A few years are left before retirement — and suddenly there’s nitpicking, an unscheduled performance review, or talk of eliminating your position. Coincidence? Often, no. But the opposite isn’t true either: pre-retirement age doesn’t make someone untouchable. You can dismiss a pre-retirement-age employee — the question is why. If the real reason is age itself, that’s not just an unlawful dismissal — it’s a criminal offense, though proving it in practice is far from easy. The far more realistic path to reinstatement is challenging the specific formal grounds the employer used as cover — and that doesn’t require proving an age-based motive at all. Here’s what the law says, where the line falls between a lawful dismissal and age discrimination, and what actually works if it’s already happened.
Who counts as “pre-retirement age,” and how to check your status
Pre-retirement age is a period of no more than five years preceding the point at which someone becomes eligible for an old-age insurance pension, including an early pension (note to Art. 144.1 of the Criminal Code). The exact retirement age depends on birth year — the transitional schedule from Russia’s 2018 pension reform runs until 2028 and isn’t the same for everyone. So there’s no single number like “55” or “60” that applies to everybody: you need to check your own status individually — through Gosuslugi, your personal account on the Social Fund of Russia’s website, or a certificate from the Social Fund (SFR). Get and keep that certificate in advance, before any conflict with your employer starts — that way the employer can’t later claim in court or to the Investigative Committee that they “didn’t know” about your status.
When dismissing a pre-retirement-age employee is a criminal offense
Article 144.1 of the Criminal Code directly states: an unjustified refusal to hire, or an unjustified dismissal, of a person who has reached pre-retirement age, motivated by reaching that age, is punishable by a fine of up to 200,000 rubles (or the equivalent of the offender’s income for up to 18 months), or up to 360 hours of mandatory community service.
The key word is “motivated.” Dismissing a pre-retirement-age employee is not, on its own, a crime: an employer can lawfully dismiss such an employee for absenteeism, a genuine position elimination, or a serious disciplinary violation — as long as the grounds are real and the procedure was followed. It becomes a crime only when the true reason is the fact of reaching pre-retirement age itself, with the formal grounds serving merely as cover.
An important difference from dismissing a pregnant employee: there, an objective fact is enough — the court doesn’t ask whether the employer knew about the pregnancy. Here it’s the opposite: you have to prove the motive itself, and that’s a criminal standard of proof — essentially “beyond reasonable doubt,” not just a preponderance of evidence as in a civil case. In practice, employers rarely put age in writing as the reason for dismissal, so criminal cases under this article are filed infrequently and require genuinely direct evidence: correspondence, witness testimony, or recordings where age or retirement is named as the reason.
The practical takeaway: don’t rely on the criminal statute alone. It works as leverage and a way to seek justice when direct evidence of motive actually exists — but it isn’t the main route back to your job. That route is an ordinary labor dispute, where proving motive isn’t required at all (more on this below).
Redundancy: a common misconception
Many people assume that during a staff redundancy, a pre-retirement-age employee has to be kept on first. That’s not the case. Article 179 of the Labor Code gives priority, when productivity and qualifications are equal, to a specific, defined list of categories:
- employees with two or more dependents;
- sole breadwinners in their family;
- those who suffered a work injury or occupational illness at that employer;
- disabled combat veterans;
- those pursuing further qualification at the employer’s direction.
Pre-retirement age isn’t on that list — unless a specific company’s collective bargaining agreement adds it separately.
That doesn’t mean a pre-retirement-age employee can be made redundant without limits. The general rule still applies: the redundancy has to be real (the position genuinely eliminated from the staffing table) and carried out by the book — two months’ notice, an offer of every suitable available vacancy, severance pay. But if, among several employees in comparable roles, the employer specifically picked the pre-retirement-age one — eliminating only that position while keeping equivalent ones — that starts to point toward a real motive, and can become grounds for scrutiny under Art. 144.1.
Tricks employers use
An unscheduled performance review. One common scenario: right after an employee reaches pre-retirement age, a review is ordered, and the employee is found not to meet the requirements of the position. Dismissal for inadequate performance is lawful on its own (Art. 81(1)(3) of the Labor Code) — but if the review itself was flawed (not conducted under the approved procedure, without a genuine skills assessment, or arranged retroactively around a specific person), or there had been no complaints about the same work before, this can be challenged — both the review procedure itself, and as indirect evidence of the real motive behind the dismissal.
Pressure to resign “voluntarily.” Unlike dismissals of pregnant employees, there’s no special rule here allowing consent to be withdrawn after the fact. But that doesn’t mean a formally voluntary resignation letter protects the employer. The Plenum of the Russian Supreme Court directly clarified this (para. 16 of Resolution No. 46 of December 25, 2018): if an employment contract is terminated at the employee’s own initiative (Art. 80 of the Labor Code), but it’s proven that the employer coerced them into filing that resignation specifically because of their pre-retirement age, that also constitutes a crime under Art. 144.1 — not just grounds for a labor dispute. Court practice under this article centers specifically on coercion into a “voluntary” resignation letter — evidence of coercion includes correspondence, witness testimony, and recordings of conversations where age or retirement is discussed as the reason behind the “request” to resign.
A mutual termination agreement (Art. 78 of the Labor Code) is harder to challenge on coercion grounds. This is a separate scenario, and there’s no direct Plenum guidance covering it specifically. A mutual agreement is a bilateral document both sides formally sign voluntarily, so courts tend to scrutinize coercion claims here more skeptically than with a “voluntary” resignation letter. Challenging such an agreement is still possible, but only through the general grounds for voiding a transaction — showing there was no genuine, voluntary intent — not through a direct analogy to the Plenum’s clarification on Art. 144.1.
