Annuity
FERS Supplement Calculator
If you retire before 62 on an immediate, unreduced annuity, OPM pays you a second monthly amount until your 62nd birthday. This works out what it is, and how much of it a job in retirement would take back.
Informational only — not professional advice. This is an independent estimate, not an official one. OPM computes its own estimate of your age-62 Social Security benefit from your reported earnings, and its figure will differ from the one on your Social Security statement. FedAnnuity is not affiliated with OPM, the Social Security Administration, or the U.S. government.
Until you turn 62, OPM pays you $1,500.00 a month on top of your annuity. It stops the month before your 62nd birthday, whether or not you claim Social Security then.
Payable from the day your annuity starts · no COLA
| Social Security benefit at 62Your estimate — the figure OPM approximates | $2,000.00 |
|---|---|
| Career fraction30 whole years of FERS civilian service ÷ 40 | × 30/40 |
| Supplement before the earnings testFixed for life — it carries no COLA | $1,500.00 |
| Supplement paid each monthTaxed as ordinary income, like the annuity | $1,500.00 |
| Paid over 5 years60 payments from age 57 to 62 | $90,000 |
You can earn $24,480 a year before any of this is withheld. Above that, $1 goes for every $2 you earn, and the supplement is gone entirely at $60,480. Only wages and self-employment count — your annuity and TSP withdrawals do not.
The supplement is separate from your basic annuity and is never reduced by the age reduction or a survivor election. Compute the annuity itself with the FERS Annuity Calculator, and check which retirement you actually qualify for with the eligibility date finder.
How this is calculated
The supplement exists because a FERS employee can retire years before Social Security will pay anything. It approximates the Social Security your federal service earned, pays it early, and stops when the real thing becomes available.
monthly supplement = age-62 Social Security benefit × whole years of FERS civilian service ÷ 40
Where each part of the formula comes from
5 U.S.C. § 8421(b)(2) sets the fraction: your service over a 40-year career. The 40 is a denominator and nothing else — no rule anywhere requires 40 years of service, and exceeding it simply makes the fraction larger than one.
Service is counted in whole years, rounded to the nearest one: 25 years and 7 months is credited as 26, and 25 years and 5 months as 25. Only civilianservice under FERS counts. Military service you have made a deposit for counts toward your annuity but not toward this fraction, because it is already reflected in your Social Security record. Unused sick leave does not count either — it is credited in the annuity computation, and the supplement is not an annuity computation.
The benefit figure is the harder half. OPM estimates your age-62 Social Security benefit itself, using your reported earnings and assuming no further earnings after you retire. You cannot see that estimate before you retire, so this calculator takes the age-62 figure from your Social Security statement instead. Expect OPM’s number to differ, usually by a little and downward, because SSA’s projection assumes you keep working and OPM’s does not.
Who actually gets it
The supplement is not a feature of retiring early — it is a feature of retiring early on an immediate, unreduced annuity. That distinction is what most of the confusion is about:
- MRA with 30 years of service — supplement paid from the day the annuity starts. An immediate, unreduced annuity before 62 — the case the supplement was written for.
- Age 60 with 20 years of service — supplement paid from the day the annuity starts. Also immediate and unreduced, so the supplement runs from retirement until 62.
- Special provision (law enforcement, firefighter, ATC) — supplement paid from the day the annuity starts. Paid from retirement even below the MRA, and the earnings test does not touch it until you reach your MRA.
- Early retirement (VERA / discontinued service) — supplement paid once you reach your MRA. An early-out annuity starts straight away, but the supplement waits until you reach your MRA.
- MRA with 10 years (the reduced annuity) — no supplement. No supplement. The MRA+10 retirement is excluded by statute, and postponing it does not create one.
- Deferred annuity (separated, claiming later) — no supplement. No supplement. It is payable only to someone who retires on an immediate annuity.
- Disability retirement — no supplement. No supplement. The FERS disability annuity is computed under its own rules.
- Retiring at 62 or later — no supplement. Nothing to bridge. Your own Social Security benefit is available from the month you retire.
Use the eligibility date finderif you are not sure which of these describes your retirement — the difference between an MRA+30 retirement and an MRA+10 one can be a matter of months of service, and it decides whether this page applies to you at all.
The earnings test
5 U.S.C. § 8421a applies the Social Security earnings test to the supplement: above SSA’s annual exempt amount — $24,480 for 2026 — $1 of supplement is withheld for every $2 of earnings. Three details are worth more than the formula:
- Only earned income counts. Wages and net self-employment income. Your annuity, TSP withdrawals, IRA distributions, investment income, rental income and inheritances are not earnings, however large.
- It runs a year behind.OPM surveys annuitants each spring (form RI 92-22) about the previous year’s earnings, and any reduction takes effect the following July and runs for twelve months. Earnings in your first partial year of retirement do not reduce anything until the July after that.
