Annuity

Sick Leave Conversion Calculator

Turn the sick leave hours on your leave and earnings statement into the months of service credit they actually add to your pension — and see how many hours would buy another one.

Informational only — not professional advice. This is an independent estimate, not an official one. Your agency certifies the sick leave balance that goes to OPM, and it is the balance on the day you separate that counts. FedAnnuity is not affiliated with OPM or the U.S. government.

A balance of 1,000 hours of unused sick leave converts to 5 months and 23 days of extra service. Your annuity is computed as though you had worked 5 months longer, which is worth $396 a year for life.

OPM 2,087-hour chart · whole months only

5 months and 23 days

of service credit from the chart

Your balance is not listed in the chart, so it takes the next higher entry — 1,003 hours — 3 hours of credit you never accrued.

How the credit reaches the annuity
Sick leave credit1,000 hours looked up in the 2,087-hour chart	173 d
Odd days droppedDays past a whole month are dropped, not rounded up	− 23 d
Months added to your serviceWhat the annuity computation actually uses	5 mo
Added to your annual annuity$95,000 × 1% × 5/12	$396

23 days of your balance buys nothing. A further 44 hours — a balance of 1,044 — would turn those days into another whole month, worth $79 a year.

Figures use the 1% accrual factor and are before any age reduction or survivor election. If you retire at 62 or later with 20 years of service the factor is 1.0999999999999999% and this credit is worth $435 a year instead. Sick leave never counts toward being eligible to retire — only toward the payment. The FERS Annuity Calculator takes this balance alongside your service and high-3, and the eligibility date finder shows when you can go.

How this is calculated

At retirement your unused sick leave is converted into extra creditable service and added to the years and months you actually worked. The converted service increases the annuity; it does not increase anything else.

hours of credit for d days = ceiling( d × 2,087 ÷ 360 )

Why it is a chart and not a division

A federal work year is 2,087 hours (5 U.S.C. § 5504(b)), and OPM counts service on a 360-day year of 30-day months. Dividing one by the other gives 5.7972 hours per day, which is not a number anyone’s leave balance is kept in. So OPM publishes a chart with one whole-hour entry per day of credit, each rounded up, and instructs you to use the next higher entry when your balance is not listed exactly.

That rounding is in your favour twice over: one day of credit costs 6 hours rather than 5.80, and a balance of a single hour still buys a whole day. This calculator does the lookup rather than the division, so it matches the chart entry for entry — the full chart is below if you want to check it.

Whole months reach the annuity; odd days do not

The converted sick leave is added to your creditable service, and the total is then expressed in whole months. Days past the last whole month are dropped. A balance worth 5 months and 23 days therefore adds 5 months to the computation and the 23 days are lost — unless your own service happens to end a few days past a whole month, in which case those days combine with these and can complete the sixth.

This is the part worth acting on while you are still working. The gap between a balance that lands on a month boundary and one that falls just short can be a few dozen hours, and a month of credit is 1% ÷ 12 of your high-3 every year for the rest of your life.

Our FERS Annuity Calculator does the same lookup from the same code, so the two pages cannot disagree about what a balance is worth.

Sick leave never makes you eligible to retire

Converted sick leave counts toward the computation of the annuity and nothing else. It cannot get you to the 5 years that vest a pension, the 30 years behind an MRA retirement, or the 20 years that earn the 1.0999999999999999% factor at age 62. Those all read your real service. If you want the date you become eligible, use the eligibility date finder, which deliberately leaves sick leave out.

FERS employees get full credit — since 2014

Until 2009 a FERS retiree got no sick leave credit at all. The 2009 National Defense Authorization Act phased it in: half the balance counted for retirements between 2010 and 2013, and the full balance counts for anyone retiring from 1 January 2014 onward. Anyone retiring now gets 100%, so this calculator applies no phase-in. CSRS employees have always received full credit and the same chart applies to them.

What this does not model

Your balance on the day you leave.The figure that counts is certified by your agency at separation, not the one on today’s leave and earnings statement. Sick leave you spend between now and then is sick leave you do not convert.
Part-time service. Sick leave earned during part-time service is credited on a prorated basis in some cases, which this tool does not attempt to reconstruct.
Transferred and reinstated balances. Sick leave carried in from another federal agency, or recredited after a break in service, counts — but only if it appears in the balance your agency certifies. Enter the certified total, not your own reconstruction.
A refund of contributions. If you take a refund rather than an annuity, no sick leave is converted, because there is no computation to add it to.

The full 2,087-hour chart

Every entry below is produced by the same lookup the calculator above uses. Find your balance in the grid — or the next higher figure if it is not listed — and read the credit off the row and column headings.

