Military Retirement Calculator: Project TSP Growth and Pension

Under the legacy High-3 plan, a 20-year retiree receives 2.5% × years of service × High-3 average pay (50% at 20 years), with no TSP matching and no benefit at all for those who leave before 20 years. Under BRS, the pension multiplier drops to 2.0% (40% at 20 years), but the government provides up to 5% TSP matching after three years of service, a continuation pay bonus, and service members who leave before 20 years keep their TSP balance plus any vested matching.

Under BRS, a service member who leaves before 20 years receives no pension but keeps their entire TSP balance, including vested government matching contributions. Government matching vests after two years of service. This is the key BRS design feature: it extends retirement benefits to the roughly 80% of service members who historically left before the 20-year mark and received nothing under the legacy plan.

After 60 days of service, the government automatically contributes 1% of basic pay to your TSP. Beginning in your fourth year of service, the government also matches your contributions: dollar-for-dollar on the first 3% you contribute, and 50 cents per dollar on the next 2%. To capture the full 5% match, you must contribute at least 5% of your basic pay.

Possibly. If you separate from service in the year you turn 55 or later, you may qualify for the Rule of 55, which waives the 10% early withdrawal penalty on TSP distributions. Additionally, combat-zone tax exclusion rules may apply to contributions made during qualifying deployments. Consult IRS Publication 590-B and your TSP plan documents for specifics.

The Survivor Benefit Plan (SBP) is a Department of Defense insurance program that continues up to 55% of your retirement pay to a surviving spouse after you die. Premiums are roughly 6.5% of the covered base amount. Without SBP, your military pension stops at death. The election must be made at retirement; you cannot add it later. The core tradeoff against commercial life insurance: SBP premiums come out pre-tax, coverage is guaranteed regardless of your health with no medical exam, and a private insurer can't cancel it on you — but a healthy applicant can sometimes buy comparable term life coverage from a private insurer for less than SBP's premium, especially earlier in life, so it's worth getting a term quote before you elect SBP by default. For a deeper breakdown of military pay, VA benefits, and survivor protections, see rankandpay.org's military retirement guide.

No — the High-3 and BRS pension formulas are set by federal law and DoD-wide policy, so the math is identical whether you served in the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marine Corps, or Space Force. What differs is the path to eligibility: active-duty members in any branch can retire after 20 years of active service, while National Guard and Reserve members generally need 20 'good years' — each requiring at least 50 retirement points — and typically can't start drawing retired pay until age 60, though qualifying active-duty mobilizations can lower that age. Whichever branch you served in, DFAS (the Defense Finance and Accounting Service) is the single agency that calculates and issues your monthly retired pay, not your individual service. VA disability compensation is a separate benefit administered by the Department of Veterans Affairs and can be received alongside military retired pay, subject to offset rules like Concurrent Retirement and Disability Pay (CRDP); see our military retirement vs. VA disability breakdown for how CRDP and Combat-Related Special Compensation (CRSC) actually work.

Yes — military retired pay is taxable as ordinary federal income, reported each year on a 1099-R from DFAS, the same as any other pension. VA disability compensation is different: it's entirely tax-free at the federal level and isn't reported on that 1099-R. State treatment of retired pay varies widely — most states either have no state income tax at all or fully exempt military retirement pay, while a small number, including California, still tax it in full. Check your specific state's current rules before assuming your pension is state-tax-free. See our military retirement vs VA disability comparison for how the VA-disability side interacts with your retired pay.

National Guard and Reserve retirement — officially non-regular retirement — is points-based rather than a straight count of active-service years. You need 20 'good years,' and a good year requires at least 50 retirement points, earned through roughly 15 automatic membership points plus 1 point per 4-hour drill period and 1 point per day of active duty or annual training. Guard and Reserve retirees generally can't draw retired pay until age 60, though DFAS's Reduced Age Retirement rule can lower that floor to as young as age 50 for members with qualifying periods of active duty. The pension still uses the same 2.0% (BRS) or 2.5% (legacy) multiplier applied to a years-of-service figure derived from your total points, times your High-3 average.

The Uniformed Services Former Spouses' Protection Act (USFSPA) permits — but doesn't require — state courts to treat military retired pay as marital property that can be divided in a divorce; the actual formula and percentage come from state law, not federal law. If the marriage overlapped at least 10 years of the member's creditable service (the '10/10 rule'), DFAS can pay the former spouse's court-awarded share directly, rather than requiring the service member to pay it themselves. Direct payments are capped at 50% of disposable retired pay, or up to 65% when combined with alimony or child-support garnishments. VA disability compensation, by contrast, generally cannot be divided as marital property. Your TSP balance is a separate asset: it gets divided by its own court order sent to the TSP record keeper, not through USFSPA, so confirm both orders are filed correctly during your divorce.

