The decrees of July 29, 2026, fundamentally change how children impact retirement calculations. Declaring your children no longer only serves to accumulate additional quarters: the reform directly affects the number of best years considered for calculating the basic pension. Ignoring this declaration means accepting a less favorable calculation method without even knowing it.
Reduction of the number of best years: the mechanism that insured individuals underestimate
The general scheme calculates the basic retirement based on the 25 best years of salary. Since the decrees of July 2026, declaring one child reduces this calculation to 24 best years. With at least two children, the calculation drops to 23 best years.
In practice, the least well-paid years are excluded from the calculation. For an insured person whose career includes periods of part-time work or unemployment, the effect on the average annual salary is direct and measurable.
We observe that this mechanism remains largely unknown, even among insured individuals who already have all their quarters. The confusion arises from the fact that the increase for children was historically associated only with the duration of insurance. Now, the impact also affects the amount of the pension through the average annual salary. An insured person who has validated all their quarters therefore has a concrete interest in ensuring that their children are indeed listed in their career statement.
Not declaring your children for retirement means allowing the calculation to be based on 25 years instead of 24 or 23, without automatic recourse from the fund.
Child quarters and long career: what changes on September 1, 2026
Until this reform, quarters of increase for children (maternity, education, adoption, parental leave) were not considered as contributed quarters. They did not count towards access to early retirement for long careers.
Starting September 1, 2026, up to 2 quarters of increase related to children can be counted as contributed for the opening of long career rights. The limit is strict, but it may be enough to shift a file from rejection to acceptance.
Take the case of an insured person born at the beginning of the year who started working at 17. They are missing one or two contributed quarters to reach the eligibility threshold. Before September 2026, their education increase quarters did not fill this gap. Now, they can, provided that the declaration of children is effective in the career statement.
Education increase and maternity increase: distinguishing the two
The general scheme grants two blocks of quarters per child:
- 4 quarters for maternity (or adoption), awarded to the biological mother or adoptive parent in compensation for the impact on professional life.
- 4 quarters for the education of the child during the four years following birth or adoption. These quarters can be awarded to the father or mother, depending on an agreement between the parents.
- For children born or adopted before 2010, the 8 quarters are automatically awarded to the mother, unless the father provides contrary evidence within a specified timeframe.
The education increase is the one that generates the most omissions. It requires an active declaration, and the schemes do not systematically reconstruct it from civil status records.
Pension increase for 3 children and complementary schemes
Beyond the quarters, parents of three or more children benefit from an increase in the amount of the basic pension and, depending on the schemes, the complementary retirement. This parental increase is a percentage applied directly to the calculated pension.
The common trap: a multi-pension insured person (who has contributed to several schemes during their career) declares their children to only one scheme. The other funds then do not have the information and do not apply it. Each scheme must be informed separately, unless the declaration goes through the centralized Info Retraite service.
We recommend checking the consideration on each individual statement, including that of Agirc-Arrco for private sector employees. The complementary increase follows its own rules and thresholds.
Common errors and points of vigilance regarding the declaration of children for retirement
The majority of anomalies we encounter in retirement files related to children fall into three recurring situations:
- Children absent from the career statement because civil status has never been transmitted to the funds. The “Declare my children” service of Info Retraite allows correcting this gap in a single step, across all schemes.
- Incorrect allocation of the education increase between spouses, especially after a divorce. In cases of shared custody or separation, the distribution of education quarters may require explicit arbitration.
- Adoption not taken into account due to lack of proof. Adoption quarters follow a distinct circuit and require the production of the judicial decision.
Timing of the declaration
Nothing requires waiting until retirement approaches. Declaring your children as soon as the retirement account opens ensures reliable simulations and avoids last-minute corrections. An incomplete file at the time of liquidation can delay the first pension payment by several months.
Since September 2026, child quarters play an expanded role: calculating the average annual salary, access to long careers, pension increase. Each undeclared quarter represents a potentially lost right, not because it is eliminated, but because no scheme will reconstruct it for you. Verification takes a few minutes on the Info Retraite account. The cost of an omission is measured over the entire duration of pension payments.