Show OPM’s conversion chart — hours of sick leave, in months and days

Hours of unused sick leave, by months (rows) and days (columns) of service credit
Mo	0	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13	14	15	16	17	18	19	20	21	22	23	24	25	26	27	28	29
0	0	6	12	18	24	29	35	41	47	53	58	64	70	76	82	87	93	99	105	111	116	122	128	134	140	145	151	157	163	169
1	174	180	186	192	198	203	209	215	221	227	232	238	244	250	256	261	267	273	279	285	290	296	302	308	314	319	325	331	337	343
2	348	354	360	366	372	377	383	389	395	401	406	412	418	424	429	435	441	447	453	458	464	470	476	482	487	493	499	505	511	516
3	522	528	534	540	545	551	557	563	569	574	580	586	592	598	603	609	615	621	627	632	638	644	650	656	661	667	673	679	685	690
4	696	702	708	714	719	725	731	737	743	748	754	760	766	772	777	783	789	795	801	806	812	818	824	830	835	841	847	853	858	864
5	870	876	882	887	893	899	905	911	916	922	928	934	940	945	951	957	963	969	974	980	986	992	998	1003	1009	1015	1021	1027	1032	1038
6	1044	1050	1056	1061	1067	1073	1079	1085	1090	1096	1102	1108	1114	1119	1125	1131	1137	1143	1148	1154	1160	1166	1172	1177	1183	1189	1195	1201	1206	1212
7	1218	1224	1230	1235	1241	1247	1253	1258	1264	1270	1276	1282	1287	1293	1299	1305	1311	1316	1322	1328	1334	1340	1345	1351	1357	1363	1369	1374	1380	1386
8	1392	1398	1403	1409	1415	1421	1427	1432	1438	1444	1450	1456	1461	1467	1473	1479	1485	1490	1496	1502	1508	1514	1519	1525	1531	1537	1543	1548	1554	1560
9	1566	1572	1577	1583	1589	1595	1601	1606	1612	1618	1624	1630	1635	1641	1647	1653	1659	1664	1670	1676	1682	1687	1693	1699	1705	1711	1716	1722	1728	1734
10	1740	1745	1751	1757	1763	1769	1774	1780	1786	1792	1798	1803	1809	1815	1821	1827	1832	1838	1844	1850	1856	1861	1867	1873	1879	1885	1890	1896	1902	1908
11	1914	1919	1925	1931	1937	1943	1948	1954	1960	1966	1972	1977	1983	1989	1995	2001	2006	2012	2018	2024	2030	2035	2041	2047	2053	2059	2064	2070	2076	2082

The grid stops at 11 months and 29 days = 2,082 hours. A full year of credit is 2,087 hours; past that, subtract 2,087 for each whole year and look the remainder up here. The calculator above does this for you.

Sources

OPM CSRS/FERS Handbook, Chapter 50 — Computation of Annuity (PDF) — §50A3.1-3 on crediting unused sick leave, and the conversion chart this calculator reproduces.
5 U.S.C. § 8415 — subsection (k), the FERS credit for unused sick leave and the 2010–2013 phase-in; and subsection (g), the 1.0999999999999999% factor that sick leave cannot help you reach.
5 U.S.C. § 5504(b) — the 2,087-hour work year the chart is built on.
OPM — FERS Computation — OPM’s own summary, including that sick leave is added to service for the computation only.

Last reviewed: August 2026

Frequently asked questions

How many hours of sick leave equal a month of service credit?

174 hours is one month, and 2,087 hours is a full year. Those come from OPM's chart, which spreads a 2,087-hour work year over a 360-day service year of 30-day months. A single day of credit is 6 hours — the chart rounds each entry up, so it is a little more generous than dividing 2,087 by 360 would suggest.

Does unused sick leave let me retire earlier?

No. Sick leave is added to the service used to compute how much your annuity pays, and never to the service used to decide whether you may retire at all. You cannot reach 30 years, or the 5 years that vest a pension, or the 20 years behind the 1.1% factor, on sick leave hours. Treating it as though you could is the most expensive mistake in this part of the rules, because it produces a retirement date your agency will not honour.

What happens to the leftover days that do not make a whole month?

They are dropped. Your creditable service is converted to whole months for the computation and any days past the last whole month are discarded — not rounded up, and not paid out. That is why this calculator shows how many more hours would carry those days over into another month: it is often a smaller number than people expect, and it is worth real money every year of retirement.

Is unused sick leave paid out when a federal employee retires?

No. Unused annual leave is paid as a lump sum; unused sick leave is not paid at all. Its only value at retirement is this conversion into service credit — which is also why a retiring employee spending down a sick leave balance is giving up an annuity increase that lasts for life, not banking a cheque.

Related tools

FERS Annuity Calculator

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 →CSRS Annuity Calculator

The Civil Service Retirement System pension on its own tiered 1.5/1.75/2% formula — with the 80% ceiling, the sick leave credit that is allowed past it, and the CSRS Offset reduction at 62 each shown as its own line.

Open tool →High-3 Average Salary Calculator

Find the highest 3 consecutive years of basic pay in your history — the single figure every FERS and CSRS annuity is computed from.

Open tool →Retirement Eligibility Date Finder

The 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 →