Creditable civilian service for federal retirement is the federal civilian employment that counts toward your eligibility for a FERS or CSRS annuity and toward the size of that annuity. Most career and career-conditional service counts automatically because retirement deductions come out of each paycheck. Temporary time, refunded service, and certain non-pay periods are where people lose credit they thought they had, and where a deposit, redeposit, or a careful records review can put it back.
Service That Counts Automatically
If you hold a career or career-conditional appointment, retirement service credit begins on your first day. Deductions are withheld from your pay and the time counts without any extra action. Career-conditional employees convert to full career status after three years of substantially continuous creditable service, but both appointment types earn credit from the start.1eCFR. 5 CFR Part 315 – Career and Career-Conditional Employment
Part-time service is fully creditable for eligibility. Four years of half-time work is four years of service for meeting the age-and-service thresholds.2U.S. Office of Personnel Management. CSRS and FERS Handbook – Chapter 55 At the annuity computation stage, OPM prorates the benefit by dividing your actual hours worked by the full-time hours possible during the same period.
Service That Doesn’t Count Unless You Pay a Deposit
Temporary and seasonal positions often come without retirement withholdings. Time worked in those jobs is called non-deduction service, and its treatment depends on which system you’re under and when you worked.
Under FERS, non-deduction civilian service performed before January 1, 1989 can be made creditable by paying a deposit. Non-deduction service on or after that date is not creditable at all, and no deposit option exists to recapture it.3U.S. Office of Personnel Management. Service Credit CSRS has no equivalent cutoff; deposits are generally available for non-deduction service regardless of when it was performed.
The deposit for FERS civilian service is 1.3 percent of the basic pay you earned during the non-deduction period, plus interest.4Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 5 USC 8411 – Creditable Service For CSRS it’s 7 percent of basic pay, plus interest.5U.S. Office of Personnel Management. Retirement Facts 3 – Deposits and Redeposits Interest compounds annually on the unpaid balance. The rate for calendar year 2026 is 4.25 percent.6U.S. Office of Personnel Management. Benefits Administration Letter 26-301 – Calendar Year 2026 Interest Rate
Redeposits for Refunded Service
A redeposit is different from a deposit. It applies when retirement deductions were taken from your pay during earlier federal service, you separated, took a refund of those contributions, and then returned to federal work. If you’re under FERS and choose not to redeposit, the refunded service is left out of the annuity computation, and any survivor annuity for your spouse is smaller as a result. The refunded time still counts toward the years needed for retirement eligibility.7U.S. Office of Personnel Management. FERS Refund Fact Sheet For CSRS employees who don’t make a required deposit, OPM reduces the annuity by 10 percent of the unpaid deposit amount each year.5U.S. Office of Personnel Management. Retirement Facts 3 – Deposits and Redeposits
Military Service
Post-1956 active-duty military time is creditable civilian service only if you make a military deposit. Under FERS, the deposit is generally 3 percent of the military basic pay you earned during that service. For employees who transferred from CSRS to FERS, the deposit for pre-transfer military service is 7 percent. CSRS-to-FERS transferees first hired in a civilian position before October 1, 1982 don’t have to make the deposit, but their CSRS portion is recalculated at 62 to remove credit for post-1956 military service if they become eligible for Social Security. Anyone first hired on or after October 1, 1982 gets no credit for post-1956 military service without paying.3U.S. Office of Personnel Management. Service Credit
Interest on military deposits accrues after a two-year grace period from your first civilian hire date and compounds annually at the same rate that applies to civilian deposits: 4.25 percent for 2026.6U.S. Office of Personnel Management. Benefits Administration Letter 26-301 – Calendar Year 2026 Interest Rate The deposit has to be paid to your employing agency before you separate.
Peace Corps and Certain Legislative Service
Peace Corps volunteer service can be credited under CSRS if you file an application and make a deposit based on the stipend you received. A two-year interest-free grace period runs from your first federal hire date; interest accrues after that.8eCFR. 5 CFR Part 831 Subpart X – Peace Corps Some legislative branch service also qualifies, including work performed before December 31, 1990 with the Democratic or Republican Senatorial Campaign Committees or National Congressional Committees, provided the employee had at least four years and six months on those committees by that date.9U.S. Office of Personnel Management. Creditable Service
Forms and the Payment Deadline
CSRS employees use Standard Form 2803 to apply. FERS employees use Standard Form 3108.10U.S. Office of Personnel Management. Standard Form 3108 – Application to Make Service Credit Payment You’ll need exact employment dates, agency names, and salary information, which usually come from your SF-50 Notification of Personnel Action records. For FERS civilian service deposits, payment must be completed no later than 30 days after your first regular monthly annuity payment, and a period isn’t credited unless the full amount for that period is paid.11eCFR. 5 CFR 842.305 – Deposits for Civilian Service Waiting is expensive because interest keeps compounding, and finishing well before separation is easier than racing a 30-day window while adjusting to life after federal work.