Yes. Military retired pay and Social Security are separate benefits, and drawing one does not reduce or disqualify you from the other. If you claim Social Security before your full retirement age while still working a civilian job, the SSA's earnings test can temporarily withhold part of your Social Security check, but it never touches your military pension. Check ssa.gov for the current earnings-test limits before you claim early.

Yes, but only under BRS. The Blended Retirement System lets you take a lump sum of either 25% or 50% of your future retired pay's discounted value at retirement, with your monthly pension reduced by that same percentage until you reach Social Security full retirement age. Legacy High-3 retirees do not have this option, and a lump sum forgoes future COLA growth on the amount you take upfront.

Only base pay counts toward your High-3 average. Basic Allowance for Housing (BAH) and Basic Allowance for Subsistence (BAS) are tax-free allowances, not base pay, so DFAS excludes both from the pension calculation entirely — even though they can make up a large share of your total take-home pay while serving.

In most cases, yes — military retired pay and a separate federal civilian pension (FERS or CSRS) are two distinct retirement systems, and collecting both is often called 'double-dipping' informally, but there's no automatic offset between them the way VA disability and military retired pay can interact. Rules can still vary by agency and by whether you're under FERS or the older CSRS system, so confirm your specific situation with your federal HR or benefits office before you count on both checks.

Changing an existing SBP election after retirement (adding or switching a beneficiary following a divorce or remarriage, for example) is possible only in limited circumstances defined by DFAS, tied to a qualifying life event and a specific window to act. Because that window and the required paperwork can change, contact DFAS directly for the current process rather than assuming a specific deadline; the initial SBP election itself still can't be made after retirement.

There's no single 'retirement pay chart' you can look up directly. The official 2026 military basic pay chart, which feeds into the retirement formula, is published by the Department of Defense at militarypay.defense.gov. Your actual retired pay comes from applying the High-3 (2.5%) or BRS (2.0%) multiplier, times your years of service, to the average of your three highest-paid years, so use the current pay chart there for your base-pay inputs and the calculator above to project the resulting pension.

Your military retired pay itself doesn't change at 65. It continues on the same schedule with the same annual cost-of-living adjustment (COLA) it already receives. Health coverage does change: most retirees become eligible for Medicare Part A and Part B at 65, and once you have both parts, TRICARE For Life automatically takes over as your supplement to Medicare, with no separate enrollment needed. See the official TRICARE For Life page for the current coverage details.

There's no single dollar figure, because E7 retirement pay depends on years-of-service within the grade at retirement and the current base-pay table, not a fixed amount. To find your own number: look up E7 basic pay at your years of service on the current chart at militarypay.defense.gov, average your three highest-paid years for your High-3 figure, then apply the 2.5% (legacy) or 2.0% (BRS) multiplier from the formula above times 20 years of service. Plug that High-3 average into the pension formula above to get your own estimate rather than relying on a single published number that won't match your actual years of service.

There's no single average, because pension income depends on rank, years of service, and whether you retired under legacy High-3 or BRS. This page's own worked example illustrates the range: a service member retiring under BRS at 20 years with a $72,000 High-3 average gets a $2,400/month pension, plus roughly $1,667/month if a $500,000 TSP balance is drawn down at a 4% rate, for about $4,067/month total. A legacy High-3 retiree with the same pay and years gets a larger pension alone, $3,000/month, but no BRS TSP match. Treat that as one illustrative scenario, not a national average, and use the calculator above with your own rank, years, and TSP balance for a real estimate.

REDUX (formally the Career Status Bonus/REDUX program) was a third retirement option offered only to service members who entered before 2018. It isn't available to anyone entering under BRS. Around the 15-year mark, an eligible member could elect a one-time $30,000 Career Status Bonus in exchange for two long-term reductions versus legacy High-3: a lower pension multiplier at 20 years of service, and a reduced annual COLA (roughly CPI minus one percentage point) that only resets to match full CPI in the year the retiree turns 62, then reduces again after that. That reduced-COLA gap compounds over a long retirement, which is why REDUX retirees who took the bonus can end up meaningfully behind a legacy High-3 retiree of the same rank and years of service over time. If you're not sure which of the three systems (legacy High-3, REDUX, or BRS) applies to you, check with DFAS or your service's retirement office, since it depends on your specific entry date and whether you made a REDUX election.