Federal retirement vesting requirements come down to two numbers: five years and three years. Under the Federal Employees Retirement System (FERS), you need five years of creditable civilian service to earn a permanent right to a future pension, and three years of service to keep the government’s automatic 1% contributions to your Thrift Savings Plan account. Your own TSP contributions and the agency matching contributions are yours from day one.
Those two thresholds unlock different benefits on different timelines, and clearing them doesn’t automatically mean you can start collecting anything. Here is what each one actually gives you, and what still has to fall into place after.
What Counts as Creditable Service
Every vesting clock runs on “creditable service,” which generally means time worked under a federal retirement system while retirement deductions came out of your pay. Full-time and part-time years both count toward the vesting threshold. Part-time service satisfies the time requirement the same way full-time does, though it reduces the eventual annuity amount through a proration formula.
Military service can count too, but only if you make a deposit to the civilian retirement fund covering that period. For FERS employees, the deposit is 3% of the base pay earned during military service, plus interest if you make the deposit more than three years after returning to civilian employment.1U.S. Geological Survey. Military Service Deposits Skip the deposit and the military time doesn’t get credited. That’s the trap: you could think you’ve cleared five years and find out you haven’t.
The Five-Year Pension Vesting Line
The FERS Basic Annuity is the defined-benefit pension. Under 5 U.S.C. § 8333, you must complete at least five years of creditable civilian service to be eligible for any annuity benefit.2GovInfo. 5 USC 8333 – Eligibility for Annuity Fall short of five years and you have no legal right to a pension, no matter how much came out of your paychecks.
Cross that line and you own a future annuity even if you leave federal service decades before retirement age. The benefit is 1% of your “high-three” average salary (the highest three consecutive years of basic pay) multiplied by your total years of creditable service.
If you leave after vesting but before you’re old enough to collect, you get what’s called a deferred annuity. Payments don’t start immediately. They become payable when you reach age 62.3U.S. Office of Personnel Management. Leaving the Government The amount is locked in based on your salary and service at separation. There’s no further growth other than cost-of-living adjustments once payments begin, and FERS retirees generally don’t receive those adjustments until age 62 anyway.
The TSP: Three Buckets, Three Timelines
The Thrift Savings Plan has its own vesting rules, separate from the pension. FERS employees see three types of money flow into the account:4Thrift Savings Plan. Thrift Savings Plan Vesting Requirements and the TSP Service Computation Date
- Money you contribute yourself, to either the traditional or Roth TSP, is 100% yours immediately. You can never lose it.
- Agency matching contributions, which match what you put in up to a set percentage of pay, are also immediately vested for FERS employees.
- Agency automatic 1% contributions, which the government deposits every pay period whether you contribute or not, are the only TSP money subject to a waiting period.
Most FERS employees vest in the automatic 1% contributions and their earnings after three years of federal civilian service.4Thrift Savings Plan. Thrift Savings Plan Vesting Requirements and the TSP Service Computation Date Leave before three years and those funds go back to the government. Your own contributions and the agency match stay with you either way.
A shorter two-year vesting period applies to certain positions: noncareer members of the Senior Executive Service, employees in Executive Schedule positions, Schedule C appointees, and Members of Congress and their staffs.4Thrift Savings Plan. Thrift Savings Plan Vesting Requirements and the TSP Service Computation Date If you’re in one of those roles, your TSP Service Computation Date reflects the shorter timeline.
Being Vested Isn’t the Same as Being Able to Retire
Vesting guarantees a future pension. Collecting it right away is a separate question. To start an immediate, unreduced annuity, you have to meet one of these age-and-service combinations:5U.S. Office of Personnel Management. FERS Information – Eligibility
- Age 62 with 5 years of service. The vesting threshold and the immediate-retirement threshold line up here, which makes this the simplest path.
- Age 60 with 20 years of service.
- Minimum Retirement Age (MRA) with 30 years of service. The MRA ranges from 55 to 57 depending on your birth year.
Employees who reach their MRA with at least 10 years of service but fewer than 30 can retire immediately under the MRA+10 provision, with a permanent 5% reduction for each year they’re under age 62 when payments begin.6U.S. Office of Personnel Management. What Is a Minimum Retirement Age (MRA) Plus 10 Annuity Under the Federal Employees Retirement System (FERS) Postponing the start date to age 62 (or to age 60 with 20 years) eliminates the reduction.
So a mid-career employee who has cleared five years but doesn’t meet any of these combinations has a real, vested pension. It just doesn’t start paying until 62.
Health and Life Insurance Have a Separate Test
Vesting in the pension does not, by itself, let you keep your Federal Employees Health Benefits (FEHB) coverage after you retire. Two conditions both have to be met: you must retire on an immediate annuity, meaning one that starts within a month of separation, and you must have been continuously enrolled in an FEHB plan for the five years of service immediately before retirement.7U.S. Office of Personnel Management. Health If your total service was less than five years, you need continuous enrollment since your first chance to sign up.
The same five-year enrollment rule applies to Federal Employees’ Group Life Insurance (FEGLI). Take a deferred annuity or have gaps in coverage and you can lose the ability to carry either benefit into retirement. It’s possible to be fully vested in the pension and still walk away without health or life insurance.
If You Leave Before Five Years
Separating before you complete five years of creditable civilian service means no future FERS pension. You have two choices for the retirement deductions that came out of your pay.
You can request a lump-sum refund. You get back the contributions that were withheld, but the taxable portion is subject to mandatory federal income tax withholding, and the IRS generally imposes a 10% additional tax on early distributions from retirement plans taken before age 59½, with some exceptions.8Internal Revenue Service. Hardships, Early Withdrawals and Loans Taking the refund permanently forfeits any right to a future annuity based on that service.
The other option is to leave your contributions in the Civil Service Retirement and Disability Fund. That preserves the ability to count that service toward a future annuity if you come back to federal employment.3U.S. Office of Personnel Management. Leaving the Government If you took the refund and then returned, you can redeposit the refunded amount plus accrued interest to restore credit for that earlier service. Interest keeps building the whole time you’re away, so a longer gap makes the buyback more expensive.
On the TSP side, any unvested automatic 1% contributions are forfeited permanently if you leave before three years (or two years for the positions noted above). Those funds don’t come back even if you return later. Your own contributions and the agency match stay in the account, and you keep control over how they’re invested and when they’re withdrawn.
If You Die Before Vesting
An employee who dies in service doesn’t need the full five years for survivors to receive something. The Basic Employee Death Benefit becomes available after 18 months of creditable civilian service. For deaths occurring after December 1, 2025, the benefit equals 50% of the employee’s final salary (or high-three average, whichever is greater) plus $43,800.53.9U.S. Office of Personnel Management. Survivors
Recurring monthly survivor annuity payments require more: the deceased employee must have completed at least 10 years of creditable service, at least 18 months of which was civilian.9U.S. Office of Personnel Management. Survivors A surviving spouse qualifies if the marriage lasted at least nine months, the death was accidental, or a child was born of the marriage. Below 18 months of service, survivors can still get a refund of the retirement contributions withheld from the employee’s pay.