The Government estimates that the 2025 accounts will close with a overrun of 146.1 million euros in the Solidarity Supplement for the Elderly (CSI) compared to budget. The cost of this provision should therefore reach 552.9 million, or 36% more than the 406.8 million predicted in OE2025. Based on this projection, the The 2026 State Budget allocates 671.8 million for the CSI. This is an increase of 118.0 million (plus 21.5%) compared to the expenditure now forecast for 2025.
“Expenditure on the solidarity supplement for the elderly is expected to reach the amount of 671.8 million euros, mainly reflecting, compared to 2025, the increase in the reference value by 40 euros per month additional amounts in 2026, following the 5% increase in the reference value from January 2025”, the document reads.
This is the first public recognition of the remarkable slippage that occurred in 2025, as the Government never responded to questions, either from DN or other journalistic organizations, regarding the lack of control in expenditure associated with this service. Lack of control to which this newspaper had already drawn attention in May — when, based on its own calculations and based on the number of beneficiaries counted in April, it predicted that CSI expenditure this year should be between 523 and 546 million (below, however, the estimate now assumed by the Government).
The Public Finance Council (CFP), in its latest report (September 2025), believes that the slippage will be even greater. This body that monitors the State’s accounts projected an expenditure of 577 million on CSI for 2025, and not to mention, he highlighted, “the expense of additional health benefits (BAS), namely free medicines (…) which by May 2025 it already totaled 16.2 million euros”. Thus concluding that the promise to increase the reference value of the benefit up to 870 euros in 2029 (which the Government maintains, referring to it several times in OE2026) “constitutes a increased risk for expenditure”.
This is all the more so, warns the CFP, when “the universe of potential beneficiaries” — that is, the number of elderly people with incomes below the base value of the CSI, as it rises — is very considerable.
Current beneficiaries consume more than 98% of the budget for 2026
There is no projection in the OE or its reports regarding the number of beneficiaries who may, given the increase in the reference value in 2026, have access to the benefit.
Neither, nor, the costs associated with the CSI in terms of “additional health benefits” — starting with free prescription medicines, in force since June 2024 and whose expenses have skyrocketed since then (according to Infarmed data to which DN had access, between June 2024 and the first quarter of 2025 it had increased by 68%; according to the CFP, it totaled, up to May alone, 16.2 million euros, thus pointing to an annual expenditure of around 40 million). The DN insistently asked the Ministry of Labour, Solidarity and Social Security to indicate where the budget for this measure could be found (which also involves the Ministry of Health), but it never responded.
However, it is possible to do simple calculations to arrive at the number of new beneficiaries that “fit” in the Government’s accounts. Therefore, given that the latest accounting, from August 2025, is 230,934 recipients of the benefit, and that the average value of this is 199 euros, if we add to this value the 40 euros that will increase in 2026 and multiply the result (239 euros) by the number of beneficiaries times the 12 months of the year, the result is 662.3 million.
Which means that almost the entire amount — more than 98% — allocated by the Government for the benefit is consumed by current beneficiariesleaving only 9.5 million euros left.
If we assume the (doubtful) principle that only people who until now, having a monthly income of 630 euros, did not meet the criteria will access the benefit in 2026, and therefore will only be able to receive the 40 euros per month of the increase, we conclude that there is only budget allocation for a little less than 20 thousand new beneficiaries.
It should be remembered that, having come to government in April 2024, when the reference value of the CSI in force was 550 euros (through OE2024, from António Costa’s executive, which added 62 euros to the previous amount of 488 euros), Montenegro decided, in June, to increase the reference value again to 600. It also changed the rules for accessing the benefit, excluding the income of the elderly person’s children from the calculation, and made prescribed medicines completely free (the additional contribution was, until then, 50%) for elderly people registered with the CSI.
The Government’s projection was that these changes would attract around 24 thousand new beneficiaries. But he ended up faced with a jump, between January 2024 and August 2025, of 92,960 beneficiaries.
The most significant increase occurred from July 2024, but the number of beneficiaries has always been growing: from January (when another increase in the reference value occurred, to the current 630 euros) to August 2025, 23,151 more were counted.
In 2024, 65% (1.2 million) of pensions were worth between 319 and 783 euros
There is no public information available about the universe of pensioners who, having a monthly income below 670 euros, do not have other income (or do not live with someone with a higher income, exceeding the maximum values for the aggregate allowed in the CSI).
According to OE2026 reports, the average value of the old-age pension in 2024 was 610.91 euros, with the average value of pensions for women (who were 65.5% of CSI beneficiaries in August) much lower: 452.09 euros. Furthermore, according to the same source, “in December 2024, the majority of old-age pensions were in the pension value range with a monetary value equal to or greater than the minimum pension amount of less than 15 years of contributions [319,49 euros em 2024] and less than 1.5 times the amount of the Social Support Index [509,26 euros em 2024]”.
This majority corresponds to “65.1% of total old-age pensions”, that is 1,282,992 pensions. Translating: more than half of current pensions will have a gross value between 331.79 euros (minimum pension amount less than 15 years of contributions in 2025) and 783.75 euros (1.5 times the amount of the Social Support Index in 2025).
On the other hand, and also according to the OE2026 reports, in 2024 more than 12 thousand new minimum pensions were paid for amounts below 319.49 euros, and another 60 thousand between 319.49 and 783.75 euros. And, citing the aforementioned reports, “the majority of new old-age pensions with first processing in the year 2024 had a monetary value of less than 1.5 times the amount of the Social Support Index (more than 72 thousand), which is equivalent to 74.2% of the total of new old-age pensions, 62.7% referring to pensions received by men and 86.2% by women”.
It should be noted that these pensions, unlike the CSI, are paid with holiday and Christmas allowances, which implies that, To find out whether a pensioner is entitled to CSI, you need to divide the annual value of the respective pension by 12 (meaning that the aforementioned “average” pension of 610.91 euros corresponds to 712.72 euros per month, that is, it exceeds the CSI reference value). Even so, it seems clear that, as the CSI reference value increases, more and more pensioners will meet the benefit criteria.