How to Get Your NGB Form 23B Retirement Points History Statement

NGB Form 23B is the official retirement points history statement for Army National Guard soldiers who are no longer actively drilling. It lists every retirement year in your career, breaks down the points you earned in each category, and shows where you stand against the requirements for reserve retirement pay. While you are still drilling, your unit maintains your points on NGB Form 23A; once you separate or move to a non-drilling status, the record converts to the 23B. Pulling a copy, reading it correctly, and catching errors early are the most practical things you can do to protect your future retired pay.

How to Get a Copy

The fastest route is the Interactive Personnel Electronic Records Management System (iPERMS). You need either a Common Access Card with a CAC-enabled computer or a DS Logon account to sign in.¹ Once in, open your personnel documents, locate the NGB Form 23B, and save it as a PDF so you have a portable copy for your own records.

If you’ve already separated and no longer have CAC access, submit a Standard Form 180 (Request Pertaining to Military Records) to the state headquarters of the branch you served in.² The SF 180 is a one-page form on the National Archives website. Mail or fax it to the appropriate state office and expect several weeks for a response, depending on that state’s workload.

Still on the network but can’t find the document? Contact your unit’s Retirement Points Accounting Management (RPAM) NCO or your state G-1 office. They maintain and correct the underlying points data and can generate a current copy directly.

How the Form Is Laid Out

NGB Form 23B is organized chronologically by retirement year. Each row covers one retirement year and lists the beginning and ending dates, the points earned in each category, and the totals. The top of the form shows your name, identification numbers, highest grade held (as long as any reduction wasn’t for disciplinary reasons), and your Retired Pay Eligibility Date, which is usually your 60th birthday but can be earlier if you have qualifying active duty after January 28, 2008.³

The form also indicates whether you have received your 20-year letter, and it carries a verification status column for each retirement year. A “V” means valid supporting documents are on file. A “B” means no documentation exists to verify that year’s service and points, and points marked “B” will not count toward your retirement until you supply the missing paperwork.³ Any “B” entries should go straight to the top of your to-do list.

The Five Point Categories

Each retirement year breaks your points into five columns:

Inactive Duty Training (IDT): points from drill weekends, additional training periods, and similar duty. One drill period equals one point, and a typical drill weekend has four periods.
Membership (MEM): 15 points automatically for each full year of active status in a reserve component, with no action required beyond remaining a member.⁴
Army Correspondence Course Program (ACCP): points from completed correspondence courses or other miscellaneous training verified by your commander.
Funeral Honors Duty (FHD): points earned serving on military funeral honors details.
Active Duty (AD): one point per day of active duty, including annual training, active duty for training, and active duty operational support.³

Two totals columns sit on the right side of each row. The first sums all five categories for the raw total. The second, labeled “Total Points Earned for Retired Pay,” reflects the number that actually counts after annual caps are applied. That second number is the one that feeds your retirement pay calculation, and it’s the number to focus on when you’re checking your record.

Why Old Years Show Fewer Points: Annual Caps

You can earn up to 365 total points in a retirement year (366 in a leap year), but inactive duty points — IDT, membership, ACCP, and funeral honors combined — are capped, and the cap has moved several times:⁵

Before September 23, 1996: 60 inactive duty points maximum per year.
September 23, 1996 through October 29, 2000: 75 points.
October 30, 2000 through October 29, 2007: 90 points.
October 30, 2007 onward: 130 points.

Active duty points are not subject to these caps. Each day on active duty orders earns one point regardless of how many inactive duty points you’ve already accumulated that year.⁶ The cap in force for a given year is the one that applied at the time, so older rows on your statement will reflect the lower limits.

Counting Your Good Years

To qualify for non-regular (reserve) retirement pay, you need at least 20 qualifying years of service and must reach the applicable eligibility age, which is 60 unless reduced by qualifying deployments.⁷ A qualifying year, often called a “good year,” is any retirement year in which you earned at least 50 points.⁴ A year with only 49 points does not count toward the 20, though the points themselves still add to your lifetime total for pay computation.

