How to Postpone an MRA+10 Annuity

Postponing and deferring are usually described as two options. They are not. They are two different situations, and which one you are in was decided on the day you separated — by a single fact you cannot change afterwards.

If you had reached your minimum retirement age with at least 10 years of service when you left, you retired under 5 U.S.C. § 8412(g) on an immediate annuity, and 5 CFR 842.204(c) lets you postpone its commencing date. If you had not, your annuity is deferred under § 8413, and there is nothing to postpone — you are simply waiting to claim.

Why the difference is worth so much

Three things follow the immediate retirement and are lost with a deferred one:

• Health insurance. § 8905(b) continues FEHB for an annuitant who was enrolled at the time they became one, with five years of enrollment behind them. A postponed annuity keeps that door open. A deferred annuity closes it permanently — no FEHB, ever, at any later date.
• Life insurance. FEGLI follows the same logic and is lost on the deferred path for the same reason.
• Unused sick leave. § 8415(m)(2)(A) credits it to the total service of an employee who retires on an immediate annuity, and to nobody else. A deferred annuity drops the whole balance.

Neither path ever earns the 1.1% accrual factor: § 8415(i)(2) tests your age at separation, and you separated before 62.

What postponing actually buys

§ 8415(h)(1) reduces an MRA+10 annuity by five-twelfths of 1% for each full month by which the commencement date precedes your 62nd birthday — not the separation date. That one word is the whole mechanism: every month you wait buys back five-twelfths of a percent, and at 62 there is nothing left to buy.

§ 8415(h)(2) goes further and removes the reduction outright — not gradually — for anyone who would satisfy an ordinary age-and-service combination on the commencing date. Someone who separated at their MRA with 20 years and postpones to 60 has the reduction disappear at 60 rather than at 62, because age 60 with 20 years is one of the listed combinations. Postponing past that point buys nothing further.

So the first question is not “how long should I wait” but “which date makes the reduction vanish”. It is a cliff, and it is frequently earlier than 62.

The mechanics, in order

On the way out. You are retiring, not resigning. The retirement application goes in as normal, and the postponement is the election of a later commencing date rather than a different kind of separation. Make sure the personnel action records a retirement under § 8412(g) — this is the fact everything else depends on, and it is the hardest thing to fix afterwards.

In the gap. You are a separated employee with no annuity and no federal health insurance. FEHB continues only through temporary continuation coverage for a limited period, at the full premium plus an administrative charge, and then it ends. Most people bridge the gap through a spouse’s plan or the marketplace, and that cost belongs in the arithmetic of when to start the annuity.

To start it. You file the application to begin a postponed annuity with OPM — form RI 92-19 — and the standard guidance is to file about 60 days before the date you want the annuity to commence. Filing late does not forfeit the annuity, but it delays the first payment, and OPM does not treat a postponed application as automatic simply because you retired years earlier.

The insurance comes back with the annuity, not before it. FEHB and FEGLI are reinstated when the postponed annuity commences, provided you were enrolled at separation and meet the five-year rule. This is the entire reason to postpone rather than resign, and it is worth confirming your enrollment history with your agency before you leave rather than discovering a gap five years later.

One case where postponing is the wrong answer

If you need the income now and the reduction is small — someone a year from 62, for instance, facing a 5% reduction — taking the annuity immediately can easily beat waiting, because the months of payment you give up are real and the reduction you avoid is a percentage of a smaller number than people assume. The tool below prices both sides of that against each other rather than assuming waiting wins.

Sources

• 5 U.S.C. § 8412(g) — separation at the MRA with 10 years: an immediate annuity. Text of § 8412
• 5 U.S.C. § 8415(h) — the reduction measured from the commencement date, and its removal at (h)(2). Text of § 8415
• 5 CFR 842.204(c) — the postponement election itself. Text of 5 CFR 842.204
• 5 U.S.C. § 8905(b) — continuing FEHB as an annuitant. Text of § 8905

The annuity arithmetic is in lib/fers-deferred.js. Form numbers and filing lead times are OPM administrative practice rather than statute — confirm both with OPM or your agency before relying on a date, since they change without a statutory amendment to point at.

This guide is informational only. It is not financial, tax, or legal advice, and FedAnnuity is not affiliated with OPM or the U.S. government. Retirement rules turn on the specific facts of a career, and only your agency and OPM can give you a binding figure.

Last reviewed: August 2026 · Against 5 U.S.C. §§ 8412(g), 8415(h) and 8905(b), and 5 CFR 842.204.