Retirement FAQs

Refer to information about payments and about address and withholding changes.

We keep a separate mailing address to periodically send you information about your retirement and health and life insurance benefits. You can see the current record of your mailing address on Services Online. Please notify us if this address changes. (If you do not receive your payments through direct deposit, we ordinarily use the same address for mailings and payments.)

In many cases, after receiving the report of a retiree's death, we can start monthly payments to those who are eligible based on the records we have on file. In every case, we will tell you what benefits are payable and provide the necessary forms and help to apply for benefits. If you are the survivor of an employee who has passed away while working for the Federal Government, please contact the personnel office of the Federal agency where the employee worked. You should complete the following form- If the employee was covered under the Civil Service Retirement System (CSRS) at the time of death: Application for Death Benefits/CSRS, Standard Form (SF) 2800 [806 KB] If the employee was covered under the Federal Employees Retirement System (FERS) at the time of death: Application for Death Benefits/FERS, Standard Form (SF) 3104 [741 KB] If you are the survivor of an employee who has passed away after separating from a position with the Federal Government under the Federal Employees Retirement System (FERS), but before receiving any retirement benefits, you should file the following form- Application for Death Benefits/FERS, Standard Form (SF) 3104 [741 KB] Attach any other forms and/or evidence as the application or circumstances require. Attach a copy of the employee’s death certificate and a copy of the certificate of the marriage to the widow or widower. Give the application to the personnel office. A widow or widower who is claiming benefits for himself or herself and on behalf of children should file one application. If a lump sum payment is due following the death of someone who passed away after leaving Government service but before retirement, please complete the Application for Death Benefits, Standard Form (SF) 2800 [806 KB] and attach any other forms and/or evidence as the application or circumstances require. Send it to this address.

The “Making Work Pay” tax credit expired December 31, 2010. As a result, you may see an increase in the amount of Federal income tax being withheld from your monthly annuity payments. The tax withholding tables published by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) were adjusted to provide for the correct withholding amounts without this credit. The tax rates did not change; only the tax withholding tables changed. For more information concerning the 2011 Federal tax withholding tables go to IRS Notice 1036, TABLE 4—MONTHLY Payroll Period. For other questions on Federal taxes, go to www.irs.gov.

The five year period before retirement is important because you must have insurance coverage for five years immediately before retirement to keep it after retirement. You may also need some preliminary information to make decisions about when you can afford to retire and whether to make any necessary payments to receive credit for military or non-contributory service or repay any retirement contribution refunds.

If you are the surviving spouse of a deceased retiree, recurring monthly payments may be made to you if your spouse elected a reduced annuity to provide the benefit. To qualify for the monthly benefit, you must have been married to the retiree for at least nine months. A survivor annuity may still be payable if the retiree's death occurred before nine months if the death was accidental or there was a child born of your marriage to the retiree. A court order awarding a former spouse a survivor annuity may prevent us from paying you the portion of the annuity awarded under the court order. However, if otherwise eligible, you may receive the complete annuity if the former spouse loses eligibility for benefits. Read about survivor benefit elections. If no survivor annuity is payable upon the retiree's death, any remaining portion, representing either the remaining annuity and/or retirement contributions not paid to the retiree, is payable to the person(s) eligible under the order of precedence. See how the amount of the monthly survivor benefit is determined.

We have the authority to waive the five-year participation requirement when it is against equity and good conscience not to allow an individual to participate in the health insurance program as a retiree. However, the law says that a person’s failure to meet the five-year requirement must be due to exceptional circumstances. When someone is retiring voluntarily, a waiver may not be appropriate because he or she can continue working until the requirement is met. When circumstances under these conditions otherwise warrant a waiver, we will notify the individual's employer.

Your personnel office will verify with your payroll office that the deposit to give you credit in your annuity for military service you performed after 1956 has been paid, or that arrangements have been made for complete payment before you leave the agency's rolls.

  As of February 2012, our average processing time is 5 months from the date we receive your final paperwork from your human resources and payroll offices.  Of the current pending claims workload, 47 percent are less than 2 months old and 25 percent are older than 6 months.   If we need additional information from you or your former employing agency, your claim will take longer to process.  Additional time will also be needed if we need to contact you to make a benefit election, such as a decision to make a service credit deposit, or if we need to contact an external agency, such as SSA for an offset calculation.

You should resolve any financial indebtedness to your agency. Examples of causes for indebtedness include:

• outstanding travel advances,
• overpayments of salary,
• indebtedness for failure to return government property or for damage to government property, or
• advanced leave.

You should apply to make a payment by completing a Standard Form 2803 if you are covered by the Civil Service Retirement System (CSRS). You should use Standard Form 3108 if you are covered by the Federal Employees Retirement System (FERS). If you are within six months of retirement, you should submit your request to make the deposit or redeposit at the same time you submit your application for retirement. You can use a form or letter to do this. We will notify you of any amounts due so you can decide whether or not to make the payment. We cannot, however, authorize your regular annuity payments until we have your decision about the payment.

You should review your Official Personnel Folder (OPF) to make sure that there is verification of all of your military and civilian service. If any of the records are missing, your employer should help you document the service and obtain any missing records. If you have civilian service for which you must pay retirement contributions or repay a refund of contributions, your employer should tell you about what impact payment or non-payment has on your eligibility and the amount of your retirement benefit. If you owe a payment to receive credit for military service you performed after 1956, you must make that payment before you retire. If you are receiving military retired pay, you should discuss whether or not you must waive the retired pay with the personnel officer at your agency. Your personnel officer can also tell you about receiving credit in your annuity computation for various types of service and about the payments described above, as well as help you with service documentation.

If your employer sends us your retirement records electronically, via the Data Exchange Gateway (DEG), your account information for direct deposit will be sent to us automatically.  No further action from you is required. Otherwise, include your request to receive your payments by direct deposit with your retirement package.  You can do this by submitting a letter or a Standard Form (SF) 1199A with your application.  You must get the SF 1199A, Direct Deposit Sign-Up Form, from your financial institution. Direct deposit is available to retirees residing in Canada but, generally, it is not available to those whose permanent address for receiving payments is outside the United States. However, retirees living outside the U.S. can arrange to have their payments electronically deposited in a U.S. bank.

• The benefit is not reduced if it begins after your 60th birthday and you have at least 20 years of service or you reach the Minimum Retirement Age and have 30 years of service. Delay of the benefit can be used to avoid all or part of the reduction for retirement before age 62 that would otherwise have been applied.
• Your life insurance enrollment will stop until the annuity begins. Once the annuity begins, the life insurance coverage you had when you stopped working will resume if you are eligible.
• Your health benefits can be temporarily continued under the Temporary Continuation of Coverage for 18 months. You must pay the full cost of coverage, including both the employee and government shares, plus a two percent administrative charge. Your employer will collect the premiums and maintain this coverage.
• When your payments begin, if you are otherwise eligible to continue coverage, you can again enroll in the Federal Employees Health Benefits (FEHB) program and we will pay the government share of the premiums.
• If you do not file an application before your death, the rights of your surviving family members would be protected because you would be considered a retiree.