The SF 1150 form, formally titled Record of Leave Data, is the one-page federal document your losing agency’s payroll office prepares to move your annual, sick, military, and home leave balances to your next federal employer or into your permanent personnel record when you leave government service. A certifying officer signs it, and it travels with your Official Personnel Folder to the gaining agency or to the National Personnel Records Center. Every hour of leave you’ve earned across a federal career depends on this single sheet for continuity.
When the Form Gets Created
The SF 1150 is generated any time your leave balances need to move from one payroll system to another. The two common triggers are an inter-agency transfer and a separation from federal service.1National Finance Center. Payroll Personnel Output – Record of Leave Data
If you move directly from one executive agency to another without a meaningful gap, your balances ride with you on the SF 1150 rather than being cashed out. The losing agency builds the form from your final full pay period there.
If your separation involves a break of at least one full workday, your leave doesn’t transfer. You get a lump-sum payment for unused annual leave instead.2U.S. Office of Personnel Management. Fact Sheet: Lump-Sum Payments For Annual Leave The SF 1150 is still prepared, but it lives in your Official Personnel Folder as a permanent record. That record becomes essential if you later return to federal employment and need your sick leave recredited.
Movements involving the U.S. Postal Service or the District of Columbia government can also require an SF 1150, though those follow their own procedural rules.
What the Form Contains
The SF 1150 is a single page, last revised in December 1977, and available for download from the General Services Administration’s forms library.3U.S. General Services Administration. Record of Leave Data It captures your name and Social Security Number at the top. It does not ask for a date of birth.4U.S. General Services Administration. SF 1150 Record of Leave Data
The body is divided into a few sections:
- Annual and sick leave summary. This is the core of the document: annual leave balance, sick leave balance, restored leave, total leave taken in the current year through your date of separation, and any hours paid out as a lump sum.4U.S. General Services Administration. SF 1150 Record of Leave Data
- Home leave. A separate line for hours earned by employees who served at overseas posts.
- Military leave. Two subsections cover regular military leave and special military leave tied to civil disturbance duty.
- Remarks. A catch-all for anything else, including shore leave.
All figures come from the closing data of your final full pay period at the losing agency. Any leave earned or used during a partial pay period at the end may need separate accounting.
Who Fills It Out
You don’t. Your agency’s payroll office or HR staff prepare the SF 1150 using data from the agency’s timekeeping and payroll systems. At agencies serviced by the National Finance Center, the NFC can generate the form directly from its records.5National Finance Center. Leave Data Transfer – 160
An authorized certifying officer reviews the figures and signs the form. That signature is what makes the document usable. Without it, the gaining agency has no basis to accept the balances.
What to Check Before You Transfer
The single most useful step you can take is to verify your balances before the SF 1150 is issued. Pull your most recent Leave and Earnings Statement and compare it against your agency’s leave records. Catching a discrepancy before the form is finalized is far easier than correcting it later.
Watch for three things in particular.
Annual leave ceiling. Most employees can bank up to 240 hours of annual leave; hours above that are forfeited under the “use or lose” rule unless they qualify for restoration.6U.S. Office of Personnel Management. Annual Leave If your SF 1150 shows a balance above your ceiling, it likely includes restored leave tracked separately, or you’re mid-year and haven’t hit the end-of-year forfeiture point. Make sure the gaining agency understands which portion is regular annual leave and which is restored.
Restored leave expiration. Restored annual leave doesn’t last forever. You must schedule and use it by the end of the leave year that falls two years after the restoration date, the end of the exigency, or your return to duty from illness.7U.S. Office of Personnel Management. Fact Sheet: Restoration of Annual Leave Miss that window and it’s gone permanently. The deadline travels with you, so confirm the gaining payroll office records both the number of restored hours and the use-by date.
Military leave timing. Military leave runs on the fiscal year, not the calendar year. For fiscal year 2026, which began October 1, 2025, the carryover cap is 320 hours (40 days), and military leave carried into the next fiscal year must be used that year or it’s forfeited.8National Finance Center. National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) Increasing Military Leave and Carryover Hours The balance on your SF 1150 depends on when in the fiscal year you transfer.
Lump-Sum Payment or Transfer
The difference between a leave transfer and a cash payout comes down to whether you have a break in federal service. Move directly from one agency to another with no gap, or only a weekend in between, and your annual and sick leave balances transfer on the SF 1150. A break of at least one full workday triggers a lump-sum payment for your unused annual leave instead.2U.S. Office of Personnel Management. Fact Sheet: Lump-Sum Payments For Annual Leave
The lump sum covers only annual leave. Sick leave, military leave, and home leave are never cashed out. Your sick leave balance stays documented on the SF 1150, waiting to be recredited if you return to federal service or applied toward your retirement annuity.
One wrinkle catches people off guard. If you receive a lump-sum payment and then return to federal service before the period covered by that payment expires, you have to repay the portion covering the overlap, and the corresponding annual leave hours get recredited to your balance.2U.S. Office of Personnel Management. Fact Sheet: Lump-Sum Payments For Annual Leave Employees who separate briefly and come back are often surprised by that payroll deduction.
Why the Sick Leave Line Matters Later
Sick leave balances don’t vanish when you leave. If you’re reemployed by a federal agency, your accumulated sick leave can be recredited, as long as it wasn’t already used to compute a retirement annuity.9U.S. Office of Personnel Management. Fact Sheet: Leave Upon Transfer or Separation The SF 1150 in your Official Personnel Folder is the proof of how many hours you had. Without it, reconstructing a balance from years earlier becomes an ordeal.
At retirement, unused sick leave translates into additional service credit for your annuity calculation. Under CSRS, every 8 hours of unused sick leave equals one day of added service, and FERS employees receive the same full credit.10U.S. Office of Personnel Management. Credit for Unused Sick Leave Under the Civil Service Retirement System Sick leave credit cannot help you meet the minimum service requirement for retirement eligibility, and it doesn’t factor into your high-three average salary. It can still meaningfully raise your annuity: 1,000 hours of unused sick leave is roughly six extra months of service in the formula.
After the Form Is Signed
Once the certifying officer signs, the losing agency sends the SF 1150 to the gaining agency as part of the Official Personnel Folder.5National Finance Center. Leave Data Transfer – 160 For agencies on the NFC payroll system, data can also transfer electronically and populate the gaining agency’s records directly.
Expect some lag. The gaining agency needs time to verify the incoming numbers and load them. During that window, your new Leave and Earnings Statement may not yet reflect your transferred balances. If you need to take leave in the first few pay periods at the new agency, give your new HR office a heads-up and keep a copy of your most recent LES from the old agency as backup documentation.
Fixing an Error After the SF 1150 Is Issued
A typo in your sick leave balance, a missing restored-leave entry, hours attributed to the wrong category — mistakes happen. If you spot an error after the form has been issued, the correction has to come from the losing agency. The losing department must authorize any changes in writing, and the gaining agency cannot unilaterally adjust the figures.11National Finance Center. SF-1150 Assistance
If you’ve already moved on and find a discrepancy, contact the HR office at your former agency. They’ll need to issue a corrected SF 1150 or a written amendment, which then gets forwarded to your current agency’s payroll office. The longer you wait, the harder it gets. Personnel offices handle high volume, and tracking down records from a departure months in the past takes time nobody enjoys.