributions, they are spread over the entire term. No zillmerisation, so no contract that works only for the intermediary in its first years.

The payout is regulated too. From 65 at the earliest, up to 30 per cent in one go, the rest as a payout plan until at least 85 or as a lifelong annuity.

The subsidy, worked through once

The new logic is pleasingly simple. For every euro you pay in, the state adds something on top:

• On the first 30 euros a month, you get 50 per cent. You pay 360 euros a year, the state adds 180 euros.
• From the 31st to the 150th euro a month, you get 25 per cent. Anyone who saves the full 1,800 euros a year receives a total of 540 euros basic allowance. (50 per cent on 360 euros plus 25 per cent on 1,440 euros.)
• Each child adds 300 euros a year on top. The full child allowance is available from a monthly contribution of just 25 euros. So here the state puts in exactly as much as you do. And unlike with Riester, the rate applies uniformly to every child eligible for child benefit; the old sliding scale, under which children born before 2008 brought only 185 euros, is gone.

One point makes the system even better than its predecessor. The allowances come on top and are not offset against your own contribution, as they are with Riester. Two small things in passing. To get the subsidy, you have to pay in at least 120 euros a year, which is 10 euros a month. And anyone who signs up before their 25th birthday gets a one-off career-starter bonus of 200 euros.

Then tax, the second engine of this product. You deduct your contributions of up to 1,800 euros a year plus allowances as special expenses. The tax office runs a comparison (the Günstigerprüfung) to check whether the allowance or the tax advantage does more for you, and credits you the difference. On higher incomes, this tax advantage is often bigger than the allowance itself. In return, the pension is taxed later, at your tax rate in retirement, which is often lower than today’s.

Anyone who wants to put more aside can pay in up to 6,840 euros a year additionally, unsubsidised. That part runs like a third-layer product. Returns stay tax-free during the savings phase, a fund switch triggers no flat-rate withholding tax, and in retirement the taxable portion (Ertragsanteil) is taxed.

Then there is the Frühstart-Rente (early-start pension), a separate subject that is often confused with the child allowance. From 2027, the state pays 10 euros a month of its own accord into a separate investment account for children between 6 and 18, but only for birth years from 2020 onwards. Parents and grandparents may top it up.

The self-employed are finally in too

With Riester, the self-employed and business owners were left out for two decades; at best they got in indirectly via their spouse. The legislator has learnt from that. In the Altersvorsorgedepot, the self-employed, freelancers and business owners are eligible in their own right for the first time, and with them the members of the professional pension schemes, that is, doctors, dentists, lawyers, architects. Around four million people who until now had to watch from the sidelines.

The full circle of those directly eligible reads as follows. Those compulsorily insured under statutory pension insurance (employees and apprentices), members of professional pension schemes, civil servants, judges and soldiers, farmers and foresters in the agricultural pension fund, business owners and the self-employed with income from business operations or self-employment.

Not directly included are pensioners and retired civil servants, students, people not in employment and, this is the trap for many of my clients, shareholder-managing directors of a GmbH who are exempt from social insurance. A managing director draws a salary, not income from business operations or self-employment, and that is exactly what the legislator ties the subsidy to. For this group, the indirect route remains. If your spouse or registered partner is directly eligible and you both have your own contract, you get the allowances too.

With that, state-subsidised retirement provision is worthwhile for the self-employed for the first time, and in a consistently investment-oriented product rather than a guarantee straitjacket. If you are self-employed and had, rightly, ticked off the subject of subsidies until now, then you are in now too. Let’s talk.

Already have a Riester contract?
Read this part twice.

First the good news. Your existing contract has statutory grandfathering. Nobody cancels anything on you, nobody converts anything, your savings stay where they are. There is no deadline chasing you.

Then the three routes open to you. You can switch the subsidy (your contract stays as it is, with all guarantees and terms, but gets the new, often higher allowances). You can transfer your capital into an Altersvorsorgedepot (a new contract, with new opportunities but without your old guarantees, and the transfer can take many months). Or you leave the Riester contract resting and, from 2027, additionally pay into the new investment account.

The switch is a one-way street. Once switched, there is no way back into the Riester subsidy. In some constellations, the subsidy actually falls as a result of the switch. Take a parent who today gets basic and child allowances with the minimum contribution of 60 euros a year. In the new system, that takes 300 euros of own contribution a year. Anyone who simply switches without adjusting the contribution gets less from the state afterwards than before.

That is exactly why the bonus advertising worries me. The click at an online provider is made in no time. Whether it fits your contract, your guarantees and your family situation is another matter entirely, and it cannot be undone.

What nobody can honestly say yet

The actual products are not expected until this autumn. Nobody knows the costs today. Nobody knows the terms of the payout products. Nobody can seriously compare, me included. Anyone who wants to sell you ‘the best Altersvorsorgedepot’ today is selling you something they cannot know.

So my advice is not an either/or. No knee-jerk action, but no ducking away either. The subsidy logic is settled, you know your figures, and whether waiting, switching or transferring pays off for you can already be calculated cleanly today.

Want to put your Riester contract on the table for that, or find out whether the Altersvorsorgedepot fits into your system? Then book an appointment before you click anywhere.