When Can I Retire Under FERS? Your Age and Years, Answered

Your Minimum Retirement Age (MRA) is the earliest age FERS lets you retire on an immediate pension under the regular rules, and your birth year sets it between 55 and 57. Anyone born in 1970 or later has an MRA of 57. Anyone born from 1953 through 1964 has 56. The years in between step up two months at a time, which is where people get surprised.

Take 1968 as an example birth year: the MRA is 56 and 8 months, not 57. OPM publishes the full table, and the statute spells out the same schedule. If you were born between 1965 and 1969, write your MRA down in years and months. A two-month miss on the early side turns an immediate retirement into a deferred one, and that distinction isn't cheap (more on it below).

The other number is your service computation date (SCD), the date OPM counts your creditable service from, printed on your SF-50. Simply stated, your MRA comes from your birth certificate and your years of service come from your SCD. Neither is a judgment call, and both are worth confirming with HR years before you'll need them. The Minimum Retirement Age lesson has the full birth-year table and the reasoning behind it.

Four combinations give you an immediate annuity, one that starts the first of the month after you separate. Three are unreduced and one isn't. You need to meet one of them, not all of them, and meeting two doesn't pay more. The table is the whole rulebook for a regular FERS employee. Law enforcement officers, firefighters and air traffic controllers have earlier ages, covered in the special-provision lessons.

A word on each term, since the vocabulary trips people up. An immediate retirement is one whose annuity starts the month after you leave, and MRA+10 is the reduced version of it: your MRA with at least 10 but fewer than 30 years. A deferred retirement is what you've got when you leave before meeting any immediate combination, with at least 5 years in, and the pension waits for you. A postponed retirement is an MRA+10 retirement where you choose to start the annuity later to shrink the reduction. It isn't the same thing as deferred (that difference gets its own section).

Keep in mind that the 1.1% line in the first row is the one people miss. Retire at 62 or later with 20 or more years and OPM computes the annuity at 1.1% of your high-3 for each year instead of 1%. That's a pension one tenth larger for life, on the same service, for reaching one birthday on the payroll. The high-3, for the record, is the average of your highest three consecutive years of basic pay.

Yes, if you were born in 1970 or later, because 57 is your MRA and 30 years at your MRA is an unreduced immediate retirement. Born between 1965 and 1969, you can go a few months earlier. Born from 1953 through 1964, your MRA is 56, and the 30-year door opened there. In every case the pension is 1% of your high-3 for each year of service, with no age reduction.

This is the door most career employees aim for, and it carries one benefit the 62 door doesn't. Retiring at your MRA with 30 years, or at 60 with 20, pays the Special Retirement Supplement (SRS) until 62. The supplement is a bridge payment that approximates the Social Security you earned in federal service. The statute pays it only on an annuity that begins before 62 under the unreduced doors, so neither the 62-with-5 door nor the MRA+10 door gets it.

The trade-off is arithmetic. Thirty years at 57 means five more years of pension checks than retiring at 62, and five fewer years of salary, TSP contributions and service credit. Thus the better question is what each year of waiting buys, since "can I" is already answered. The example later in this guide prices that for one employee, and the calculator prices it for you.

Yes, and it's unreduced. Age 60 with 20 years of service is an immediate retirement under 5 U.S.C. 8412(b), computed at 1% of your high-3 per year, with the supplement payable until 62. For a mid-career hire this is often the first unreduced door. Someone who starts at 35 has 22 years at an MRA of 57, which is MRA+10 territory, and then reaches 60 with 25 years and no reduction.

The door has a quiet cousin in the postponement and deferral rules. An MRA+10 retiree who postpones the annuity to 60 with 20 years loses the reduction entirely. So does a former employee who left with 20 years and starts a deferred annuity at 60, by the exception in 5 U.S.C. 8415(h)(2). With that said, the supplement doesn't follow either of them. It belongs to the immediate retirement only.

At your MRA, under MRA+10, and it charges you for the early start. The annuity is reduced by 5/12 of 1% for each full month its commencing date falls before your 62nd birthday, which works out to 5% a year. Retire at 57 and start the annuity at once, and the reduction is 25%, for life. It doesn't come back at 62.

Two details matter more than the headline rate. First, the reduction counts months, from the day the annuity begins, and for a FERS retiree that's the first day of the month after separation. Second, it disappears in two cases: when the annuity begins at 62 or later, and when you have 20 or more years and it begins at 60 or later (the 60-with-20 door arriving late). OPM's MRA+10 page says the same in plainer words, and 5 U.S.C. 8415(h) is the rule itself.

Because the reduction follows the commencing date, you can separate at your MRA and postpone the annuity. Each year you wait removes 5% of the cut, and a start at 62 removes all of it. The cost is the income you go without in between, plus a health-coverage gap the next section covers. The MRA+10 lesson works through the postponement math and the FEHB rules in full.

The difference is whether you were eligible to retire on the day you left. Postponed retirement is for someone who met MRA+10 (their MRA with 10 to 29 years) and chose to delay the annuity's start. Deferred retirement is for someone who left before meeting any immediate combination, with at least 5 years of service, and claims the annuity later. Same preserved pension, same application form, and a very different answer on health insurance.

