Solidarity Supplement for Low-Income Seniors Nears 244,000 Recipients After a €40 Annual Boost
Portugal's means-tested top-up for poorer pensioners keeps growing, approaching 244,000 recipients by May after the 2026 reference value rose to €670. Roughly two in three beneficiaries are women.
The number of older people drawing Portugal's means-tested top-up for low-income pensioners has kept climbing through the first half of 2026, with the rolls approaching 244,000 recipients by May, according to Segurança Social (Social Security) data.
The Complemento Solidário para Idosos (Solidarity Supplement for the Elderly, or CSI) is a cash benefit paid on top of a low pension to retirees whose total income falls below a fixed annual threshold. It is designed as a floor under old-age poverty rather than a universal payment, and the size of the cheque depends on how far a recipient's income sits beneath that line.
The numbers behind the rise
The most recent fully detailed figures, for March, counted 239,771 beneficiaries — roughly 24,000 more than a year earlier. Women made up the clear majority, at 156,089 recipients, or 65.1% of the total, a reflection of longer female life expectancy and the lower pensions that many women accumulated over careers interrupted by caregiving.
The average monthly payment stood at about €217.43 in March, up 7.1% on the same month of 2025. That increase tracks a deliberate uprating of the benefit: for 2026 the reference value used to calculate entitlement was raised by 6.24%, or €40, to €670 a year, from €630 previously. Because eligibility and the payment amount are both pegged to that reference, lifting it widens the pool of pensioners who qualify and increases the top-up many already receive.
Who qualifies
The CSI is available to residents aged 66 and over whose own income, combined with that of their household, falls below the reference threshold. Applicants must have their tax affairs in order and meet residency conditions, and the benefit can be requested online through the Social Security portal as well as in person. Payment is made monthly, alongside pensions and other social transfers.
The steady climb in recipients comes as the government reshapes the wider welfare architecture. Lisbon is consolidating a string of means-tested payments into a single instrument, the Prestação Social Única (Single Social Benefit), intended to simplify how low-income households claim support. The Minister for Labour, Solidarity and Social Security, Maria do Rosário Palma Ramalho, has said the solidarity supplement for the elderly is not affected by that overhaul and keeps its conditions unchanged — a signal aimed at reassuring pensioners who depend on the monthly transfer.
For the foreign residents and retirees who make up a growing share of Portugal's population, the CSI is unlikely to feature directly: it targets long-resident pensioners on the lowest incomes. But the rising caseload is a useful barometer of how heavily the country's older population leans on state support at a time when housing and energy costs continue to bite, and of how far a modest pension stretches in 2026.
