Marrakech – Spain’s Social Security has ended a non-contributory disability pension paid to a woman with ties to Morocco and ordered her to return €32,857.20, after finding that she spent long periods abroad and that her household income far exceeded the legal ceiling. The High Court of Justice of Catalonia upheld the administrative decision.
The case was reported by Pablo Martín Henche for La Razón on July 13, by Raúl Izquierdo for AS on August 4, and by Janire Manzanas for OKDiario on August 17. All three outlets traced a dispute that began as a routine benefit and ended in the courts.
The woman started collecting the pension in December 2013. The payment came to €604.20 a month, with a complement that ranged between €36.03 and €37.69. She also received a pension from Morocco of €96.68 a month. For several years she kept both.
Problems surfaced when Social Security checked how long she had been out of the country. Rules for non-contributory pensions require recipients to live in Spain and to spend no more than 90 days abroad per calendar year. Between 2018 and 2021, she accumulated 680 days in Morocco.
The court laid out the yearly totals. She spent 135 days in Morocco in 2018, 136 in 2019, 260 in 2020, and 149 in 2021. None of these absences had been reported to the administration in advance.
She argued that her long stay between March and September 2020 was forced by the COVID-19 border closures, which she blamed for keeping her from returning. The court rejected the defense. Judges held that staying abroad more than 90 days a year, outside justified cases such as illness, is enough on its own to end the benefit.
Income was the second problem. In 2021, her household earned €73,291.08, well above the limit set for her situation. On that basis, Social Security extinguished the pension with retroactive effect from June 2018 and demanded the return of every payment made since then.
Those payments included €8,458 tied to 2021 and a final €764.40 paid in January 2022. Together they reached the €32,857.20 now owed. The court confirmed both the withdrawal and the repayment order, and it found that the household income alone justified ending the pension.
The rules behind the case are strict. The non-contributory disability pension is meant for people with a recognized disability of 65% or more who lack the resources for a contributory pension. Applicants must be between 18 and 64 and must prove five years of residence in Spain, with the final two uninterrupted.
Income limits apply as well. In 2026, personal annual income cannot exceed €8,803.20. For those living with relatives, the ceiling rises to €14,965.44 for two people, €21,127.68 for three, and €27,289.92 for four. These non-contributory pensions rose 11.4% in 2026.
Read also: Spain to Pay €2.5 Million to Moroccan Man Wrongly Jailed for 15 Years
