Mandatory retirement and age limits at work, by country
Only Norway and Sweden write an age into the employment statute: employment can be ended at 72 in Norway, and in Sweden an employee may stay until the month of the 69th birthday and loses most dismissal protection after it. France and Germany tie the right to the pension system instead, so the age is not in the text, and the Netherlands only recognises a contract clause that ends the job at pension age. Canada permits an age limit only where a law or regulation sets one.
Scope of this guide
Canada: the Canada Labour Code (federal sector) and the Ontario statutes that LawAsked has loaded. Other provinces are not compared.
| Country | Age in the statute | What the employer may do | Conditions |
|---|---|---|---|
| Canada | Refuse or end employment at a maximum age that applies to that employment | Only an age set by law or under regulations | |
| Germany | Agree that employment ends without notice when the employee can claim an old-age pension | Needs an agreement; the age is not stated in the AGG | |
| France | The pension age in the Social Security Code (not stated in the Code du travail) | Retire the employee (mise à la retraite) once that age is reached | Must ask in writing before the age is reached; an employee who refuses is safe for a year, repeated yearly to age 69 |
| Netherlands | Pension age (not stated in the article) | End a permanent contract at pension age if the contract contains a clause to that effect | Needs a contract clause |
| Norway | 72 (lower where needed for health or safety) | End the employment when the employee turns 72 | Written notice; earliest exit six months after the first day of the month after notice arrives |
| Sweden | 69 | Dismiss an employee aged 69 or over without needing an objective reason | Notice and consultation duties still apply; notice period is at most one month |
Country by country
Canada
- Rule
- Canadian Human Rights Act s 15(1)(b)
- Federally regulated employers only. Ending employment at a maximum age is not a discriminatory practice when that age applies to the employment by law or under regulations made by the Governor in Council.
- The ingested text shows paragraph (c) of the same list as repealed in 2011, and states no general retirement age. Ontario law is not ingested for this topic.
employment of an individual is refused or terminated because that individual has not reached the minimum age, or has reached the maximum age, that applies to that employment by law or under regulations(c) [Repealed, 2011, c. 24, s. 166] Germany
- Rule
- Allgemeines Gleichbehandlungsgesetz (AGG) § 10 Nr. 5
- The AGG allows differences of treatment because of age that are objectively and appropriately justified by a legitimate aim, and lists a pension-age termination agreement as one example.
- The statute does not itself fix a retirement age or let the employer end the job without such an agreement. § 41 of the Sixth Book of the Social Code is stated to remain unaffected.
eine unterschiedliche Behandlung wegen des Alters auch zulässig, wenn sie objektiv und angemessen und durch ein legitimes Ziel gerechtfertigt isteine Vereinbarung, die die Beendigung des Beschäftigungsverhältnisses ohne Kündigung zu einem Zeitpunkt vorsieht, zu dem der oder die Beschäftigte eine Rente wegen Alters beantragen kann France
- Rule
- Code du travail arts. L1237-5 and L1237-5-1
- Covers employees. The employer must ask in writing whether the employee intends to leave voluntarily to claim a pension. If the employee answers no, or the employer did not ask, the employer cannot use the power for the following year.
- The same procedure applies each year until the employee's 69th birthday. No collective agreement may allow compulsory retirement at a lower age.
- A lower age is allowed only for the listed older arrangements, such as pre-retirement schemes and agreements concluded before 1 January 2008.
la possibilité donnée à l'employeur de rompre le contrat de travail d'un salarié ayant atteintl'employeur interroge par écrit le salarié sur son intention de quitter volontairement l'entrepriseLa même procédure est applicable chaque année jusqu'au soixante-neuvième anniversaire du salarié. Aucune convention ou accord collectif prévoyant la possibilité d'une mise à la retraite d'office d'un salarié à un âge inférieur Netherlands
- Rule
- Burgerlijk Wetboek Boek 7 art. 667(4)
- The article only mentions the pension-age clause in the rule on successive contracts: a permanent contract that ended on reaching pension age under such a clause does not make a following fixed-term contract one that needs notice.
- The ingested Book 7 text does not state the pension age or a duty to include the clause.
is geëindigd wegens het bereiken van de pensioengerechtigde leeftijd van de werknemer op grond van een daartoe strekkend beding Norway
- Rule
- Arbeidsmiljøloven § 15-13 a
- A lower age limit may be set where necessary for health or safety. It must be objectively justified and not disproportionately intrusive.
- Before giving notice the employer must, as far as possible, invite the employee to a meeting unless the employee does not want one. An employee who wishes to leave gives one month's notice, in any form.
Arbeidsforholdet kan bringes til opphør når arbeidstaker fyller 72 år.Lavere aldersgrense kan fastsettes der det er nødvendig av hensyn til helse eller sikkerhet.Fratreden kan tidligst kreves seks måneder etter den første dag i måneden etter at varslet er kommet frem til arbeidstaker.Arbeidstaker som ønsker å fratre, har en tilsvarende varslingsfrist på en måned Sweden
- Rule
- Lag om anställningsskydd (LAS) 32 a, 33, 33 a and 33 b §§
- An employee has the right to stay in the job until the end of the month of the 69th birthday, unless the Act provides otherwise.
- For a dismissal of someone aged 69 or over the objective-reason rule, the duty to state the grounds and the annulment rule do not apply. The employer must still give notice and the right to consultation, and the employee has no priority rights.
har rätt att kvarstå i anställningen till utgången av den månad då han eller hon fyller 69 år Vid uppsägning av en arbetstagare som har fyllt 69 år ska följande bestämmelser inte tillämpas7 § om sakliga skäl för uppsägning Vid uppsägning av en arbetstagare som har fyllt 69 år ska 30 § om underrättelse, varsel och rätt till överläggning tillämpas har inte rätt till längre uppsägningstid än en månad Countries not in this table yet
The United States, Australia, Austria, Spain and Japan are not shown. Their ingested statutes state no mandatory retirement age or age-based termination rule that can be quoted (the US Age Discrimination in Employment Act, Spanish retirement provisions outside the Estatuto de los Trabajadores and Japan's elderly-employment law are not ingested), and the United Kingdom is not shown because the Equality Act 2010 is not ingested.
How this table was built
Every row is taken from the official, consolidated text of the statute, which LawAsked loads from each government’s legislation service.
Each figure is tied to a passage quoted word for word from that text. When the page is served, it checks that every quoted passage is still in the current text of a law that is in force; if a law is amended and its wording changes, that row is hidden until a person reviews it again.
The table shows the statutory minimum only. Collective agreements, awards and individual contracts often give more than the statute, and some countries let a collective agreement set different terms.
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The table and the CSV are free to reuse under CC BY 4.0: credit LawAsked and link to this page. Quoted statute text stays under the terms of its official source.
How to cite this page
LawAsked, “Mandatory retirement and age limits at work, by country”, https://lawasked.com/guides/retirement-age-rules (reviewed October 25, 2026).
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