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National Guard & Reserves Retirement Calculator

Use our free retirement calculator to estimate your monthly and annual payments. 

Who is Eligible for National Guard/Reserve Retirement?

All active duty servicemembers and Reserve Component (RC) members are eligible for military retirement as long as they meet certain requirements. However, the eligibility for RC military retirement differs from that for active duty military retirement, so we have different calculators for each group. 

Calculate active duty military retirement pay on this page or simply click the “Active Duty” button under “Status at retirement” on this calculator.  

Across the Reserve Component, the eligibility for retirement is the same for all members. 

Members of the Reserve Component include: 

  • Air National Guard
  • Air Force Reserve
  • Army National Guard
  • Army Reserve
  • Coast Guard Reserve
  • Navy Reserve
  • Marine Corps Reserve

See our complete guide on Guard/Reserve Retirement here.

How to Qualify for Guard/Reserve Retirement

If you’re in the Reserve Component, you must earn 20 qualifying years of service to qualify for retirement. To have a qualifying year in the RC, you must earn 50 points, commonly referred to as a Good Year.  

Additionally, as part of the RC, you cannot claim retirement pay until age 60 unless you serve enough active duty time to earn an early Guard/Reserve Retirement. Since the military

How Is Guard/Reserve Retirement Pay Calculated?

Guard/Reserve retirement pay is based on a points system. The total number of retirement points earned during your career is divided by 360 to determine your equivalent years of service. This figure is then multiplied by 2.5% and your High-3 average base pay (the average of your highest 36 months of pay). The resulting percentage of your High-3 pay becomes your monthly retirement pay.

Earning Retirement Points

Reserve members earn points for various activities, such as drills, training, and active-duty service. For every day of active-duty service, you’ll receive one point. Read our detailed Guard/Reserve point guide here for a full breakdown of how to earn more retirement points. 

Each point contributes to your retirement pay calculation. To find your points statement, use the following table. 

Reserve Component BranchWhere to Find Your Points Statement
Army National GuardGo to IPPS-A Landing Page (army.mil). Select “HR Professional,” then select “View Retirement Points.” 
Air Force Reserve and Air National GuardGo to https://www.my.af.mil. Navigate to the Virtual Military Personnel Flight (vMPF), select “Self-Service Actions,” select “Personal Data,” and click “ANG/USAFR Point Credit Summary Inquiry (PCFARS).”
Army ReserveReview your “Chronicle Retirement Point Statement DA 5016” at www.hrc.army.mil. Select the “My Record” tab to review. Note: CAC card required. 
Marine Corps ReserveReview your “Career Retirement Credit Report” at https://mol.tfs.usmc.mil/mol
Navy ReserveReview your “Annual Retirement Point Record” (ARPR) at https://www.bol.navy.mil/ARPR/
Coast Guard ReserveGo to https://portal.direct-access.us. Click “My Reserve Points Statement” under the “Employee View” menu.

At retirement, the total number of accumulated points is divided by 360 to convert them into equivalent years of service. This figure is then used in the retirement pay formula, which varies depending on the military retirement plan you are eligible for. 

Other Factors That Impact Guard/Reserve Retirement Pay

Several key factors affect your retirement pay:

  • Total Points Earned: Retirement pay increases with the number of points you earn during your career.
  • High-3 Pay: Your retirement is calculated based on the average of your highest 36 months of pay.
  • Rank and Time in Service: Higher rank and longer service generally mean higher pay.
  • Retirement Plan: Your eligible retirement plan (Final Pay, High-3, or Blended Retirement System) determines how pay is calculated.
  • Cost of Living Adjustments (COLA): Annual adjustments ensure retirement pay keeps up with inflation.

Outside of the eligibility requirements and how pay is calculated, most retirement benefits are fairly similar between active duty members and members of the Guard/Reserve. To learn more about the impacts on your military retirement pay, like how to figure out your retirement plan and how taxes will affect your retirement pay, see the following links: 

Final Thoughts on Your Future Benefits

The biggest differences between active duty and Reserve military retirement come down to the points system and when you are eligible to receive retirement pay and other benefits. While active duty service gets you access to military retirement faster, aspects of active duty service may not interest you. Whereas being in the Reserves will give you access to those strong VA benefits, but also allow you the opportunity to seek professional growth in the civilian workforce sector.  

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Doug Nordman says

    Don, that form lists your military training and experience. It doesn’t verify that you have 20 good years of Reserve or Guard service and has no impact on military pensions or veteran’s benefits.

    I think you’re asking whether you qualify for a Reserve pension. You can learn more about that by contacting your final service (the Army Reserve?) at the Human Resources Command (https://hrc.army.mil/) to request a copy of your Notice Of Eligibility letter.

    You can also discuss whether your point-count records with them include your previous active duty.

    If there’s an error in your records then you could try to update the HRC database with your active-duty service, and see whether that meets the requirements for a NOE.

