How to confirm your length of service for a pension: consultations with pensioners

Citizens retiring often face the problem of confirming their work experience for the 90s of the last century. Enterprises changed owners, many closed and new ones opened. There were situations when employers disappeared along with all the documentation of the enterprise, leaving their employees without the opportunity to confirm the length of service and earnings that are required to grant a pension. What should a person do if the work book is lost, the enterprise is liquidated, and there is practically no chance of finding documents in the archives?

Consultations on these issues were given by Evgenia Ochertarova, chief specialist-expert of the department for assessing the pension rights of insured persons of the OPFR in Buryatia.

In what cases is it necessary to confirm work experience?

The need to confirm work experience arises when a citizen retires. Depending on the years of work, the labor pension is calculated, and its size is determined.

Elena Smirnova

Pension lawyer, ready to answer your questions.

Ask me a question

Before the pension reform, which began in 2002, length of service was the main indicator for pension calculations. And after the innovations, the main factor became the insurance period and the amount of monthly contributions to the Pension Fund.

However, for persons whose working activity began in the pre-reform years, length of work experience remains an important indicator. It is equivalent to modern insurance experience, with points accrued for each year worked on the principle of valorization - converting years worked into the monetary value of insurance premiums.

In some cases, having a certain amount of work experience makes it possible to retire early, before a person reaches retirement age. This applies to a number of specialties with particularly difficult working conditions:

• MORF military personnel.
• Workers in hot shops.
• Workers in industries with harmful and hazardous working conditions.
• Employees of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, FSB, Ministry of Emergency Situations, National Guard and other federal departments, with paramilitary conditions of service.

The length of service, in addition to the actual time of work in production or service in an institution, includes:

• Conscript service in the army.
• Caring for a newborn baby.
• Caring for an incapacitated disabled person.
• Time spent on registration in the central registration center.
• For spouses of military personnel, the length of service includes time spent living in remote garrisons where employment was impossible.
• The term of imprisonment if the citizen was later rehabilitated.

Thus, confirmation of work experience will be relevant for all persons whose working life began before 2002. — before the introduction of a point system for calculating pension payments.

In addition, the number of years worked in production also affects the amount of a number of social benefits - for example, when paying sick leave, or calculating maternity payments during pregnancy. In addition, some employers impose conditions for job applicants, among which a frequently encountered requirement is that they have a certain amount of work experience in the proposed specialty.

Other cases

If we are not talking about the period of work, then the information can be confirmed:

• military service - a military ID and a certificate from the place of service are provided;
• care for the elderly and disabled - a certificate of cohabitation or confirmation of the disabled person (a member of his family) is provided, as well as an act drawn up by an employee of the Pension Fund on the spot;
• child care - birth certificate, information from the employer that parental leave was used, certificate of cohabitation from the housing organization;
• caring for a disabled child – child’s birth certificate, medical and social examination certificate;
• unemployed status with receipt of benefits - certificate from the employment service, etc.

It should be understood that caring for the disabled is taken into account in the length of service on the basis of personalized records maintained by the pension fund (Regulation No. 546 of 05/10/17).

However, if the departure actually takes place, but is not recorded anywhere, it is necessary to contact the Pension Fund as soon as possible and document it.

Ways to confirm work experience

The main way to confirm work experience today is a special document that displays all the information about a citizen’s work activity - a work book. In recent years, there have been numerous conversations about the need to transfer these paper documents into electronic format and enter them into a common data system.

But, as of 2021, such a transfer has not been made, and entries in the work book still remain the main way for an employee to confirm his length of service. However, a paper book is not durable and may become unusable or accidentally get lost. What are the possibilities for confirming work experience in this case?

HOW TO COMPLETE AN ARCHIVED REFERENCE

The organization draws up an archival certificate on its own letterhead in the prescribed form and includes information about the subject of the request (example 2).

At the end of the text of the certificate, it is necessary to indicate the archival codes and sheet numbers of the document storage units on the basis of which it was compiled. References to these documents are required, since without them the archival certificate has no legal force.

Salary information should be indicated separately for each month of accrual (the average annual and average monthly income should not be calculated). There is no need to make adjustments for inflation - all information must be provided in prices of the corresponding period, which can be stated in the text. If there is no information about the salary of a specific former employee, the figures should be taken from the staffing table for the period of interest.

How to confirm your experience?

The procedure for restoring information about experience is regulated by the provisions of Government Resolution No. 1015, adopted in 2014. It spells out the necessary actions in case of loss of official documents or the presence of a certain work experience. According to this resolution, there are two main methods of confirmation:

• Documentary - when information is confirmed by extracts and copies of official documents indicating that this citizen was on the staff of the organization, served in a military unit, etc.
• Testimony of witnesses . They are accepted for consideration only in the absence of official documents, or as additional evidence when calculating the duration of work.

