The new system approved by the Government to recognize early retirements in particularly arduous or dangerous professions has opened the door for professional drivers, such as hauliers, taxi drivers, or bus drivers, to access reducing coefficients in the future to advance their labor withdrawal.
The measure stems from Royal Decree 402/2025, published in the Official State Gazette (BOE), which regulates the procedure for requesting early retirement in activities with high levels of hardship, danger, toxicity, or accident rates.
The new regulation does not automatically grant early retirement to these groups, but it does establish the legal framework for business organizations and unions to formally initiate requests with Social Security. And that process is already underway in different sectors of professional transport.
What changes with the new system approved by the Government
Until now, early retirement through reduction coefficients was limited to certain specific groups, such as miners, sea workers, or local police.
The new procedure approved by the Executive allows other sectors to also request that recognition if they prove certain working conditions linked to arduousness, dangerousness, exposure to risks, high rates of absences, or high accident rates.
According to Social Security, each application will be evaluated individually through technical reports and objective data related to professional activity. The Government also insists that the system does not imply a generalized automatic reduction in the retirement age.
Truckers, taxi drivers, and bus drivers have already started procedures
The transport sector is one of the first to have started moving after the entry into force of the new procedure. Employers' associations and unions in freight transport officially submitted their application to Social Security during 2025 to request reducing coefficients applicable to professional drivers.
The sector's organizations argue that the activity brings together factors of physical wear and tear and risk associated with long working hours, night driving, fatigue, aging behind the wheel, and high physical and mental demands.
Taxi drivers have also initiated formal procedures to join the new system. Business and union organizations in the sector have begun to prepare the documentation required by Social Security.
In parallel, bus transport agreed to also request early retirement for its drivers using the new route created by the Government.
The concrete age is not yet defined
For the moment, there is no specific approved age for early retirement for these groups. Social Security will now have to analyze statistics on accident rates, sick leave, mortality, working conditions, and other technical indicators before deciding whether to grant reduction coefficients and at what percentage. The Government has clarified that the system will have limits and recalls that the retirement age cannot be lowered below 52 years.
Trade union and business organizations also demand that the administrative process advance quickly and have warned of the growing aging of the professional transport sector.