    If you’re asking about veteran’s benefits or a VA disability claim, that’s handled by a Veteran Service Officer. You can find them through local chapters of the American Legion, the DAV, the VFW, or even MOAA. You can find them in your area through the VA’s website:
    https://www.va.gov/vso/
    And you can also contact your state’s office of Veteran Affairs.

  2. Doug Nordman says

    Sophia,

    I’m happy to help with those numbers, although I depend on the manual calculation instead of those point charts.

    I’m going to assume that you did not deploy to a combat zone after 28 January 2008 for at least 90 days during a fiscal year. If you had, that would entitle you to start your pension three months earlier for each of those 90-day segments. If that might be an issue, though, you can read more about it at this post from my friend (and ANG officer) Ryan Guina:
    https://themilitarywallet.com/national-guard-and-reserve-early-retirement-age/

    You could wait to start your Reserve pension on 1 January 2019, but it works against you with High Three. It can work with the Final Pay pension system (it’s usually less than a 10-year payback), which is applicable to those who started active duty before 8 September 1980. However High Three averages the final 36 months of pay tables before you start your pension. If you delay the start of that pension while the older base-pay numbers are dropping out of the 36-month average, you could be missing thousands of dollars a month in pension deposits which would take decades to make up.
    https://militarypay.defense.gov/Pay/Retirement/reserve/

    When you start your Reserve pension in November 2018, the 36 month average uses 11 months from the 2018 pay tables, 12 months from the 2017 tables, 12 months from the 2016 tables, and December 2015. You probably retired awaiting pay with at least three years time in grade as an O-6 (or a waiver down to two years), so your pension is calculated from that rank.

    If your Date of Initial Entry into Military Service is 17 March 1985 then (for pay longevity purposes) your DIEMS date puts you as an O-6>30 in March 2015. I happen to know that the pay tables top out for O-6 at 30 years (it’s the same pay for O-6>32) so it’s a little easier to look up the numbers.
    https://www.dfas.mil/militarymembers/payentitlements/military-pay-charts.html

    Here’s the numbers I’m using:
    2018 O-6>32: $11,599.80
    2017 O-6>30 and O-6>32: $11,328.00 for both
    2016 O-6>30 : $11,094.90
    December 2015 O-6>30: $10,952.40

    The November 2018 High Three average is:
    [(11 x $11,599.80) + (12 x $11,328.00) + (12 x $11,094.90) + $10,952.40] / 36 = $11,322.91

    4833 points / 360 x 2.5% x $11,322.91 = $3800/month.
    (The Financial Management Regulation requires DFAS to truncate the result to the lower dollar.)
    https://www.dfas.mil/retiredmilitary/plan/estimate.html

    If you start your pension in January 2019 and there’s a 2.0% pay raise (which seems like a reasonable compromise on the 2.6% proposal), then your High Three average would drop December 2015 and January 2016 while adding December 2018 and January 2019’s 2% pay raise.

    The January 2019 High Three average would be:
    [($11,599.80 x 1.02) + (12 x $11,599.80) + (12 x $11,328.00) + (11 x $11,094.90) ] / 36 = $11,361.36
    and your new pension amount would be $3813/month. However you lost the entire month of December ($3800) and some days in November. Making up >$3800 at a higher pension of $13/month would take over 24 years. (It’d be an additional $126.67/day or 9.75 months per day for whatever you lost from your November birth date). Maybe you’d win that bet (it’d motivate me!) but I’m not sure it’s worth the payoff.

    Regardless of when you decide to start your pension, you can sign up for Tricare Prime or Tricare Select on your 60th birthday.

  3. David L. McDonald says

    Unfortunately I have hired a lawyer to sue the government for my benefits. Both of the elected officials I have contacted about my retirement have been dead ends. I will keep you posted on the results.

    Dave

    • Doug Nordman says

      Thanks for the update, Dave. Please let us know how the lawyer interprets the differing Title 10 sections.

  4. Doug Nordman says

    Steve, thanks for your question and my apologies for my delayed response. FINCON12 is sucking up all my brainpower this week.

    I don’t know the answer to the ID card, but it depends on whether that decision is made by the DEERS staff (who furnish the info for the ID card) or the DFAS pay system (which decides what rank is used for your retired pay).

    My guess is that if you retire before time in rank that you’d have a gray-area ID with your final rank, but when you reached age 60 then your new ID card would reflect the lower rank.

    Reaching TIG may be easier than you think. In a drawdown, the services will frequently waive their TIG requirements from three years down to two or even one. Keep an eye on your service’s Reserve personnel website or ask them about it.

    If you’re Navy then I’d join the Association of the U.S. Navy (AUSN.org) and e-mail their staff with the ID card question. Or maybe one of the other readers will chime in with the answer!

  5. Doug Nordman says

    Jim, your civil service time will not count toward a military pension.

    However your military service can count toward earning a higher civil-service pension (when you meet the requirements of the civil-service pension). It can also help you earn a higher rate on your leave.

