FERS Retirement Calculator

FERS is three benefits, not one

Congress built FERS around three sources of retirement income. The Basic Benefit Plan is the defined benefit annuity this calculator estimates. Social Security covers FERS employees in full: you pay the payroll tax and earn credits exactly like a private-sector worker. The Thrift Savings Plan is a defined contribution account your agency pays into whether or not you do.

The annuity is small by design. Thirty years of federal service buys 30% of high-3. A teacher in a 2.3%-per-year plan reaches 69% after the same thirty years. Set those two numbers side by side and FERS looks like a poor deal. It usually is not, because that comparison puts a teacher’s entire retirement against one third of a federal employee’s. The FERS employee also finishes with thirty years of covered Social Security earnings and a TSP account that could have received up to 5% of pay in agency money in every one of those years.

So before you conclude your annuity is inadequate, add the Social Security benefit you will actually draw and the TSP balance you actually have. The three legs are only meaningful together.

How the basic annuity is computed

One multiplier, one salary figure, one service total. No age factor table.

The multiplier rises to 1.1% if you are 62 or older when you separate and have at least 20 years of service. This page describes the standard FERS computation; law enforcement officers, firefighters and air traffic controllers retire under special provisions with different rules.

The 1.1% multiplier is worth a month of work

Two conditions, and you need both: age 62 or older at separation, and at least 20 years of service. Meet them and 1.1% applies to every year you worked, not only the years past twenty. That last detail is what makes the threshold so sharp.

At exactly 20 years and age 62, the benefit is 22% of high-3 rather than 20%. Separate a month earlier, with 19 years and 11 months, and you get 19.9% instead. On a $95,000 high-3 that is roughly $18,920 a year against $20,900 — a permanent difference of about $1,980 for one additional month on the payroll.

The age edge behaves the same way. Someone with 25 years who separates at 61 and 11 months earns 25% of high-3. One more month, crossing into age 62, takes them to 27.5%. On the same salary that is $23,750 against $26,125 — about $2,375 a year, for life. If you are near either line, check the exact dates before you sign the paperwork. Nothing else on this page returns as much for as little.

What counts as your high-3

OPM defines high-3 as the highest average basic pay you earned during any 3 consecutive years of service. Basic pay is the operative phrase. Overtime, bonuses and most premium pay are excluded, which is why employees who lean on overtime late in their career often find the figure lower than they expected.

The three years must be consecutive but they do not have to be your last three. If your pay fell at the end — a downgrade, a move, a reduced schedule — the window simply sits earlier in your career.

Your minimum retirement age

The minimum retirement age, or MRA, is the earliest age at which a FERS employee with enough service can begin an immediate annuity. It is not a single number. It slides from 55 to 57 depending on when you were born, and almost everyone working today lands at 56 or 57.

The paths to retirement

Vesting takes 5 years of creditable civilian service. Vesting only entitles you to a future annuity; when you may start collecting it, and whether it is cut, depends on which path below you qualify for.

MRA + 10 and the choice you have to make

If you reach your MRA with at least 10 years but fewer than 30, you may retire immediately, but the annuity is reduced 5% for every year you are under 62. Retire at 57 and that is a 25% permanent cut. You can avoid part or all of it by postponing the date the annuity starts: wait until 62 and the reduction disappears entirely.

The FERS annuity supplement

The Special Retirement Supplement, usually called the annuity supplement, is a bridge. It pays FERS retirees who leave before 62 an approximation of the Social Security they earned during their federal service, and it stops when Social Security itself becomes available. OPM pays it, not the Social Security Administration, and it is not itself a Social Security benefit.

Who qualifies

You need at least 1 full calendar year of FERS service and an immediate annuity under one of these:

• MRA with 30 or more years of service.
• Age 60 with 20 or more years.
• Special provision retirement — law enforcement officers, firefighters, air traffic controllers and certain military reserve technicians.
• Discontinued service (involuntary) retirement at or after your MRA.
• Early retirement under a reduction in force, reorganization or transfer of function, at or after your MRA.
• Members of Congress at or after their MRA, and members of the Senior Executive Service under various conditions.

Who does not

• Disability retirees.
• MRA + 10 retirees.
• Anyone entitled only to a deferred annuity.
• Anyone who retires at age 62 or later. The supplement exists to cover the years before 62. Retire at 62 and there is nothing to bridge.