Counting is straightforward: look at the “Total Points Earned for Retired Pay” column for each row and check whether it meets 50. A soldier who drills consistently and completes annual training will almost always clear the threshold, since 15 membership points plus a normal drill schedule plus two weeks of annual training pushes well past 50. The years that fall short tend to be years with extended leaves of absence, missed drills, or breaks in service.

Reduced Eligibility Age

The standard eligibility age is 60, but qualifying active duty performed after January 28, 2008 can lower it. For every 90 days of qualifying active duty within a single fiscal year, the eligibility age drops by three months. The floor is age 50; no amount of active duty pushes it lower.⁷

Beginning October 1, 2014, the 90-day aggregates can span two consecutive fiscal years rather than requiring all 90 days in one, though this provision is not retroactive to earlier service.⁸ Only certain types of active duty count, primarily mobilizations, activations for national emergencies, and certain operational support orders. Routine Active Guard Reserve service does not qualify. Full-time National Guard duty under 32 U.S.C. § 502(f) may qualify only if it was authorized by the President or Secretary of Defense in response to a declared national emergency and supported by federal funds.

Your NGB Form 23B shows your Retired Pay Eligibility Date near the top. If you have qualifying deployment time that should reduce that date but it still reads your 60th birthday, raise the discrepancy with your state G-1 or the HRC Gray Area Retirements Branch.

The 20-Year Letter and a Deadline You Cannot Miss

Once you complete 20 qualifying years, your service is required to notify you in writing within one year. This letter, formally the Notification of Eligibility for Retired Pay (NOE) and widely known as the “20-year letter,” is your proof that you’ve met the service requirement for reserve retirement. For Army National Guard soldiers, the NOE is completed by the state.⁸

The letter triggers a hard 90-day deadline: you have 90 days after receiving it to make your Reserve Component Survivor Benefit Plan (RCSBP) election on DD Form 2656-5.⁹ Miss the window and your election defaults to whatever the law provides, which may not be what you or your spouse would have chosen. Act on the RCSBP decision the moment the letter arrives.

The 20-year letter indicator on your NGB Form 23B shows whether the system recognizes you as having received this notification. If you’ve hit 20 good years and the indicator is blank, contact your state G-1 to find out where the letter is in the pipeline.

Fixing Errors on Your Statement

Errors on NGB Form 23B are common enough that every soldier should review the statement at least annually. A missed drill weekend that was actually attended, annual training that never posted, or a correspondence course that didn’t show up can all knock a year down. If the drop takes a year below 50 points, it costs you a qualifying year.

To correct your RPAM statement, submit a request through the IPPS-A CRM case system to your state’s G-1 HR Systems Branch with supporting documentation. What you need depends on the type of discrepancy:

Missing IDT points: DA Form 1379 covering the specific drill period.
Missing active duty points: copies of active duty orders plus a Leave and Earnings Statement or Master Military Pay Account record for the same period.
Correspondence course points: certificate of course completion showing the course length.
Funeral honors duty: MMPA record reflecting performance of funeral honors duty.
Membership status issues: documentary evidence supporting your status during the period in question.

For reduced age retirement eligibility corrections, you’ll need copies of the active duty orders with all amendments, any DD Form 214 or DD Form 220 covering the period, and LES records.¹⁰ Keep copies of every drill schedule, set of orders, and LES you receive as you go. Reconstructing a paper trail years later is possible but much harder than maintaining one in real time.

If you’ve already separated and the normal correction channels aren’t responsive, the Army Board for Correction of Military Records (ABCMR) can review and correct your NGB Form 23B through a formal application. That path is slower, so work the standard G-1 route first.

1
U.S. Army Human Resources Command. Soldier Self Service
2
National Guard Bureau. Service Records
3
Iowa National Guard. How to Read Your NGB 23
4
Defense Finance and Accounting Service. Reserve Retirement
5
MyArmyBenefits. Retired Pay for Soldiers
6
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 10 USC 12733 – Computation of Retired Pay
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Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 10 USC 12731 – Age and Service Requirements
8
U.S. Army Human Resources Command. Gray Area Retirements Branch
9
Department of Defense. Reserve Component Survivor Benefit Plan Election Certificate
10
Georgia National Guard. Appendix F – Correction to Retirement Points Accounting Management Statement