Your first benefits enrollment as a new hire
Your first weeks carry deadlines nobody chases you about. Most federal benefits give you 60 days from your entry date to enroll, and two of them enroll you automatically unless you act. Miss a window and you usually wait a year.
8 min read · By RetireCiv Editorial · Updated August 5, 2026
What is on the clock when you start?
Nearly all of it, and the clock is short. Health, dental, vision, and optional life insurance each give you 60 days from the day you become eligible. Nothing renews those windows early.
Missing one is rarely fatal, but it is expensive in time. For health, dental, and vision you generally wait for the annual Open Season, which means living most of a year with the choice you did not make.
Two things run on different clocks entirely. Basic life insurance starts automatically and has to be actively refused inside your first pay period. Your Thrift Savings Plan (TSP) contributions also start on their own.
One more deadline sits at 90 days, and it only matters if you want to undo the automatic TSP enrollment. The timeline below shows all three.
How long do new federal employees have to enroll in benefits?
Generally 60 days from the date you become eligible, which covers health, dental, vision, and optional life insurance. Basic life insurance is different: it starts automatically and must be waived before the end of your first pay period. Your TSP also begins automatically rather than waiting for you to sign up.
What happens if I miss my new-hire enrollment window?
For health, dental, and vision you generally wait for the annual Open Season, or for a qualifying life event such as a marriage or a birth. That can mean most of a year without the coverage you intended. Optional life insurance is harder to add later, so it is the costliest window to miss.
Which benefits enroll you without asking?
Two do, and knowing which is the single most useful thing on this page. Everything else sits and waits for you, and then closes.
Basic life insurance under the Federal Employees Group Life Insurance (FEGLI) program starts on your first day in a pay and duty status. You do not sign up for it. If you do not want it, you have to waive it before the end of your first pay period, and the premium comes out of your pay until you do.
The TSP is the other. Your agency enrolls you and begins deducting from your pay automatically. That default is deliberately set to capture the agency match rather than to be minimal.
Everything else requires you to act: health, dental, vision, optional life insurance, and a flexible spending account. None of them enroll you by default, and none of them chase you.
What happens if you do nothing at all
| Benefit | If you do nothing |
|---|---|
| FEGLI Basic life | You are enrolled, and paying |
| Thrift Savings Plan | You are enrolled at the default rate |
| FEHB health | No coverage |
| FEDVIP dental and vision | No coverage |
| FEGLI optional life | No coverage |
| Flexible spending account | No account |
Am I automatically enrolled in federal health insurance?
No. Federal Employees Health Benefits coverage requires you to choose a plan and enroll within your 60-day window. Doing nothing leaves you without coverage until the next Open Season. This surprises people who expect health insurance to be automatic the way life insurance and the TSP are.
Do I have to sign up for FEGLI Basic?
No, it is automatic. Basic coverage takes effect your first day in a pay and duty status without any action from you, and the premium is deducted from your pay. If you do not want it, you must waive it before the end of your first pay period. It is the only major federal benefit you have to opt out of.
How do the health, dental, and vision windows work?
They all run 60 days, but they do not behave identically, and the dental and vision detail catches people out.
Health coverage under FEHB gives newly eligible employees 60 days to enroll. This is also the moment a much longer clock starts: carrying FEHB into retirement requires five years of continuous enrollment before you separate, which the FEHB in retirement lesson covers. Enrolling now is what makes that possible decades later.
Dental and vision under FEDVIP each get their own 60-day window. You can enroll in dental on day 30 and vision on day 59 and both are fine. The catch is that enrolling in one type ends that type's window, so a dental enrollment on day 30 cannot be changed on day 45.
FEDVIP has no five-year rule, which makes it structurally different from health and life insurance. The FEDVIP lesson covers why that matters much later.
Can I enroll in dental and vision separately?
Yes, and they have separate 60-day windows. You could enroll in a dental plan early in the window and a vision plan near the end of it. Once you enroll in one type, that type's window closes, so you cannot switch dental plans later in the same window even though vision remains open.
Does enrolling in FEHB now matter for retirement?