What will you need?

The procedure for a citizen who needs to obtain certain evidence of work experience is determined by current regulations and consists of the following steps:

1. Drawing up an application for the need to obtain documents and certificates confirming work experience. Submitted to the former employer.
2. Obtaining appropriate confirmation from the archives. If no documents have been preserved in the archives, you will need to obtain a certificate about this. If data about an employee is lost due to the fault of the employer, he must provide an explanation. If the documentation is destroyed as a result of certain force majeure circumstances, the organization submits a certificate of the incident that occurred - fire, flood, etc.
3. If it is impossible to obtain supporting documentation, the only way out is to provide testimony.

Necessary documentation and certificates

In a situation where the HR department of an enterprise or the employee himself has lost his work book, the following documentation is allowed to be used as confirmation of work experience:

• An employment contract concluded with the employee.
• Any certificates issued by the human resources department signed by the head of the organization.
• Extracts from internal orders for the enterprise.
• Documentation on the calculation and issuance of wages, vacation pay, maternity and other payments passing through the organization’s accounting department.
• Copies of payment documents confirming the employer’s transfer to the tax service, pension, medical and social funds of payments for this employee.
• Certificates from the military commissariat or military unit where the citizen served.
• Certificate from the social insurance fund regarding payment of sick leave benefits.
• Characteristics issued by the management of an enterprise to its employee.
• Certificate of a member of a trade union organization with notes on the payment of trade union dues for a certain period of time.

Step by Step Actions

The entire procedure for confirming work experience consists of several stages. To do this, first of all, you will need to contact your former employer. All information relating to each specific employee must be stored in the archives of the enterprise for a clearly established period of time, after which it is transferred for storage to the city archives.

When five years have not yet passed since the employee’s dismissal, you should contact the company’s human resources department for supporting documentation. After this period, it goes to the city archives.

Proof

If a citizen worked at an enterprise on a general basis, then if he loses his work book, he can request the above documents as supporting documents: a copy of the employment contract, extracts from orders, etc. But in a number of cases, there are types of activities in which there is no work book as the main document confirming experience and qualifications. All these cases are provided for by current legislation:

• Fulfillment of labor duties on the basis of a civil law agreement. In this situation, the time from the moment the contract is signed until its expiration is counted.
• For individual entrepreneurs and farmers, the proof document will be a certificate from the Federal Tax Service or the Pension Fund of the Russian Federation about making tax and pension payments within a certain time frame.
• Employees of the Armed Forces, the Ministry of Internal Affairs and other paramilitary services that do not require work records can confirm their length of service with certificates from military commissariats and unit personnel departments.

Witness's testimonies

If it is impossible to find any documentary evidence of work in a certain organization, a citizen, to confirm his case, has the right to attract two witnesses. This right is stated in Federal Law No. 173 of 2001. They may be persons who previously worked with the citizen at the same enterprise at the same time.

Witness testimony can be used to confirm work experience in a variety of organizations that maintain personal records of citizens - a branch of the Pension Fund of Russia, at an enterprise that requires information about a previous place of work.

To do this, submit an application supported by the following documents:

• Confirmation of the fact of loss or damage to the work book due to the fault of the employee - fire, natural disaster or careless storage.
• If a document is lost due to the fault of the employer, an explanatory note from the HR department is provided.
• When documents are not found in the city/district archive, you should present a certificate about this issued by the archive employees.

Witnesses, before giving evidence, must present documents confirming their identity, as well as the fact of work (service) in a certain institution. In terms of time, the terms of their work must coincide with the time of work in the same organization of the citizen in whose favor they testify.

Requests to the archives

To confirm your work experience through the archives, you will need to fill out a specific application form. It is a form where you need to enter the following information:

• The name of the archive where the application is submitted.
• Individual details of the applicant - full name, date of birth.
• Address of residence and registration.
• The time period for which the applicant needs information.
• The name of the institution where the applicant worked and his position.
• The basis for issuing a certificate is, in this case, the loss of a work record book.
• At the bottom of the application is the date of preparation and signature.

Elena Smirnova

Pension lawyer, ready to answer your questions.

Ask me a question

You can submit an application during a personal visit to the institution, or with the help of the territorial MFC. Within two weeks, archive staff process the data and issue the applicant with the necessary certificates or extracts from documents.

Consideration of the case in court

After accepting the application for proceedings, the court schedules a hearing. At the preliminary stage, the court will evaluate the evidence already presented and pay attention to the need to present new ones. If a dispute about the right is discovered at any stage, a decision is made to leave the application without consideration. For the applicant, this means the need to file a claim.