Leave Without Pay and Breaks in Service
Time in a non-pay status counts toward creditable service up to a cap. OPM credits up to six months of non-pay status per calendar year. Anything beyond six months in a single calendar year does not count.12U.S. Office of Personnel Management. Effect of Extended Leave Without Pay (LWOP) or Other Nonpay Status on Federal Benefits and Programs
The exception is significant. LWOP taken to perform service in the uniformed services counts as creditable service for rights and benefits based on seniority and length of service under the Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act. The six-month cap does not apply to that military-related non-pay time.12U.S. Office of Personnel Management. Effect of Extended Leave Without Pay (LWOP) or Other Nonpay Status on Federal Benefits and Programs
A break in service is a formal separation of more than three calendar days before you return to federal employment.13U.S. Office of Personnel Management. Guide to Processing Personnel Actions A break doesn’t erase your prior creditable service. But if you took a refund of retirement contributions during that break, you’ll be looking at a redeposit when you come back.
Unused Sick Leave
Unused sick leave at retirement is converted into additional months and days of service using a chart built on a 2,087-hour work year. Where an 8-hour day is charged for a full day of sick leave, 8 hours equals one day of credit, and 2,087 hours equals a full year.14U.S. Office of Personnel Management. Retirement Facts 8 – Credit for Unused Sick Leave Under the Civil Service Retirement System FERS employees receive 100 percent credit for their sick leave balance for any separation on or after January 1, 2014.15U.S. Office of Personnel Management. Retire FAQ – Will I Get Paid for Unused Sick Leave in Retirement CSRS employees have always received full credit.
One boundary matters here. Sick leave credit only increases your annuity amount. It cannot be used to reach the minimum service required to retire. Someone with 4 years and 10 months of actual creditable service can’t use a sick leave balance to cross the 5-year eligibility line.
How the Total Gets Used
OPM adds your creditable periods together and expresses the total in years, months, and days, using a standard 30-day month. Days short of a full 30-day month at the end are dropped for annuity computation. A total of 30 years, 2 months, and 17 days is treated as 30 years and 2 months.
That total determines both whether you can retire and how much you’ll receive. FERS eligibility opens at age 62 with 5 years, age 60 with 20 years, your Minimum Retirement Age with 30 years, or your MRA with 10 years (with a reduction of 5 percent for each year you’re under 62).16U.S. Office of Personnel Management. Eligibility CSRS eligibility opens at 55 with 30 years, 60 with 20, or 62 with 5. If you leave before qualifying for an immediate annuity but you have at least 5 years of creditable civilian service, you qualify for a deferred annuity starting the first of the month after you turn 62.17U.S. Office of Personnel Management. Applying for Deferred or Postponed Retirement Under FERS Deferred retirement carries a real cost: you lose the ability to continue federal health benefits and life insurance into retirement if you separated before reaching MRA with at least 10 years.
On the annuity side, FERS pays 1 percent of your high-3 average salary per year of service, or 1.1 percent per year if you’re at least 62 with 20 or more years.18U.S. Office of Personnel Management. Computation CSRS uses a tiered formula: 1.5 percent per year for the first five years, 1.75 percent for the next five, and 2 percent per year beyond ten, capped at 80 percent of the high-3.19U.S. Office of Personnel Management. Computation Every year of service you can properly claim moves the number.
Verify Your Record Before You Retire
Don’t wait until you’re filing retirement paperwork to check your service history. Errors in your Official Personnel Folder are far easier to fix while you still have agency resources available. Many agencies maintain electronic personnel folders that let you view SF-50s and other personnel actions online, organized by effective date. The view is read-only, so reviewing your record can’t affect it.
Compare each SF-50 against your own records. Look for gaps, missing temporary appointments, and periods where retirement deductions may not have been withheld. If something’s off, submit the appropriate deposit or correction paperwork to your agency’s human resources office. HR specialists verify claims by cross-referencing payroll records and historical personnel actions, and once the review is complete you receive a formal statement confirming any added service and the balance due. The process can take several months, especially for older records. Starting early leaves room to fix problems before they push back your retirement date.