LWOP for Federal Employees: Approval, Benefits, and Return

Leave without pay (LWOP) for federal employees is an authorized, temporary nonpay status that keeps you on your agency’s rolls without a paycheck or duties. Some LWOP requests are legally protected and must be approved. Others sit entirely within your supervisor’s discretion. Knowing which is which matters, because a long stretch of LWOP quietly chips away at retirement credit, pay increases, leave accrual, and eventually your insurance.

When Your Agency Must Approve LWOP

Certain statutes and executive directives remove the decision from management’s hands. If your situation fits one of these categories, LWOP is an entitlement.

Family and Medical Leave

The Family and Medical Leave Act entitles eligible employees to up to 12 workweeks of unpaid, job-protected leave in a 12-month period. Qualifying reasons include the birth or adoption of a child, caring for a spouse, child, or parent with a serious health condition, or your own serious health condition that prevents you from doing your job.¹ Your group health benefits continue on the same terms as if you had not taken leave.² You may substitute accrued paid leave for FMLA leave, but your agency cannot force you to do so for the unpaid portion.

Military Service

The Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act (USERRA) protects federal employees called to active duty or training. Under 38 U.S.C. 4316(d), you may use any accrued vacation or annual leave during military service, but your employer cannot require you to burn through it.³ If you decline to use paid leave, the agency must place you on LWOP for the length of your service. USERRA also brings enhanced benefit protections, including unlimited suspension of TSP loan repayments and full retirement credit for the military absence.

Disabled Veterans Seeking Medical Treatment

Executive Order 5396 requires supervisors to grant LWOP to disabled veterans who need medical treatment for service-connected disabilities, once the veteran presents an official statement from a medical authority. The absence cannot count against your performance rating.⁴ This entitlement is separate from FMLA, so a veteran can invoke it without touching the 12-week FMLA allotment.⁵

Workers’ Compensation

If you are injured on the job and file for wage-loss compensation under the Federal Employees’ Compensation Act, you must be in LWOP status for the periods you are claiming.⁶ LWOP is essentially the prerequisite for receiving those benefits.

When LWOP Is Up to Your Supervisor

Outside the protected categories, granting LWOP is discretionary. Management typically weighs whether the absence benefits the government or improves your future performance, and whether you are reasonably expected to return to duty afterward.⁷ Common discretionary reasons include educational programs, personal emergencies after paid leave is exhausted, or temporary employment with another agency.

OPM does not set a government-wide maximum duration for LWOP, though individual agencies often cap the length or trigger a formal review at set intervals.⁷ A supervisor can deny a discretionary request for any legitimate operational reason, and you generally have no appeal right when the request does not fall under a mandatory category.

LWOP Is Not the Same as AWOL

The difference between LWOP and absent without leave (AWOL) is approval. LWOP is an authorized absence you requested and your supervisor approved. AWOL means you are absent without authorization, either because you never requested leave or your request was denied and you did not show up anyway. Being charged with AWOL is not itself a disciplinary action, but it can become the basis for one. Supervisors can also retroactively convert an approved absence to AWOL if you fail to provide requested documentation, such as a medical certificate. LWOP preserves your standing on the rolls; accumulated AWOL time puts your federal career at genuine risk.

How to Request LWOP

Most agencies use OPM Form 71 (Application for Leave) for the initial request, where you specify the dates and type of leave. Mandatory categories require supporting documentation: FMLA needs a medical certification, military LWOP needs a copy of your orders, and disabled-veteran medical leave needs an official statement from a medical authority. Your supervisor reviews the request against operational needs (for discretionary requests) or legal requirements (for mandatory ones).

Once approved, Human Resources records the action in your Official Personnel Folder, and you receive a Standard Form 50 (Notification of Personnel Action) as written confirmation.⁸ Keep that SF-50. It proves your absence was authorized if questions arise later about your employment status or benefits.

What Happens to Your Health, Life, Dental, and Vision Coverage

FEHB

Your Federal Employees Health Benefits enrollment continues for up to 365 days in nonpay status, and the government keeps paying its share of the premium the whole time.⁹ You still owe your share of the premium, and you have three ways to handle it:

Pay-as-you-go. You pay your share directly to your employing agency each pay period while on LWOP, generally with after-tax money since there is no paycheck to deduct from.
Catch-up. Your agency advances your share to OPM during the LWOP period, and you repay through payroll deductions when you return to duty. If repaid through deductions while enrolled in premium conversion, the repayment is pre-tax.
Prepay. Your agency may let you prepay premiums from salary before LWOP begins, though agencies are not required to offer this option.

If you neither make direct payments nor pick catch-up, your agency must still advance the premiums, and you will owe the money when you return.¹⁰ After 365 days in nonpay status, enrollment terminates unless you return to pay status.

FEGLI

Federal Employees’ Group Life Insurance continues for 12 consecutive months in nonpay status at no cost to you or your agency.⁹ One exception: if you are in nonpay status while receiving workers’ compensation, premium payments are required during that period. Coverage lapses after 12 months unless you return to pay status.

