Changing agencies and breaks in service
Breaks in service are what turn an agency move into a reset. Change agencies with no real gap and your leave balances, your insurance, and your service computation date all survive intact. Break the service for more than three days and each of those starts to move.
9 min read · By RetireCiv Editorial · Updated August 7, 2026
Which breaks in service actually count?
Breaks in service are measured in days, and the number that matters is three. OPM defines a transfer as movement to another position without a break in service of one workday or more. Past that, you have separated and been rehired, whatever it felt like at the time.
Two separate rulebooks then land on the same threshold. For your leave clock, separations of one, two, or three calendar days are ignored and treated as a continuation of the earlier service.
Your insurance uses the same figure. FEHB and FEGLI continue without change when you move between payroll offices without a break of more than three days.
So a Friday-to-Monday move costs you nothing anywhere. A gap of a week starts moving dates and ending enrollments, and nobody sends you a summary of what changed.
How long a gap counts as a break in service?
For most practical purposes, more than three calendar days. Gaps of one to three days are ignored when your leave service computation date is calculated. Your health and life insurance also ride through any move with no break longer than three days. A longer gap is treated as a separation followed by a new appointment.
Is moving to a new agency the same as a break in service?
Not if the move is continuous. A transfer means going to a new position without a break of a full workday or more, and almost everything follows you across. A gap between the two jobs turns the move into a separation and a rehire, which is where the leave, insurance, and date rules start to bite.
What carries over when you change agencies?
On a clean transfer, nearly everything comes with you and you do almost nothing. Both leave balances move to the new agency. Your health and life insurance continue without a new election, your TSP account is untouched, and your personnel file follows you.
The file is the part people forget. Your electronic Official Personnel Folder holds every SF-50 from every federal job you have held, and it travels between agencies rather than being rebuilt. It is also where the evidence of your service history lives when a date turns out to be wrong.
One thing a transfer is not is a chance to shop. OPM is explicit that moving agencies is not an opportunity to elect new coverage. Your current plan carries over as it is, and you wait for Open Season or a qualifying life event to change it.
Moving into or out of a covered public-safety position is its own case, because the pension formula changes with it. Moving into or out of a covered position handles that separately.
Does my FEHB coverage carry over when I change agencies?
Yes, provided the move has no break of more than three days. Your enrollment and coverage continue without change, and your new employing office handles the transfer of the enrollment. You cannot switch plans as part of the move, since a transfer is not a qualifying event for a new election.
What is an eOPF and why does it matter?
Your electronic Official Personnel Folder is the record of every personnel action across your federal career, agency by agency. It holds your SF-50s, which document your appointments, your retirement coverage, and your service dates. When a service computation date looks wrong, the eOPF is where the proof is.
What happens to your service computation date?
A break pushes your service computation date forward by roughly the length of the gap, because the time you were gone is not federal service. That one date drives your leave accrual rate and other milestones, so moving it shows up in your paycheck rather than in a letter.
You also have more than one of these dates. OPM maintains four separate service computation dates, for leave, retirement, reduction in force, and the TSP. They often share a value, and they are not the same thing.
The leave date is the one you can actually see. It sets whether you earn 4, 6, or 8 hours of annual leave a pay period, and it appears in block 31 of every SF-50 you receive. Block 30 on the same form carries your retirement coverage code.
Your retirement date is not printed there at all. It runs under the CSRS and FERS Handbook rather than the leave rules. The two usually match, and when they do not, the form shows the leave date while your pension depends on the other one.
What happens to my SCD if I leave and come back?
It moves forward by about the length of your absence, since the gap is not creditable federal service. A three-day break or shorter is ignored entirely. A longer break means your new date reflects your total federal service rather than your original start date, which can delay a jump in your leave accrual rate.
What is the difference between my leave SCD and my retirement SCD?
They answer different questions and can hold different dates. The leave date decides how fast you earn annual leave and is the one printed on your SF-50. The retirement date decides what service counts toward your pension. They match for most people, and the gap between them is worth confirming rather than assuming.
How do I find out what service I actually have credit for?
Start with your eOPF and read the SF-50s for every period of federal employment. Then ask your HR office for your retirement service computation date specifically, rather than reading the leave date off a form. If a period is missing or coded as temporary, that is the conversation to have before you retire, not after.
What happens to your leave balances?