The hinge is the Federal Employees Health Benefits (FEHB) program. OPM states that a deferred annuitant is not eligible to reenroll in health benefits, life insurance, or dental and vision coverage. A postponed annuitant can continue FEHB for 18 months after separation at their own cost. When the postponed annuity begins, the coverage they had can be reinstated, if they were eligible to carry it into retirement (the five-year rule). In my opinion, OPM's one sentence about deferred annuitants is the most expensive sentence in FERS that nobody reads before they resign.

What if you leave after 10 years, well before your MRA? You're vested at 5 years (the statute's floor for any FERS annuity), so the pension survives as long as you leave your contributions in the fund. You can claim it unreduced at 62, or at your MRA with the same 5% a year reduction MRA+10 carries, and you get no supplement and no FEHB. Take the refund and it's gone. The deferred vs. postponed lesson covers both paths, including the 20-year and 30-year start ages a deferred annuity can use.

This is the part the big sites skip. Two rules hinge on age 62, and both are measured to the month. The 1.1% multiplier requires that you're at least 62 with at least 20 years of service on the day you separate. The MRA+10 reduction counts every full month that the annuity's commencing date precedes your 62nd birthday. Neither rule rounds up.

Picture someone with 25 years of service whose 62nd birthday is March 15. Retiring on February 28 means separating at 61 and 11 months, so the whole pension is computed at 1% for life. Retiring on March 31 means separating at 62, so it's computed at 1.1%. One month of work raises the pension by a tenth, permanently. On an example high-3 of $100,000 with 25 years, that's the difference between $25,000 and $27,500 a year.

With fewer than 20 years, the multiplier never applies, and the month count works in your favor at the end. Separate on January 31 before a March 15 birthday and the annuity begins February 1, one full month early, for a 5/12 of 1% reduction. Separate on February 28 and it begins March 1, two weeks before the birthday, which is zero full months and zero reduction. Thus the last day of the month before your 62nd birthday month can be a free date, and the month before it isn't.

Take an example GS-12, step 5, in the Rest of U.S. locality, born March 15, 1968, with a service computation date of June 10, 2001. OPM's 2026 tables put that salary at $86,659 base and $101,443 with the 17.06% locality payment, effective January 2026. The birth year sets an MRA of 56 and 8 months, already reached. To keep the arithmetic visible, the example uses a high-3 equal to today's pay, $101,443, with no sick leave credit and no survivor election. See our assumptions for the values the calculator fills in.

Door one is MRA+10, right now. Separating on December 31, 2026 gives this example employee 25 years and 6 months of service at 58 and 9 months. The annuity would begin January 1, 2027, which is 38 full months before the 62nd birthday. So the reduction in this example is 38 times 5/12 of 1%, about 15.8%. For the example, the unreduced $25,868 a year becomes about $21,770, roughly $1,815 a month, for life, with no supplement.

Door two is 60 with 20. Separating on March 31, 2028, the last day of the month of the 60th birthday, gives 26 years and 9 months of service and no reduction. In the example that's $27,136 a year, about $2,261 a month, plus the supplement until 62. Fifteen months of waiting buys this example employee about $5,400 a year more, every year.

Door three is 62 with 20 or more. Separating on March 31, 2030 gives 28 years and 9 months at exactly 62, so the 1.1% multiplier applies. The example pension becomes $32,081 a year, about $2,673 a month, with no supplement, since the supplement ends at 62 anyway. Two more years of work add about $4,900 a year to this example pension, and roughly $2,900 of that comes from the multiplier alone.

The spread is the point. One employee, one salary, three legal doors, and the example pension runs from about $21,800 to about $32,100 a year depending on the date, before any survivor election or sick leave credit. Your own spread won't match this one, because your MRA, your SCD and your pay all differ. The calculator's GS lookup uses the same OPM 2026 tables, effective January 2026, that this example does.

Once you know which door you'll use, the date itself follows rules you can look up rather than guess. A FERS annuity commences on the first day of the month after you separate, under 5 U.S.C. 8464, whatever day of the month you leave. So the last day of a month is the standard FERS retirement date. Leave on the 15th and you've given up two weeks of salary for no earlier annuity.

The leave year matters for your unused annual leave. OPM's table has the 2026 leave year ending on January 9, 2027, and the 2027 leave year ending on January 8, 2028. Separate on or before the last day of a leave year and the leave above your carryover ceiling, which would otherwise be forfeited, is paid in your lump sum. Some agency payroll systems run a different schedule, so OPM tells you to confirm the dates with your agency.

Then there's the paperwork. OPM's retirement quick guide asks you to meet with your benefits office at least 60 days before your separation date. It puts the whole process at 3 to 5 months from your last day to your first regular annuity payment, with interim payments in between. None of that is urgency, just the calendar. The retirement date timing lesson covers the month-end rule, the leave payout and the sick-leave credit in detail.

In my opinion, the one date worth writing on a card is the first day you qualify for an unreduced annuity: your MRA with 30, 60 with 20, or 62 with 5, whichever lands first. Every other choice in this guide is measured against it. What MRA+10 costs is the distance to that date, and what waiting past it pays is the multiplier and the extra service. Decide that date years ahead, and the office folklore about best dates turns into arithmetic you can check.

I hope this example illustrates that FERS eligibility is a short list of doors with a price tag on each. Find your MRA in the table and write it down in years and months. Pull your SCD from your SF-50 and count forward to 10, 20 and 30 years. Then price the doors with your own numbers, and pick the one you can live with.