Yes, more than most new hires realise. Carrying FEHB into retirement generally requires five years of continuous enrollment immediately before you separate. That clock only runs while you are enrolled, so a gap early in your career can matter thirty years later. It is the longest-consequence decision in your first 60 days.
What do you have to decide about FEGLI?
Two separate decisions, on two different clocks, and only one of them happens by default.
Basic coverage is automatic from your first day in a pay and duty status. Your decision is whether to keep it. Waiving it requires action before the end of your first pay period, and the premium is deducted from your pay in the meantime.
Optional coverage is the opposite. None of it is automatic, and you have 60 days from your entry date to elect any of it. Doing nothing means you have Basic and nothing more.
The asymmetry matters because the optional election is the harder one to revisit. FEGLI does not run a regular annual Open Season the way health and dental do, so a missed optional election is not simply a one-year wait. If you are unsure, this is the window worth spending time on.
How long do I have to elect FEGLI optional insurance?
Sixty days from your entry date. Optional coverage is never automatic, so taking no action leaves you with Basic coverage only. Unlike health and dental, FEGLI does not hold a regular annual Open Season, which makes this window harder to recover from than the others.
How do I decline FEGLI Basic if I do not want it?
You must waive it before the end of your first pay period, since coverage begins automatically on your first day in a pay and duty status. Until the waiver is processed the premium is deducted from your pay. Waiving is a decision worth making deliberately rather than by default, in either direction.
What is already happening to your TSP?
Contributions, most likely, before you have logged in once. Your agency enrolls you automatically and begins deducting from your basic pay.
The default rate is 5% of basic pay for participants who began or rejoined federal service on or after October 1, 2020. Those who started between August 2010 and September 2020 were enrolled at 3% instead, so a colleague hired earlier may be on a lower default without realising it.
That 5% figure is not arbitrary. It is exactly the contribution level that captures the full agency match, so a new hire who changes nothing is already getting every matched dollar available. The 5% match lesson covers how the match is structured and what dropping below 5% costs.
You can stop the automatic contributions before they begin if your agency receives the form before the end of your first full pay period. You can also request a refund of contributions from your first 90 days of automatic enrollment using Form TSP-25. Both give up match along with the contributions.
Am I automatically enrolled in the TSP?
Yes. Participants who began or rejoined federal service on or after October 1, 2020 are automatically enrolled at 5% of basic pay. Those who started between August 2010 and September 2020 were enrolled at 3%. You can change the amount at any time, and you can stop it before it starts if you act in your first full pay period.
Can I get back the TSP money that was deducted automatically?
Contributions from your first 90 days of automatic enrollment can be refunded by submitting Form TSP-25 directly to the TSP, along with their earnings. Taking the refund also gives up the agency match on those contributions, which is why the deadline matters less than the decision itself.
Should I change the default 5% contribution?
We explain the mechanics rather than advise. The relevant fact is that 5% is the level at which you receive the full agency match, so reducing it below 5% forfeits matched money you are otherwise entitled to. Increasing it above 5% adds your own savings but earns no additional match.
What to do in your first few weeks
Work backward from the two deadlines that arrive first. Your first pay period governs the FEGLI Basic waiver, and day 60 governs almost everything else.
Handle the automatic items first, because they are already running. Decide whether to keep Basic life insurance, and check what your TSP contribution is actually set to rather than assuming.
Then work through the opt-in list while the window is open: health, dental, vision, and optional life insurance. The dental and vision windows are separate, so a decision on one does not force the other.
Finally, file your beneficiary designations. They have no deadline, which is exactly why they get forgotten, and they override your will. The beneficiary designations lesson covers the four separate forms. To see how these choices feed a longer plan, run your free readiness score.
What should a new federal employee do first?
Deal with the automatic enrollments before the opt-in ones, because they are already costing or saving you money. Decide on FEGLI Basic inside your first pay period, confirm your TSP contribution rate, then work through health, dental, vision, and optional life insurance before day 60.
Do beneficiary forms have a deadline?
No, which is why they are the most commonly skipped item. There are four separate designations across your federal benefits, and they override whatever your will says. Filing them in your first weeks costs very little effort and removes a problem your family would otherwise inherit.