On a transfer, both balances simply move with you. On a separation, they part company: annual leave is paid out in a lump sum and sick leave stays on your record, waiting to see whether you come back.
Sick leave is the more forgiving of the two. The balance remains to your credit when you separate, and it can be recredited when you are reemployed as long as it was not already used to compute an annuity. OPM sets no deadline for coming back.
Annual leave works the other way, and returning quickly creates paperwork. If you are reemployed before your lump-sum leave period runs out, you refund the portion covering the overlap and the agency recredits the matching hours to your balance. Restored annual leave is exempt from that refund.
The sick-leave balance is worth protecting for a second reason. At retirement it converts into extra service credit, which sick and annual leave: converting hours to service credit covers in full.
Where each balance goes
| Sick leave | Annual leave | |
|---|---|---|
| You transfer | Moves with you | Moves with you |
| You separate | Stays to your credit | Paid out as a lump sum |
| You return | Recredited if unused for an annuity | Refund the overlap, hours come back |
Is my sick leave restored if I return to federal service?
It can be. The balance stays to your credit when you separate, and it is recredited on reemployment provided it was not already used in the computation of an annuity. Sick leave is never included in a lump-sum payment, so leaving federal service does not cash it out the way annual leave is cashed out.
Do I have to pay back my annual leave payout if I return?
Part of it, if you return before the lump-sum leave period ends. You refund the portion covering the days between your reemployment and the end of that period, and the agency credits the matching hours back to your leave balance. Restored annual leave included in the payout is not subject to the refund.
What happens to your insurance during a break?
A break longer than three days ends your enrollments rather than pausing them. FEHB and FEGLI are tied to your employment, so a genuine separation terminates the coverage, and returning later means enrolling again as a new hire would.
Temporary Continuation of Coverage is the bridge across a gap. TCC lets you keep FEHB for up to 18 months after you separate, at the full cost: your share, the government's share, and a 2 percent administrative charge on top.
The reason to care mid-career is a rule that only bites decades later. Carrying FEHB into retirement requires five years of continuous coverage immediately before you retire, so a break in the wrong window can reset a clock you were not watching.
That rule has more moving parts than belong here, including how TCC and coverage as a family member count toward it. FEHB in retirement and the five-year rule covers it properly.
Do I lose my FEHB if I have a break in service?
A break of more than three days ends the enrollment. You can pick up Temporary Continuation of Coverage for up to 18 months to bridge the gap, paying the full premium plus a 2 percent charge. When you return to federal service you enroll again, and the break may matter later for the five-year rule.
Does a break in service affect the FEHB five-year rule?
It can. Continuing FEHB into retirement depends on being covered for the five years immediately before you retire, so a gap inside that window is the one that hurts. A break early in your career is generally harmless. The details of what counts toward the five years are covered in the FEHB retirement lesson.
What to check before you move and after you land
Most of what goes wrong in a move is a date that was entered once and never questioned. The checks below take an afternoon and are far easier now than during retirement counselling, when the records are decades old and the people who created them have moved on.
Before you go, get your own copy of the record:
After you land, read your first SF-50 at the new agency rather than filing it. Confirm the service computation date in block 31 matches what you expect, and confirm your health and life insurance transferred instead of quietly lapsing.
If your move includes a real gap rather than a transfer, one more decision waits. Taking a FERS refund covers what happens to the contributions you leave behind, and why cashing them out is the hardest choice here to reverse. To see where your service history leaves your overall plan, run your free readiness score.
- Your final leave and earnings statement. It shows both leave balances at the moment you walked out.
- Form SF-1150, the Record of Leave Data upon Separation or Transfer, which OPM advises every separating employee to request.
- Your retirement service computation date from HR, in writing.
- Copies of your SF-50s, pulled from your eOPF while you still have access to it.
What should I keep when I leave a federal job?
Keep your final leave and earnings statement and request form SF-1150, the record of leave data on separation or transfer. Both document your leave balances at separation, which is what a future agency needs to recredit sick leave. Save copies of your SF-50s while you still have eOPF access.
What should I check after starting at a new agency?
Read your first SF-50 carefully. Confirm the service computation date reflects your full federal service, and check that your retirement coverage code is what you expect. Then verify your health and life insurance actually transferred. Correcting any of these is straightforward now and painful years later.