- It cannot touch your basic annuity. The reduction stops when the supplement reaches zero. A large salary suspends the supplement; it does not create a debt against the pension underneath.
A special-provision retiree — law enforcement, firefighter, air traffic controller — is exempt from the test until they reach their MRA, which is the one case where the supplement and a full second career overlap without a penalty.
It carries no COLA, and it is taxed
The supplement is fixed at the amount first computed. It receives no cost-of-living adjustment for as long as it is paid, unlike the basic annuity, so its real value falls slightly each year. It is taxed as ordinary income in the same way the annuity is. Neither of these is a penalty — but a plan built on the supplement holding its value in five-year-old dollars is a plan built on a number that will not be there.
What happens at 62
The last payment covers the month before your 62nd birthday. Nothing replaces it automatically. If you claim Social Security at 62 you will usually receive less than the supplement was paying, because the supplement was computed from the unreduced age-62 figure prorated over a federal career, while an actual claim at 62 is reduced for claiming before your full retirement age. Delaying the claim raises it, but leaves a gap with no supplement in it.
What this does not model
- OPM’s own benefit estimate. This uses the figure you enter. OPM computes its own from your reported earnings history, and its result is the one that gets paid.
- Part-time service proration.Part-time FERS service is credited to the fraction on its own terms, which this tool does not reconstruct — it takes years of service as you enter them.
- Mid-year retirements. The first partial year of retirement has its own earnings-test treatment, and the tool prices a full year at a time.
- Anything after 62. When and how to claim Social Security is a separate decision this site does not model and does not advise on.
Sources
- OPM CSRS/FERS Handbook, Chapter 51 — Retiree Annuity Supplement (PDF) — eligibility, the computation, and the earnings test procedure this calculator follows.
- 5 U.S.C. § 8421 — entitlement to the supplement and the years-over-40 fraction.
- 5 U.S.C. § 8421a — the reduction on account of earnings, which adopts the Social Security earnings test by reference.
- SSA — Retirement Earnings Test Exempt Amounts — the $24,480 limit for 2026, and the history of the figure.
- OPM — FERS Computation — OPM’s own summary of the supplement alongside the basic annuity.
Last reviewed: August 2026
Frequently asked questions
How is the FERS supplement calculated?
Take the monthly Social Security benefit you would receive at 62, multiply it by your whole years of FERS civilian service, and divide by 40. Someone retiring with 30 years gets 30/40 — three quarters — of their age-62 benefit each month. The divisor is 40 because the statute prices a full career at 40 years; it is not a service requirement, and nobody needs 40 years for anything else.
How much can I earn before the FERS supplement is reduced?
$24,480 in 2026. Above that, OPM withholds $1 of supplement for every $2 you earn, so a supplement of $1,500 a month is gone entirely at about $60,480 of earned income. Only wages and net self-employment income count — your annuity, TSP withdrawals, investment income, rents and any Social Security you later claim are not earnings and never trigger the test.
Does the FERS supplement stop at 62?
Yes — the last payment is for the month before your 62nd birthday, and it stops whether or not you claim Social Security then. Claiming Social Security at 62 typically pays less than the supplement did, because the supplement is computed from the age-62 benefit as though your whole career had been federal, while an actual age-62 claim is reduced for claiming early. Plan for the drop rather than assuming one replaces the other.
Do MRA+10 retirees get the FERS supplement?
No. The supplement goes only to retirees taking an immediate, unreduced annuity — MRA with 30 years, age 60 with 20, or a special provision retirement — plus early-out retirees once they reach their MRA. An MRA+10 retirement, a deferred annuity, a disability retirement and any retirement at 62 or later all pay no supplement. Postponing an MRA+10 annuity to reduce the age penalty does not create one either.
Related tools
Work out the monthly pension your federal service earns, with the age reduction, sick leave credit, and survivor election each shown as its own line.
Open tool →Retirement Eligibility Date FinderThe earliest date you can retire and be paid straight away — every FERS age-and-service rule dated from your birthday and your service computation date.
Open tool →FERS Special Provisions CalculatorThe 6c retirement law enforcement officers, firefighters, couriers, CBP officers and air traffic controllers earn — 1.7% of high-3 for the first 20 years, no age reduction, and what the enhanced formula is worth against the ordinary one.
Open tool →Deferred vs Postponed Retirement CalculatorWhat your pension does if you leave federal service before you can retire — which of the two annuities you are owed, what each commencing date pays after the 5% a year reduction, and why one path keeps your health insurance while the other ends it for good.
Open tool →High-3 Average Salary CalculatorFind the highest 3 consecutive years of basic pay in your history — the single figure every FERS and CSRS annuity is computed from.
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