Minimum Retirement Age and eligibility paths

Your Minimum Retirement Age (MRA) is the earliest age you can retire under FERS. It falls between 55 and 57, set entirely by the year you were born. Reaching your MRA is a threshold, not an automatic green light, because eligibility also depends on your years of service.

Think of the MRA as the first door, not the finish line. OPM ties FERS eligibility to a combination of your age and your service. Hitting your MRA opens some paths, but each path also has a service requirement.

The MRA matters most for early retirement. The other two milestone ages, 60 and 62, have their own service rules. Your MRA is the only one of the three that changes from person to person, because it depends on your birth year.

This lesson maps the full set of eligibility paths. We start with how your MRA is set, then walk each way to an immediate pension, including the reduced MRA+10 route. By the end you will know the earliest date you can retire and what it costs.

Your MRA is fixed by your year of birth, on a schedule that rises from 55 to 57. Anyone born in 1970 or later has an MRA of 57. Earlier birth years have a lower MRA, stepping up two months at a time through two transition windows.

Here is the full schedule OPM uses. Find your birth year to read your exact MRA.

For most employees still working toward retirement, the MRA is 56 or 57. The two-month steps only affect people born in the 1948 to 1952 and 1965 to 1969 windows. If you are unsure, your exact MRA appears on the retirement estimate from your agency.

• Born before 1948: MRA is 55.
• Born 1948 to 1952: MRA is 55 plus two months for each year after 1947.
• Born 1953 to 1964: MRA is 56.
• Born 1965 to 1969: MRA is 56 plus two months for each year after 1964.
• Born 1970 or later: MRA is 57.

FERS gives you three main ways to retire with an immediate, unreduced pension. You can retire at age 62 with 5 years of service, at age 60 with 20 years, or at your MRA with 30 years. A fourth route, MRA+10, lets you leave earlier but reduces the pension.

Each unreduced path pairs an age with a years-of-service requirement. The combinations are set by law, so you qualify the moment you meet both halves of any one path. Meeting more than one does not change the result; you only need one.

The earliest unreduced path is usually the MRA with 30 years. A long-career employee who started young can reach 30 years of service in their late fifties, right around their MRA. That combination unlocks a full pension years before 62.

The three unreduced paths trade age for service. The youngest, MRA with 30 years, also unlocks the Special Retirement Supplement that bridges you to 62. The age-60 and age-62 paths require fewer years but start later.

Start with MRA + 30. It is the path most career employees aim for. Retiring this way gives you a full, unreduced pension plus the Special Retirement Supplement, which approximates Social Security until age 62.

Age 60 with 20 years is the middle path. It also pays an unreduced pension and the supplement, but it requires waiting until 60. Age 62 with 5 years is the minimum: just five years of service vests an immediate pension, though with no supplement, because you are already 62.

All three pay the standard pension formula. Retiring at 62 or later with at least 20 years earns a slightly richer 1.1 percent multiplier instead of 1.0 percent. (Pension amounts depend on your salary and service; see our assumptions.)

MRA+10 lets you retire at your MRA with as few as 10 years of service. The trade-off is a permanent reduction: your pension drops 5 percent for every year you are under 62. Retiring at an MRA of 57 means a 25 percent cut.

The reduction is 5 percent per year under 62, or 5/12 of one percent per month. The closer you retire to 62, the smaller the cut. There is no reduction at all once you reach 62.

One exception softens the rule. If you have at least 20 years of service and wait until age 60, the reduction disappears. That is really the age-60 path, but it shows the reduction is tied to age, not a penalty for leaving.

You can also avoid the reduction by postponing. The full mechanics of postponed MRA+10 retirement, including what happens to your FEHB coverage, are covered in our dedicated MRA+10 lesson. The short version: leaving at your MRA with 10 to 29 years is possible, but the early reduction is steep.

The right path depends on one question: how many years of service you will have at your MRA. With 30 or more, you retire unreduced and early. With 10 to 29, you can still leave at your MRA, but the pension is reduced unless you wait.

Your age and service together decide everything. A long-career employee usually targets MRA with 30 years for the earliest full pension. A later-career entrant often waits for age 60 with 20 years, or age 62 with 5, to avoid the MRA+10 reduction.

The choice also ripples into your other income. Retiring at your MRA with an unreduced pension unlocks the Special Retirement Supplement until 62. Retiring later skips the bridge but gives your TSP and Social Security more time to grow.

There is no single right answer; it depends on your numbers and your goals. To see which path you qualify for and what each one pays, run your free readiness score. It checks your age and service against every path and projects the income that follows.