If you have both a civilian Thrift Savings Plan account and a uniformed services TSP account, you can merge them into one — but the paper version of Form TSP-65 is obsolete. The Federal Retirement Thrift Investment Board moved the request to combine TSP accounts entirely online, and old paper forms mailed or faxed in will not be processed and will not generate a rejection notice.1Thrift Savings Plan. Attention: Obsolete Forms You now submit the request by logging into My Account at tsp.gov.
Once you’re logged in with your usual credentials, the combination request lives within the account management tools. If you can’t find it or hit an error, call the ThriftLine at 1-877-968-3778.
Who Can Combine Civilian and Uniformed Services Accounts
You need a balance in each account, and both accounts must be under the same Social Security number. The system will not process a request if one account has a zero balance.
Beyond that:
- Your employment status doesn’t block you. You can combine whether you’re still a federal civilian employee, still serving, or separated from either or both. What matters is that a balance remains in each account.
- A Retirement Benefits Court Order stops the process. If either account is subject to one — the kind issued in divorce or separation proceedings to divide retirement assets — the TSP will not allow the combination until the order is resolved or lifted.2Thrift Savings Plan. Retirement Benefits Court Order
- Inherited accounts don’t fit this process. A beneficiary participant account you inherited from a deceased spouse is a different type of TSP account. Spouse beneficiary participants may be able to roll inherited money into their own personal TSP account, but through a separate process, not the civilian-to-uniformed combination.3Thrift Savings Plan. Your TSP Account: A Guide for Beneficiary Participants
Choosing Which Account Survives
When you combine, you pick which account stays open. Money from the closing account flows into the one you designate as the keeper. Most people decide based on which account is still receiving active contributions, which one holds the larger balance, or which structure they want to keep for simplicity.
Tax-exempt money forces the choice for some service members. If your uniformed services account holds tax-exempt contributions from combat zone service, those dollars will not transfer into a civilian account, because the civilian TSP structure does not accept tax-exempt balances. If you keep the civilian account and close the uniformed services account, the TSP transfers only the taxable portions. Your tax-exempt balance stays behind in the uniformed services account, meaning that account doesn’t fully close — it remains open to hold those funds.
Combat zone pay earns its tax-exempt status under Internal Revenue Code Section 112.4Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 26 USC 112 – Certain Combat Zone Compensation of Members of the Armed Forces The TSP keeps those contributions segregated to preserve their tax-free treatment, and that segregation carries through an account combination.
How Traditional and Roth Balances Carry Over
Traditional (pre-tax) money stays traditional. Roth (after-tax) money stays Roth. Combining accounts does not convert one type into the other. If you have traditional contributions in both accounts, they merge into a single traditional balance in the surviving account, and the same goes for Roth balances.
Separately, the TSP began offering Roth in-plan conversions as of January 2026, which let you convert traditional money to Roth within your account.5Thrift Savings Plan. Traditional and Roth TSP Contributions That’s a distinct transaction you can do after your accounts are combined. The combination itself moves money without changing its tax character.
Before you start, pull your most recent statements from My Account and confirm how much of each balance type — traditional, Roth, and tax-exempt — sits in each account. Knowing the breakdown ahead of time makes the choice of surviving account clearer.
Submitting the Request in My Account
The TSP does not publish a click-by-click walkthrough, but the online tool follows the same logic the paper form did. You’ll provide or confirm:
- Your full legal name, Social Security number, date of birth, and current mailing address, so the system can verify you own both accounts.
- Your civilian TSP account number and your uniformed services TSP account number. Both appear on your quarterly statements and in My Account.
- Which account absorbs the other. You pick the survivor and the account that closes.
- The contribution types being transferred. The system should pre-populate this based on your actual balances, but review it before submitting.
Check every field before you hit submit. An incorrect account number or a name mismatch between the request and one of the accounts will delay processing. If anything looks off, call the ThriftLine before submitting.
Update Your Beneficiaries After You Combine
This is the step most people overlook. If you have separate beneficiary designations on each account, the designation on the account that closes disappears with it. Only the surviving account’s designation stays in force.
If you want the same beneficiaries on both accounts, the TSP notes that you only need to enter the beneficiary information once, but you must separately assign each beneficiary as “primary” or “contingent” for your secondary account.6Thrift Savings Plan. Information for Participants and Beneficiaries After combining, log back into My Account and verify the surviving account’s designation reflects your current wishes. If you had different beneficiaries on each account — say, an ex-spouse still listed on one — a prior designation stays in effect unless you explicitly change it.7Thrift Savings Plan. Designating Beneficiaries The TSP cannot honor a will or any other document in place of a beneficiary designation on file, so fixing this after combining matters.
Deal With Outstanding Loans First
If you have an outstanding TSP loan against either account, check its status before starting. Loans and account combinations interact in ways that can complicate the process. Call the ThriftLine at 1-877-968-3778 to ask how an existing loan will be handled during the combination. Resolving a loan question before you submit is far easier than untangling it afterward.
What Happens After the Combination
Once the TSP processes your request, money from the closing account moves into the surviving account and takes on whatever fund allocation that account currently uses. The transferred money does not carry its old allocation. If you want to redistribute after the combination, do an interfund transfer through My Account.
The TSP should send confirmation showing the updated balance. The combination is not a taxable event, since no money leaves the TSP, but keep the confirmation with your tax records in case questions come up later.
Where to Get Help
For problems with the online process or questions about how combat zone money, a court order, or an outstanding loan affects your combination, call the ThriftLine at 1-877-968-3778. You can also chat with an agent through My Account after logging in. The TSP does not handle account-specific questions by email.8Thrift Savings Plan. Contact