The court's decision based on the results of consideration of the application to establish the fact of work (after entry into force) will become the basis for the occurrence of the legal consequences that the applicant expects.

Clarifying questions on the topic

Good afternoon. Please explain the difference between work experience and insurance experience. Thank you.

The insurance period is the period of work during which insurance contributions to the Pension Fund were paid for you. Work experience is the total duration of work activity.

Good afternoon. When applying for a pension, the employer did not confirm the length of service in the organization in 1999, despite the existing entry in the work book. The Pension Fund refused to include this period in the length of service for assigning a pension. What application should I make to court?

With a statement of claim for the inclusion of this period in the insurance period.

Hello! When assigning a husband's pension, the period of correctional labor is not included in the total length of service. “The period of work such and such is not included in the total and continuous work experience” - this is what is written in the work book. Where is the court decision? What is this entry based on? Can this be challenged in court? Thank you.

It all depends on the period when your husband served his sentence in the form of correctional labor. According to previous legislation, until July 21, 1992, such periods were not included in the length of service giving the right to a pension. You can appeal the refusal of the Pension Fund. however, judicial practice has developed in such a way that the courts refuse to satisfy the requirements, since the law does not have retroactive effect.

Does the rural experience include the work of a teacher in the special disciplines of agronomy, organization and reclamation of vocational schools, practical work was carried out on training in spring field work and harvesting

Good afternoon. To answer your question correctly, you need to know the exact start and end dates of work. Because at different periods of the development of our country, length of service was calculated according to certain rules.

How is work experience confirmed through the court?

Since 1996 Russia has introduced a system of personal records of all employees, for the maintenance of which the Pension Fund is responsible. But until 1996 There was no unified pension record of employees, therefore, if a citizen loses his work book, he can confirm his length of service only through the judicial authorities. Before going to court, you will need to prepare the necessary documentation and evidence:

• Statement of claim.
• Personal documents.
• Witness's testimonies.
• Documentation directly or indirectly confirming the fact of work at the enterprise at such and such a time.

Methods and order

The procedure for certifying the achieved experience is regulated in Art. 14 Federal Law No. 400-FZ dated December 28, 2013 “On insurance pensions.”

As in the previous pension law until 2014, the standards for certification of length of service are directly dependent on the time of working activity:

1. Before registration - as an insured employee in pension insurance offices.
2. After registering with the same authorities as an insured employee according to the adopted Federal Law No. 27-FZ1 of April 1, 1996.

The time of such registration for the insured person is displayed in the insurance certificate, according to the assigned personal personal account number (SNILS) in the offices of compulsory pension insurance.

Statement of claim for confirmation of experience

The restoration of lost work experience is within the jurisdiction of district or city courts - this is where the application should be submitted. The application is either written by hand or compiled on a computer and then printed on a printer. The structure of the statement is as follows:

1. In the upper right corner, a “header” is filled in, where the name of the court and the plaintiff’s passport details are indicated.
2. The main text contains information about the enterprise where the applicant worked. Hours of work and position he held.
3. Requirements for the court. In this case, please establish the fact of the length of service from the date of hiring to the date of dismissal.
4. The following is a list of documents and certificates attached to the application.
5. The application is certified by the personal signature of the submitter, and the date of its preparation is indicated.

Application example

STATEMENT ON ESTABLISHING THE FACT OF WORK

On September 17, 2021, I applied to the branch of the pension fund in the Bolsheyarsky district of Astrakhan to receive an old-age pension. During the registration of the pension, it was established that the work experience did not include the period of work as a driver at the Oktyabrenok collective farm (the village of Novoeletsk, Astrakhan region) in the period from 1988 to 1993.

According to written explanations from Pension Fund employees, the work record was incorrectly recorded in the work book. Namely: specific dates of hiring and dismissal are not indicated (numbers are missing), and the stamp of the collective farm is “October”, not “Oktyabrenok”. In connection with this circumstance, I was denied credit for the period of work from January 15, 1988 to April 1, 1993 at the Oktyabrenok collective farm and was recommended to establish the fact of work through the court.

The entry was completed incorrectly, since the HR department employee made a mistake; the renaming of the collective farm in 1991 was not indicated. Now it is impossible to correct the records, since the collective farm has been liquidated.

The fact of working on the Oktyabrenok collective farm can be confirmed by the former chairman of the Soviets Roman Alekseevich, the former personnel officer Vasilisa Igorevna Popova, copies of documents related to the work.

1. To establish the fact that Vitaly Andreevich Popov worked on the Oktyabrenok collective farm in the village. Novoeletsk, Astrakhan Region, in the position of “driver” in the period from January 15, 1988 to April 1, 1993.

