PDF checklist6 pagesUpdated 2026-07-30
FERS Pre-Retirement Checklist — Five Years Out to Your Final Day
A dated checklist of the documents, elections, and deadlines that appear in the last five years of a FERS career: verifying creditable service and locating every SF-50, the five-year FEHB and FEGLI continuation rules, the deposit questions, and the retirement package your agency sends OPM on your final day.
OPM's retirement processing is document-driven. When a FERS application reaches Boyers, an examiner reconstructs an entire career — creditable service, retirement coverage, high-3 average salary, deposits owed — from the paper record an agency forwards. Nothing is inferred from memory, and nothing is assumed in the employee's favour. That is why the years before a retirement date are mostly a records exercise rather than a math exercise: the arithmetic is fixed by statute, but the inputs to it are whatever the file says they are.
The checklist collects that records exercise into one sheet, ordered by how far out you are. The five-year band covers the things that are only fixable with lead time — a wrong retirement coverage code in box 30 of an SF-50, an unpaid deposit for temporary service, a military buyback that was started and never finished, and the continuous-coverage clocks that govern whether FEHB and FEGLI carry into retirement. The final-year band covers the package itself: which forms your agency assembles, which elections are irrevocable once made, and what happens to unused annual and sick leave at separation.
Every line names the OPM or agency source it comes from, so the sheet can be checked rather than trusted. It is a records organizer, not advice: it does not tell anyone when to retire, and OPM's computation at retirement is the only figure that governs. The calculators linked at the bottom of this page do the arithmetic side; this document handles the paperwork side that feeds them.
What's inside
The complete contents, listed in full — this is not a preview.
- Five years out: verifying creditable service, locating every SF-50 from every agency, and confirming the retirement coverage code in box 30 is right
- The five-year continuous-coverage rules for FEHB and FEGLI, and the dates each clock is measured from
- Deposits and redeposits — military service credit, temporary service, and refunded service — with the DFAS and agency contacts for each
- A high-3 worksheet: the 36 consecutive months that set the annuity, and where each salary figure is sourced from the published pay tables
- Unused annual leave versus unused sick leave — what each becomes at separation under OPM's published rules
- The retirement application package by form number (SF 3107, SF 3107-1, SF 2818, SF 3102) and who signs what
- Final-day handoff and the interim-payment period: what your agency sends OPM and what arrives while adjudication runs
Who this is for
- FERS-covered federal employees inside roughly five years of an eligible retirement date, who want the records work done before it is urgent
- Employees who have moved between agencies and want a single reconciled service history rather than several partial ones
- Anyone who bought back military time — or is still deciding — and needs the deposit paperwork trail in one place
- Employees supporting a spouse's federal retirement who want to know which elections have survivor consequences
Free by email
FERS Pre-Retirement Checklist — Five Years Out to Your Final Day
Enter your email and confirm the double opt-in link — the document is sent straight back. You are also added to COLA Watch, one email when the official numbers change. No spam, unsubscribe anytime.
There is no instant-download button on this page. The checklist is emailed after you confirm the double opt-in link, which keeps one dated version in circulation: when OPM changes a form number or a rule, subscribers get the corrected sheet instead of a stale PDF that was downloaded a year ago and never revisited.
Official sources this resource draws on
Calculators that go with it
FERS Retirement
Estimate your FERS annuity from your high-3 average salary, creditable service years, and retirement age. Applies the 1% multiplier, the 1.1% multiplier at age 62 with 20+ years, your minimum retirement age by birth year, and the MRA+10 early-retirement reduction — with every step of the math shown.
High-3
Compute your high-3 average salary — the highest-paid 36 consecutive months of your federal career — the exact figure your FERS annuity is based on. Enter your salary history periods and get the properly weighted average, with the math shown month by month.
TSP Growth
Project your Thrift Savings Plan balance to retirement. Models your contributions, the 1% automatic agency contribution, the full match tiers (100% of the first 3%, 50% of the next 2%), annual contribution and catch-up limits from the verified IRS/TSP figures, and compound growth year by year.
Sick Leave Credit
Convert your unused sick leave hours into extra FERS service credit using OPM's 2,087-hour rule. See the added months and days of creditable service your sick leave balance buys, and roughly what that extra service is worth in annual annuity dollars.
Educational reference material — not legal, financial, or benefits advice, and not an application or a determination. The agencies linked above decide every actual outcome.