FEDVIP Dental and Vision

FEDVIP coverage continues during LWOP as long as you pay your premiums. When no premium is deducted for two consecutive pay periods, BENEFEDS generates a direct bill for the past-due amount. You can pay online through your BENEFEDS account or by mail. Ignore those bills and your coverage will be canceled.¹¹ Once you return to pay status and payroll deductions resume, the direct billing stops automatically.

What Happens to Retirement Credit and Leave Accrual

The Six-Month Rule

Under both FERS and CSRS, up to six months of LWOP in a calendar year counts as creditable service toward retirement. Any nonpay time beyond six months in a single year does not count, and your service computation date is pushed back by the excess.¹² That delay affects both your retirement eligibility date and your high-3 average salary. Two exceptions matter: LWOP for military service and LWOP while receiving workers’ compensation both receive full retirement credit regardless of duration.⁹

Annual and Sick Leave

The same six-month threshold applies to your annual leave accrual rate. If nonpay time passes six months in a calendar year, OPM adjusts your service computation date for leave purposes, which can drop you into a lower accrual bracket.⁹

On a more immediate level, you stop earning annual and sick leave in any pay period where you accumulate 80 hours of LWOP. The counter resets, and you earn leave normally in later pay periods until you hit another 80-hour accumulation. Over a long stretch of LWOP, this works out to losing roughly one pay period’s worth of accrual for every four pay periods of nonpay time.

What Happens to Pay Raises and Holiday Pay

Within-Grade Increases

LWOP delays your within-grade increase (WGI) if it exceeds the allowable nonpay time for your step. For General Schedule employees, the caps on creditable nonpay time within a WGI waiting period are:⁹

Steps 2, 3, and 4: no more than 2 workweeks of nonpay status.
Steps 5, 6, and 7: no more than 4 workweeks.
Steps 8, 9, and 10: no more than 6 workweeks.

For prevailing rate (Wage Grade) employees, the thresholds are tighter: 1 workweek for step 2, 3 workweeks for step 3, and 4 workweeks for steps 4 and 5. LWOP beyond these limits extends the waiting period day-for-day. The waiting period for steps 2 through 4 is only one year, so even a few weeks of LWOP can noticeably push your next raise back.

Holiday Pay

To receive holiday pay, you must be in pay status for at least one hour on a scheduled workday either before or after the holiday. On LWOP on both sides of a holiday? You get nothing for that day.¹³ This catches people out when LWOP starts right before a holiday week or ends right after one.

What Happens to Your TSP

When you are in nonpay status for an entire pay period, both your employee contributions and the agency’s matching and automatic contributions drop to zero, because there is no basic pay to calculate them from.¹⁴ You generally cannot make up missed contributions after returning to duty. The exception is military LWOP under USERRA: returning service members can make up both employee and agency contributions for the whole period of military service.

If you have an outstanding TSP loan, payroll deductions for repayment are automatically suspended when TSP is notified of your nonpay status. The suspension lasts up to one year. For military LWOP there is no one-year limit, and the suspension continues until you return. Once you hit the one-year mark in non-military LWOP or come back to duty, you must resume payments by check, money order, or direct debit. If you do not, the outstanding balance becomes a taxable distribution.¹⁵ You also cannot take out a new TSP loan while in nonpay status.

If You Are Still on Probation

If LWOP begins during your probationary period, up to 22 workdays of nonpay time counts toward completing it. Beyond 22 workdays, the excess extends your probation day-for-day.⁹ A longer probation means a longer window during which you can be separated with fewer procedural protections than a permanent employee would have. Early-career federal workers should factor this in.

Coming Back to Duty

Because LWOP is authorized for a specific period, you are expected to return when it expires. You generally cannot demand early reinstatement before the approved period ends, but if you want to come back early, notify your supervisor and you should be restored as soon as it is administratively feasible. On return, payroll deductions for FEHB, TSP, and other benefits resume. If you elected the catch-up option for FEHB premiums, those accumulated amounts will be deducted from your pay on a schedule your agency sets. The SF-50 documenting your return to duty is the official record that you are back in pay status.

1
U.S. Department of Labor. Family and Medical Leave Act
2
U.S. Department of Labor. Family and Medical Leave
3
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 38 USC 4316 – Rights, Benefits, and Obligations of Persons Absent From Employment for Service in a Uniformed Service
4
Wikisource. Executive Order 5396 – Special Leaves of Absence to Be Given Disabled Veterans in Need of Medical Treatment
5
U.S. Office of Personnel Management. Disabled Veteran Leave
6
U.S. Department of Labor. Federal Employees Compensation Act – Frequently Asked Questions
7
U.S. Office of Personnel Management. Fact Sheet: Leave Without Pay
8
U.S. Government Publishing Office. Guide to Understanding Your Notification of Personnel Action Form, SF-50
9
U.S. Office of Personnel Management. Effect of Extended Leave Without Pay (LWOP) (or Other Nonpay Status) on Federal Benefits and Programs
10
U.S. Office of Personnel Management. Leave Without Pay Status and Insufficient Pay
11
BENEFEDS. Frequently Asked Questions
12
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 5 USC 8332 – Creditable Service
13
U.S. Office of Personnel Management. Federal Holidays – Work Schedules and Pay
14
Thrift Savings Plan (TSP). Effect of Nonpay Status on Thrift Savings Plan Participation
15
Thrift Savings Plan (TSP). Entering Nonpay Status