1. Receipt for payment of state duty to the court
2. Order for employment
3. A copy of the applicant's work record
4. Extract from the Unified State Register of Legal Entities in relation to the collective farm “Oktyabrenok”
5. Copy of the archive certificate
6. Certificates, letters of gratitude
7. Collective farmer's book
8. Petition to call witnesses
9. Notification of sending documents to interested parties

01/20/2022 Popov V.A.

Further actions

All legal proceedings, according to the procedural legislation of the Russian Federation, are adversarial in nature. That is, in order to make a decision in favor of the applicant, a strong evidence base must be presented to the judge’s attention. In this situation, this may be indirect documentary evidence or testimony. Based on the results of the consideration, the judge makes a decision to satisfy the claim for reinstatement of length of service or to reject it.

If a positive decision is made, the plaintiff submits a copy of it to the territorial branch of the Pension Fund, on the basis of which the employees make adjustments to the citizen’s personal data.

What can be evidence?

According to the standards adopted by the Government in Section II of Resolution of the Russian Federation No. 1015 of October 2, 2014, length of service is certified by filling out a work book, and if it is missing or it is impossible to identify the entries displayed in it, then:

• Labor and civil law agreements.
• Copies of orders.
• Documents confirmed by the institution.
• The applicant’s personal files and pay slips.
• Payment orders certifying the fact of transfers to tax authorities.

The listed materials are presented to certify the length of service earned when, during his employment, a person did not register in the pension insurance structure or errors were found in the personal file data.

Law No. 173-FZ of December 17, 2001 “On Labor Pensions” established that from the moment it came into force, “insurance period” was introduced. However, the process confirming the length of service earned by a person remained the same, regardless of the period of employment, both before 2002 and after it. So, after the adoption of this Law, the process of certifying the earned experience remained the same - by providing a work book, orders for enrollment in the organization and other materials listed in the higher list.

In addition, the earned experience can be certified by a request to the Pension Fund. Here, if during the period of employment for which it is required to confirm the length of service, the employee received registration as an insured worker, information about his work activity will be in the Pension Fund database.

If during the displayed period of time a person was not insured, the earned experience can be confirmed by witnesses (clause 5 of Resolution No. 1015).

To purchase supporting documents, you need to send a request to the local Pension Fund office to establish the period of work based on the testimony of witnesses. The request is accompanied by materials that confirm the loss of the necessary documents or other materials (for example, an archival document containing information about the absence of the required information in the archive).

Features of confirmation of experience during the liquidation of an organization

Another difficulty arises for citizens when they need to confirm their work experience in a defunct organization. To do this, you should contact the tax authorities. Where to find out whether a closed organization has a legal successor. It is also possible that the company merged with another organization. In such a situation, all archival documentation should be located in these organizations.

If there is no successor company, data on former employees should be in the archive. Depending on the level of subordination of the enterprise, all its documentation during liquidation is transferred to the municipal or regional archive. Information about where all the archival papers of the closed enterprise were transferred can be obtained from the same tax service.

What to do if the company is liquidated

There are several options for confirming your work experience if the company is liquidated: contact the Pension Fund, archive or other authorities. To receive confirmation of pension accruals, write a corresponding application to the Pension Fund of the Russian Federation. Upon liquidation of an enterprise, the documents are transferred to the legal successor, who will issue the necessary certificate at the request of the Pension Fund. In the absence of a successor, PF employees will contact the archive.

Another way is to request the tax office directly or through the MFC. You will be given information about the successor or merger of this organization with another. In the same place, specify where the documents were transferred if there was no accession or successor.

Confirmation of Soviet work experience

Another relevant case is how to confirm the presence of work experience from Soviet times, when there was neither a modern pension system nor personal registration of citizens. The only way to confirm this is an entry in the work book, or other documents from the place of previous work. If documents are lost, recognition of experience through the courts will be required.

To do this, you will need to collect the available evidence, including indirect documents and testimony of witnesses who previously worked with the applicant at the same enterprise. For example, until 1991 the only mandatory payments collected from every working citizen were contributions to state social insurance. Of course, it is difficult to find in the archives documentary evidence of payments made thirty years ago, but it is worth trying. In this case, you will receive 100% confirmation of work experience during Soviet times.

Application for establishing the fact of work

A statement about establishing the fact of work can help a person confirm the existence of an employment relationship. Such cases are considered as special proceedings. There is another way to protect labor rights in order to confirm the fact of working for a certain employer - a statement of claim to establish an employment relationship. Consideration of a claim is more complex than an application. And the need to have certain knowledge about the collection and presentation of evidence in a civil case.

What is the difference between a statement of fact of work and a statement of claim? What method to use, what evidence to present and how to justify your position? The answers to all these questions are posted below. General information about cases considered under special proceedings can be found at the link Statement of Establishment of a Fact of Legal Significance.

Application for establishing the fact of work