What to do if you’ve already been dismissed
The key point: you don’t need to prove an age-based motive to be reinstated. This is the single most important practical fact here. A labor dispute over reinstatement is not the same thing as a criminal case under Art. 144.1. In a labor dispute, you challenge the specific formal grounds for dismissal — exactly as any employee would, regardless of age: the performance review violated procedure, the redundancy was fictitious (the position wasn’t actually eliminated), no vacancies were offered, the paperwork was mishandled. If the stated grounds don’t hold up, you’ll be reinstated, and you don’t need to prove the motive behind the employer’s decision to get there.
Watch the clock — you have only one month to go to court. Disputes over dismissal carry a shortened deadline: one month from the day you received a copy of the dismissal order or your employment record (Art. 392 of the Labor Code). This is one of the most common reasons a strong case is lost — not because it was weak, but because the claim was filed too late.
What a court can award you:
- reinstatement to your position;
- average earnings for the entire period of forced absence — from the unlawful dismissal until reinstatement;
- compensation for non-pecuniary damage;
- reimbursement of representation costs — under Art. 100 of the Civil Procedure Code, the losing party covers reasonable legal costs, including your lawyer’s fees.
A criminal case under Art. 144.1 is a separate, harder path. If you have direct evidence of motive — correspondence, witnesses, recordings naming age or retirement as the reason — it’s worth filing a report with the Investigative Committee or the prosecutor’s office in parallel. This isn’t an alternative to the labor dispute, or a precondition for it — it’s an additional lever, worth using only when real evidence of motive actually exists, not something to build your main strategy around.
Rights of pre-retirement-age employees that often go unused
Extra days off for a medical checkup. Under Art. 185.1 of the Labor Code, pre-retirement-age employees are entitled to 2 paid working days off once a year for a comprehensive medical checkup (диспансеризация), with their position and average pay retained — twice what other employees get (1 day once every three years). The days are granted on written request, with the date agreed with the employer.
An early pension after dismissal due to redundancy or liquidation. If a pre-retirement-age employee is dismissed because of staff redundancy or company liquidation, and the employment service can’t find them suitable work, Art. 51 of Federal Law No. 565-FZ of December 12, 2023, “On Employment of the Population in the Russian Federation,” allows an old-age insurance pension to be granted early — up to two years ahead of the standard age. The conditions: registered unemployed status, no suitable vacancies from the employment service, at least 25 years of insurance record for men or 20 years for women, and a minimum individual pension coefficient (ИПК, “pension points”) — 30 points as of 2026. Without enough points, the early pension won’t be granted even if the insurance record requirement is fully met. The pension isn’t granted automatically — it’s proposed by the employment service, with the citizen’s consent.
Frequently asked questions
Can a pre-retirement-age employee be dismissed for absenteeism or a disciplinary violation? Yes, if the violation is real, documented, and the disciplinary procedure was followed. Pre-retirement status doesn’t exempt anyone from ordinary discipline requirements — it only protects against a dismissal whose true motive is the age itself.
What if the employer says they didn’t know about my pre-retirement status? Unlike cases involving pregnant employees, this can be a genuine defense here — Art. 144.1 requires proving motive, not just the fact that a pre-retirement-age employee was dismissed. In practice, though, an employer usually does know an employee’s age from HR records, so this argument rarely holds up literally.
Is the employer required to offer vacancies to a pre-retirement-age employee first during a redundancy? There’s no special priority — but under Art. 180 of the Labor Code, the employer must offer every suitable available vacancy (matching qualifications, as well as lower-level or lower-paid roles) to any employee being made redundant, pre-retirement-age or not, on the same general terms.
Can a pre-retirement-age employee be dismissed by mutual agreement? Yes, formally this is possible, and there’s no special protection here like there is for pregnant employees. But if the agreement was signed under pressure or threats, it can be separately challenged by showing there was no genuine, voluntary intent.
If proving an age-based motive is nearly impossible, is it even worth pursuing? Yes — and here’s why: reinstatement doesn’t require proving motive at all. It’s enough to show that the formal grounds for dismissal — a performance review, a “redundancy,” a disciplinary action — were themselves unlawful or didn’t reflect reality. That’s an ordinary labor dispute, the same as for any other employee. The criminal statute, with its much higher standard of proof, is a separate, harder path — not the only chance you have.
Where should I complain first — the labor inspectorate or the police? Both, at the same time, if you like. The State Labor Inspectorate reviews the dismissal procedure itself and can issue an order to correct violations. A report to the Investigative Committee or the prosecutor’s office is what you need if you believe the true motive was age, and you want to pursue criminal charges under Art. 144.1. Important: filing a complaint with the Labor Inspectorate does not pause the one-month deadline for filing a lawsuit (Art. 392 of the Labor Code). While you wait for the inspectorate’s response (usually up to 30 days), that deadline keeps running and can expire. File your lawsuit in parallel with the inspectorate complaint — don’t wait for a response first.
Related reading
- Can You Fire a Pregnant Employee in Russia? — a similar protected-category question, but with a fundamentally different standard of proof
- 6 Signs Your Employer Is Preparing to Fire You — how to spot an unlawful dismissal being set up in advance
- Redundancy: the Employer Must Offer Vacancies — what an employer is required to do during a staff redundancy
If you’re being dismissed, or already have been, and suspect it’s about your age — write to me. I’ll help you work out whether your situation shows real signs of motive, and what to do: a labor dispute, a report to the Investigative Committee, or both at once.