How it is computed

The division by 40 carries the whole idea. Your age-62 Social Security estimate reflects a lifetime of earnings, federal and otherwise. The supplement is only meant to stand in for the part you earned in federal service, so OPM scales the estimate by your federal civilian years against a notional 40-year career. The numerator is capped at 40, so more than forty years adds nothing. The result is an approximation — OPM computes the official figure and it will not match a back-of-envelope number exactly.

When it ends

The supplement stops at the earlier of two dates: the last day of the month in which you turn 62, or the last day of the month before you would be entitled to Social Security on proper application. It does not continue past 62 under any circumstances. If you plan to delay your Social Security claim to 67 or 70 to get a larger benefit — often a sound decision — understand that the supplement will not cover those years. It ends at 62 and you fund the gap yourself.

The earnings test

The supplement is subject to an earnings test modelled on Social Security’s: $1 is withheld for every $2 you earn above the annual exempt amount, and the reduction in any year may not exceed the supplement otherwise payable. Testing runs a year behind — the withholding is based on the prior year’s excess earnings, so working in your first year of retirement shows up in the second. Your basic FERS annuity is never touched by this test. Only the supplement is.

The Thrift Savings Plan and the match

The TSP is the third leg and the one you control. Your agency contributes 1% of basic pay every pay period no matter what you do — the Agency Automatic contribution. On top of that it matches your own contributions: dollar for dollar on the first 3% of pay, then 50 cents on the dollar on the next 2%.

Contribute 5% and the agency adds 5% — 4% in matching plus the automatic 1%. Ten percent of pay goes into the account for five percent out of your pocket. Contribute 3% and you have given up a full 1.5% of salary every year you do it. There is no argument for stopping below 5%: it is a voluntary pay cut.

Vesting is straightforward. Your own contributions and all agency matching are yours immediately. The Agency Automatic 1% vests after 3 years of federal civilian service — 2 years for congressional and certain noncareer positions.

The diet COLA and the age-62 rule

FERS annuities are indexed, but not fully. The formula is different from the one used for CSRS and pays less whenever inflation runs above 2%, which is why federal employees call it the diet COLA.

The most recent adjustment took effect December 1, 2025 and appeared in the January 2026 annuity payment: 2.0% for FERS and 2.8% for CSRS. Those are two separately published figures, not one derived from the other.

Over a long retirement the shortfall compounds. If CPI-W ran at a steady 3.5%, a FERS annuitant would receive 2.5% a year. After twenty-five years the annuity buys about 22% less than one indexed to the full figure. That gap is not recovered later; each year’s smaller increase becomes the base for the next.

There is a second rule that catches people out. FERS COLAs do not apply to annuitants who are under age 62 as of December 1. Retire at 57 under the MRA-with-30-years path and your annuity is flat for roughly five years before the first increase arrives. Three groups are exempt and receive COLAs regardless of age: disability annuitants, survivor annuitants, and special provision retirees — law enforcement officers, firefighters, air traffic controllers and certain military reserve technicians.

What you pay in

Your contribution rate depends entirely on when you were hired. There are three categories and they all earn exactly the same annuity.

A FRAE employee pays 5.5 times what a pre-2013 colleague pays and receives an identical benefit for it. The multiplier, the high-3 rule and the eligibility paths are the same across all three. Congress changed the price, not the product.

What the 2025 bill did not do

A great deal of inaccurate information circulated in the spring of 2025 and a lot of federal employees still believe their benefits were cut. They were not.

What people get wrong

• Comparing the 1% multiplier to a teacher’s 2.3% and stopping there. FERS is three benefits. Compare all three or none.
• Missing the 1.1% threshold by weeks. Both conditions are hard edges, and the higher rate applies to every year of service. Check your service computation date against your 62nd birthday.
• Assuming the annuity supplement bridges to whenever you claim Social Security. It stops at 62, whatever you decide about claiming.
• Treating an MRA + 10 postponement as free. The reduction goes away and so does FEHB. Price the insurance first.
• Contributing less than 5% to the TSP. Every percentage point below five gives back agency money that was offered to you.
• Believing the 2025 cuts happened. High-3 and the supplement are still in place.

Plan data on this page was last checked against the system’s own published material on September 19, 2026. Retirement systems change their rules; if you spot something out of date, tell us.