FERS MRA: Eligibility, Pension Amount, and Supplement

Your FERS minimum retirement age is somewhere between 55 and 57, set by your birth year. Anyone born in 1970 or later has an MRA of 57. Birth years 1953 through 1964 share an MRA of 56. The years on either side of those blocks climb in two-month steps, and 1947 or earlier gives you an MRA of 55.¹

Hitting your MRA is only the first half of the question. What you can actually collect at that age depends on how many years of creditable federal service you have behind you.

FERS MRA by Birth Year

1947 or earlier: 55
1948: 55 and 2 months
1949: 55 and 4 months
1950: 55 and 6 months
1951: 55 and 8 months
1952: 55 and 10 months
1953 through 1964: 56
1965: 56 and 2 months
1966: 56 and 4 months
1967: 56 and 6 months
1968: 56 and 8 months
1969: 56 and 10 months
1970 or later: 57

Know your exact MRA in months, not just years. Being off by a month changes the age-reduction math if you’re leaving before 62.

What You Can Collect at Your MRA

Federal law creates three combinations that pay a full, unreduced FERS annuity, plus a fourth option that pays immediately but with a permanent cut.²

The unreduced paths:

MRA with 30 years of service. This is the earliest route to a full pension.
Age 60 with 20 years of service. The MRA doesn’t enter the calculation; you just need to reach 60.
Age 62 with 5 years of service. The minimum-service path, and it comes with a slightly better multiplier in the formula.

If you reach your MRA with at least 10 but fewer than 30 years, you can retire immediately under what is usually called MRA+10, but your annuity is permanently reduced by five-twelfths of 1 percent for every full month you are under 62 when payments start. That’s 5 percent per year.³ Retire at 57 under this path and you are looking at a 25 percent lifetime reduction. The cut does not restore itself when you eventually turn 62.

One escape hatch: if you have at least 20 years of creditable service and wait until age 60 to start collecting, the age reduction disappears.⁴

How Much the Pension Actually Pays

The FERS basic annuity formula is 1 percent of your high-3 average salary multiplied by your years of creditable service.³ A $90,000 high-3 and 30 years of service yields $27,000 a year, or $2,250 a month before any survivor election.

Retire at 62 or later with at least 20 years, and the multiplier bumps to 1.1 percent.⁵ Same $90,000 and 30 years produces $29,700 instead of $27,000. That gap compounds over a long retirement.

Your high-3 is the highest average basic pay across any three consecutive years of federal service. Basic pay includes salary and shift differentials where retirement deductions were withheld. Overtime, bonuses, and awards don’t count.⁵

Unused sick leave on the books at retirement converts to additional service time in the annuity formula using a 2,087-hour chart.³ Sick leave can’t be used to reach the eligibility thresholds themselves. Someone at 29 years and 6 months cannot bridge to 30 years with sick leave hours.

Postponing vs. Deferring When You Leave at MRA

If you separate at your MRA with 10 to 29 years of service, you have a choice about when to start payments, and the terminology matters.

Postponed Retirement

Postponing means you’re eligible for an immediate MRA+10 annuity but you delay starting it to shrink the 5-percent-per-year age reduction. Every month you wait reduces the penalty. Wait until 62 and it’s gone.⁶

The critical practical advantage is insurance. When the annuity begins, you can re-enroll in the Federal Employees Health Benefits program and Federal Employees Group Life Insurance, provided you carried both for the five years immediately before separating.⁶ You still need to cover the gap years between separation and annuity start on your own.

Deferred Retirement

Deferring is for former employees who left before qualifying for any immediate annuity. With at least 5 years of creditable civilian service, you can collect a deferred annuity starting at age 62 without a reduction. You can also start at your MRA with at least 10 years of service, but the same age reduction applies.⁴

Deferred retirees cannot pick up FEHB or FEGLI when their annuity begins. That is the single biggest reason to postpone rather than defer if you have the choice.

The Special Retirement Supplement

Retire before 62 and there’s a gap: Social Security isn’t available yet, and the FERS pension alone may not carry the household. The special retirement supplement pays a monthly amount that approximates the Social Security benefit you earned during federal service, bridging you to age 62.⁷

You qualify if you retire under MRA+30, age 60 with 20 years, or a special category provision. You do not qualify if you retire under MRA+10. That is a real gap in coverage and one of the most overlooked costs of the MRA+10 route.⁷

The formula: OPM estimates your age-62 Social Security benefit, then multiplies by your years of FERS service divided by 40. A $2,000 estimated benefit and 30 years of service gives $2,000 × (30/40) = $1,500 a month. The supplement ends the month you turn 62.

The supplement is also subject to a Social Security-style earnings test. Earn more than the exempt amount from wages or self-employment and OPM reduces the supplement by $1 for every $2 above the limit. For 2026 the exempt amount is $24,480.⁸ Investment returns and pension payments don’t count. Your basic FERS annuity is never touched by outside earnings.⁹

COLAs Don’t Start at Your MRA

Most FERS retirees receive no cost-of-living adjustment until they turn 62.¹⁰ Retire at an MRA of 57 under MRA+30 and your pension stays flat for five years while inflation runs its course. Disability retirees and special category employees are exempt from the age-62 rule and receive COLAs from the start.

Even once COLAs kick in, they’re smaller than what CSRS retirees receive. When inflation runs above 3 percent, FERS retirees get 1 percentage point less than the full adjustment. Between 2 and 3 percent, FERS is capped at 2 percent. Only below 2 percent does FERS match the full number. The 2026 FERS COLA is 2.0 percent.¹⁰

Special Categories Don’t Use the MRA

The MRA rules above apply to regular FERS employees. If you’re a law enforcement officer, firefighter, nuclear materials courier, air traffic controller, Capitol Police officer, Supreme Court Police officer, or customs and border protection officer, you don’t retire at the MRA at all. You can retire with an immediate, unreduced annuity at age 50 with 20 years of covered service, or at any age with 25 years of covered service.² Most of these positions carry mandatory separation at age 57 once 20 years of covered service are in.

The annuity formula for these employees is 1.7 percent of the high-3 for the first 20 years of covered service and 1 percent for years beyond that.³ A law enforcement officer retiring at 50 with exactly 20 years and a $100,000 high-3 receives $34,000 a year, compared to $20,000 under the regular formula.

1
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 5 USC 8412 – Immediate Retirement
2
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 5 USC 8412 – Immediate Retirement
3
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 5 USC 8415 – Computation of Basic Annuity
4
U.S. Office of Personnel Management. Types of Retirement
5
U.S. Office of Personnel Management. Computation
6
U.S. Office of Personnel Management. Applying for Deferred or Postponed Retirement Under FERS
7
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 5 USC 8421 – Annuity Supplement
8
Social Security Administration. Exempt Amounts Under the Earnings Test
9
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 5 USC 8421a – Reductions on Account of Earnings
10
U.S. Office of Personnel Management. Cost of Living Adjustments