Introduction
If you work for the federal government under the Federal Employees Retirement System (FERS), you earn a pension based on your years of service and your highest average salary. This FERS retirement calculator helps you estimate how much that pension will be when you retire.
Just enter your date of birth, your service start date, your planned retirement date, and your high-3 average salary. The calculator does the math for you. It finds your Minimum Retirement Age (MRA), figures out your total years of service, picks the right pension multiplier (1.0% or 1.1%), and shows your estimated annual and monthly pension amount.
You can also add military service credit, unused sick leave hours, and choose a survivor benefit for your spouse. The tool shows a full step-by-step breakdown of how your FERS annuity is calculated, so you can see exactly where every number comes from.
Whether you are years away from retirement or getting close, this calculator gives you a clear picture of what to expect from your FERS basic benefit.
How to Use Our FERS Retirement Calculator
Enter your federal service details and salary below. The calculator will estimate your annual and monthly FERS pension, show which multiplier applies, and give you a full step-by-step breakdown of how your annuity is calculated.
Date of Birth: Enter the date you were born. This is used to find your Minimum Retirement Age (MRA) and how old you will be when you retire.
Federal Service Start Date (RSCD): Enter your Retirement Service Computation Date. This is the date OPM uses to measure your years of federal service. It may not be the same as your hire date.
Planned Retirement Date: Enter the date you plan to retire. This sets how many years of service you will have and your age at retirement.
Military Service Credit: Select "Yes" if you have creditable military service. Then enter the years and months you served. Tell us if you have made your military deposit to OPM, if you get a military retirement pension, or if you get a military disability pension. These answers determine whether your military time counts toward your FERS pension.
High-3 Average Salary: Enter the average of your basic pay during your highest-paid 3 consecutive years. Do not include bonuses, overtime, or locality adjustments beyond basic pay.
Retirement Type: Choose the type of retirement that fits your situation. Options include Regular Retirement, MRA+10 (age 62 or older), MRA+10 (under age 62), Voluntary Early Retirement (VERA), and Discontinued Service Retirement (DSR). If you pick MRA+10 under age 62, a 5% penalty is applied for each year you are under 62.
Unused Sick Leave Hours: Enter the number of sick leave hours you expect to have when you retire. These hours are converted into extra months of service credit for your pension calculation.
Marital Status: Select whether you are married or not married. If you are not married, the survivor benefit is automatically set to none.
Survivor Benefit Election: Choose how much of your pension you want your spouse to receive after your death. The full option (50%) reduces your pension by 10%. The partial option (25%) reduces it by 5%. Choosing none means no reduction and no benefit for a survivor.
Press Calculate FERS Pension to see your results. Press Reset Calculator to return all fields to their default values.
What Is a FERS Retirement Pension?
FERS stands for the Federal Employees Retirement System. It is the retirement plan that covers most civilian federal workers hired after 1986. When you retire from a federal job, FERS pays you a monthly pension for the rest of your life. This pension is based on three things: how long you worked, how much you earned, and how old you are when you retire.
How Your FERS Pension Is Calculated
Your FERS pension uses a simple formula. It takes your High-3 average salary, multiplies it by a percentage rate, and then multiplies that by your years of creditable service. Your High-3 is the average of your highest-paid three consecutive years of basic pay. It does not include overtime, bonuses, or locality adjustments above your base pay rate.
The percentage rate is usually 1%. But if you retire at age 62 or older with at least 20 years of service, the rate goes up to 1.1%. That small bump can add thousands of dollars to your annual pension.
What Counts as Creditable Service
Creditable service includes your years and months as a federal civilian employee. It can also include military service if you make a deposit to OPM (the Office of Personnel Management) to buy back that time. Unused sick leave hours are also added to your total service at retirement, but they do not count toward the 20-year requirement for the 1.1% multiplier.
Minimum Retirement Age (MRA)
Every FERS employee has a Minimum Retirement Age, or MRA. This is the youngest age at which you can retire with benefits. Your MRA depends on the year you were born. For people born in 1970 or later, the MRA is 57. For those born before 1948, it is 55. Birth years in between fall somewhere in the middle.
Types of FERS Retirement
There are several ways to retire under FERS:
- Regular Retirement — You meet the age and service requirements with no penalty. Common combinations are age 62 with 5 years of service, age 60 with 20 years, or your MRA with 30 years.
- MRA+10 Retirement — You reach your MRA and have at least 10 years of service. If you are under age 62, your pension is reduced by 5% for each year you are younger than 62.
- VERA (Voluntary Early Retirement) — Offered during agency restructuring. You can retire at age 50 with 20 years of service or at any age with 25 years.
- Discontinued Service Retirement (DSR) — Available if your job is eliminated through no fault of your own. The same age and service rules as VERA apply.
Survivor Benefits
If you are married, you can elect a survivor benefit so your spouse receives a portion of your pension after you pass away. A full survivor benefit gives your spouse 50% of your base annuity payout but reduces your pension by 10%. A partial survivor benefit gives 25% and costs 5%. You can also choose no survivor benefit, but your spouse must agree to that in writing. Depending on your situation, you may also want to evaluate whether a separate life insurance policy would provide additional financial protection for your family.