Federal Retirement Countdown: Your 12-Month Action Plan Before You Leave Federal Service

Retiring from federal service isn’t something that happens overnight. The process involves dozens of decisions — many of which have permanent consequences — and a timeline that starts well before your actual retirement date. Federal employees who start preparing 12 months out are far better positioned than those who wait until the last few months and scramble to catch up.

This month-by-month checklist walks you through everything you should be doing in your final year of federal service to make sure you retire on your terms, with all your benefits intact.

12 Months Out: Establish Your Retirement Date and Financial Baseline

Twelve months is the right time to set your retirement date in concrete — or at least narrow it down to a window. Your retirement date affects your service computation date, your final high-3 salary calculation, your annual leave payout, and your eligibility for certain benefits.

Key actions at 12 months:

• Verify your creditable service: Log into myOPM or GRB (Government Retirement & Benefits) and confirm your total years and months of creditable service. Errors in service records can take months to correct — start early.
• Confirm your retirement eligibility: Know which retirement type applies to you — Immediate, MRA+10, MRA+30, or age 62+. Your HR benefits counselor can verify your eligibility date.
• Request an unofficial FERS pension estimate: Ask your agency’s HR office for a rough pension estimate based on your projected retirement date. While the official calculation comes from OPM, the unofficial estimate helps you plan income.
• Review outstanding TSP loans: Outstanding TSP loans must be repaid or declared as taxable distributions within 60–90 days of separation. Now is the time to decide whether to pay them off before retirement.

10–11 Months Out: Health and Life Insurance Audit

To carry FEHB health insurance into retirement, you must be enrolled for the five years immediately before your retirement date (or since your earliest opportunity to enroll, if shorter). Verify this now — if you have a gap, you may need to enroll immediately and maintain coverage for the remaining period.

Similarly, FEGLI requires five years of continuous enrollment to carry into retirement. Confirm your enrollment history and begin deciding which FEGLI options you want to maintain post-retirement. For a detailed breakdown of how FEGLI changes after retirement, see: FEGLI After Retirement: How Your Life Insurance Coverage Changes When You Leave Federal Service

Also at this stage: review your FEHB plan options and consider whether your current plan makes sense for retirement. Once you retire, you can switch plans only during Open Season or after a qualifying life event.

9 Months Out: TSP Allocation Review

The conventional wisdom is to de-risk your TSP as you approach retirement — shifting from aggressive equity-heavy allocations toward more conservative positions. But the right allocation depends on your other income sources, your expected TSP withdrawal timeline, and your risk tolerance.

Consider the following at 9 months out:

• Review your current TSP fund allocation and assess whether it matches your retirement horizon and income needs.
• Evaluate the Lifecycle (L) funds, which automatically shift to more conservative allocations over time.
• Decide how you want to handle TSP withdrawals in retirement — lump sum, installments, an annuity, or a combination. Our full guide: TSP Withdrawal Options in Retirement: A Complete Guide for Federal Employees
• If you have a spouse covered under Option C of your FEGLI or under your FERS survivor benefit, review how these interact with your TSP beneficiary designations.

8 Months Out: Military Buyback and Service Credit Deposits

If you have prior military service or have taken refunds of retirement contributions from prior federal employment, now is the time to make service credit deposits or redeposits. These deposits add to your creditable service and can meaningfully increase your FERS pension.

Military buyback deposits to add military service to your civilian retirement must be paid before you retire — this cannot be done after the fact. Allow several months for processing. See our military buyback guide: Military Buyback for Federal Employees: How to Add Military Service to Your FERS Pension

6 Months Out: Survivor Benefit Elections and Estate Planning

Six months out is when the survivor benefit decision becomes urgent. When you retire, you’ll elect how much of your pension to leave to a spouse or insurable interest as a survivor annuity. A maximum survivor annuity costs approximately 10% of your pension; a partial survivor annuity costs 5%. Electing no survivor annuity gives you the full pension payment but leaves your spouse with nothing from FERS if you die first.

This decision is permanent unless your spouse consents to waive the benefit in writing. Make it deliberately, with full information about your spouse’s independent retirement income and financial situation. See our post on survivor benefits: FERS Survivor Benefits: What Happens to Your Spouse When You’re Gone?

Other estate planning items at 6 months:

• Update beneficiary designations for your TSP, FEGLI, and Federal Employees’ Group Life Insurance separately — these are governed by separate beneficiary forms, not your will.
• Review and update your will and healthcare directives if they haven’t been touched in several years.
• Confirm that your spouse knows where all financial accounts, benefit documents, and insurance policies are kept.

4–5 Months Out: Submit Retirement Application

You should submit your retirement application (Standard Form 3107 for FERS) to your HR office approximately 3–4 months before your retirement date. This allows time for processing errors, document requests, and coordination between your agency and OPM.

Expect to receive a Civil Service Retirement System (CSRS) or FERS “interim” annuity payment while OPM processes your final annuity calculation. Interim payments are approximately 80–90% of your expected final pension. Full adjudication typically takes 2–6 months, though OPM processing times can vary.

Documents typically required for the application package:

• SF 3107 (FERS retirement application)
• SF 2818 (FEGLI continuation election)
• SF 2809 (FEHB enrollment form, if changes are needed)
• W-4P (federal tax withholding from annuity)
• Direct deposit authorization
• Birth certificate or other proof of age
• Marriage certificate (if electing survivor benefit)

3 Months Out: Annual Leave Planning

When you retire, you receive a lump-sum payment for all unused annual leave — including any leave in excess of the leave ceiling that you would normally lose at year-end. This payout can be substantial for employees with large leave balances, and it is taxable as ordinary income in the year received.

At 3 months out, calculate your projected leave payout and factor it into your tax planning. A large leave payout in your retirement year could push you into a higher bracket. For more on the leave payout, see: Annual Leave Payout at Retirement: What Federal Employees Need to Know

Sick leave, by contrast, is not paid out in a lump sum — it is converted to additional service credit that increases your FERS pension calculation. Every 174 hours of sick leave equals approximately one month of creditable service.

1–2 Months Out: Social Security Application and Final Logistics

If you’re 62 or older and plan to claim Social Security immediately, apply 3–4 months before you want benefits to begin at SSA.gov. If you’re retiring before 62, note that the FERS Special Retirement Supplement bridges your income until 62 — you don’t need to apply for Social Security now.

Final checklist items:

• Confirm your retirement date with your supervisor and HR in writing.
• Complete all pending HR paperwork and obtain a copy of your official SF-50 separation action.
• Confirm TSP contribution cessation — contributions stop once you separate from service.
• Return government equipment, PIV card, and any other agency property.
• Update your contact information with OPM’s Retirement Services (via Services Online at servicesonline.opm.gov) so your annuity payments reach you.

The Bottom Line

Federal retirement is a process, not an event. The employees who retire without stress are the ones who treated the final year as an active preparation period — not a countdown clock. Use this checklist as a living document, update it with your personal deadlines, and don’t hesitate to ask your HR benefits counselor for help at each stage.

And if you want expert guidance walking through all of these decisions in one place — FERS pension, TSP, FEHB, FEGLI, Social Security, survivor benefits, and more — register for a free Fed Pilot workshop at fedpilot.com/#register. We’ve helped thousands of federal employees cross the retirement finish line with confidence.