    Here are two posts with more info:
    https://the-military-guide.com/buying-your-military-service-credit-in-the-federal-civil-service/
    https://the-military-guide.com/maximizing-your-civil-service-computation-date/

  6. Doug Nordman says

    Sorry to read about the confusion, Gary.

    The six-month time-in-grade requirement for retirement is in federal law, but only for the ranks of O-4 and below. At O-5 and above, the same federal law requires three years time in grade to retire in that rank. That three-year requirement can be waived to two years by the service secretary.
    https://the-military-guide.com/reserve-retirement-time-in-rank-and-high-three-pay/

    The High-Three pension calculation takes the average of the highest 36 months of pay. For a Reserve or National Guard retirement the pension is typically calculated from the rank for which you met the time-in-grade requirement. The pay base for that pension is calculated from the average of the highest 36 months of pay in that rank using the pay tables in effect when you start that pension. For the vast majority of Reserve/Guard retirees, the pay tables in effect at the start of the pension (usually at age 60, and as though they’d been on active duty the entire time) are higher than the pay they were actually receiving at the time they filed for retired awaiting pay.

    By retiring at MRD and immediately starting your Reserve O-5 pension (instead of starting it years or decades later), you had months of O-6 pay which were higher than your O-5 retirement rank. The Defense Finance and Accounting Service used the Tower Amendment to calculate the High-36 average to give you the higher pay base to use in the Reserve pension calculation. That’s the average of the 18 months of O-6 pay and the 18 months of O-5 pay for the pay tables in effect at the time you started your pension.

    In other words, even though you had to retire at an O-5 rank, the immediate start of your pension reflects the benefit of your months of O-6 pay… and that benefit stays in your pension for the rest of your life.

    Here’s the references on the Tower Amendment.
    Federal law Title 10 U.S. Code section 1401.a(f)(2):
    https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/10/1401a
    The Financial Management Regulation (DoD 7000.14-R article 0304:
    https://comptroller.defense.gov/Portals/45/documents/fmr/current/07b/07b_03.pdf
    Public Law 103-337 (search for the keyword “Tower”):
    https://uscode.house.gov/view.xhtml?path=/prelim@title10/subtitleA/part2/chapter71&edition=prelim

  7. Doug Nordman says

    Thanks, Tom, it’s been the blog’s most popular post for nearly eight years!

    You’ve asked a great question. Your PEBD is used to calculate your Reserve pension, but it might not make a difference to you. I’ll tell you how it’s used and then you can check the numbers.

    Once you have 20 good years and your Notice Of Eligibility, then you can retire awaiting pay. When you retire awaiting pay (not “discharge” or “separation”) then your pension is calculated for:
    1. The future pay tables that will be in effect when your pension starts (age 60 for most retirees),
    and
    2. At the pay columns in effect for your longevity when your pension starts as if you’d been on active duty the entire time. This is when your Pay Entry Base Date is used.

    For most ranks, today’s pay tables top out at longevity for 18 years of service, 20, 22, 24, 26, or 30 YOS. (It’s more than 30 if you’re a a flag officer, a W-5, or an E-9.)
    https://www.dfas.mil/Portals/98/Documents/militarymembers/militarymembers/pay-tables/2020%20MilPay%20General.pdf?ver=2020-04-22-114904-720
    Figure out how many years of service you’d technically have at age 60, check the numbers in the pay table for your retirement rank, and see whether that incorrect PEBD date gives you a different pay amount.

    The last major change to the pay tables was in 2007, and it might happen again in the next 10 years. It’s possible that future pay tables (when you’ll be 60 years old) would change the longevity years for the maximum pay. If your PEBD error is even close to affecting this calculation then it’s worth correcting it to the right date.

    If your PEBD is wrong by a few days or weeks then it might not matter. If your PEBD is wrong by months or years, though, then it’s worth correcting. It’s a lot easier to correct it when you’re in uniform than when you’re in the gray area after retiring.

  8. LTC(R) Gregory Davis says

    Your PEBD would be updated when you reentered the military. For instance my initial PEBD was 10 Jul 1974; after my three year tour and one year in the USAR, I had a 8 year break in service. I then reentered the military in 1986 and my new PEBD became 1980

  9. LTC(R) Gregory Davis says

    USAR Command would have all of your records, including your RPAS statement.

  11. Doug Nordman says

    You’ve asked great questions, Todd, and the law about 10 years of commissioned service only applies to active-duty retirements.

    The only rule for Reserve officer retirements is that you’ve served satisfactorily in the billet for at least six months. (O-5 and above require three years’ time in grade, which can be waived down to two years, in order to retire at that higher rank.) As near as I’ve been able to learn, that can be accomplished in the IRR.

    Returning to drill status from the IRR can be difficult, but it varies by service and by specialty. You’d have to check with your community for specific statistics.

  12. Doug Nordman says

    Cori, the federal law for early Reserve retirements applies only to Reserve and National Guard members. Those two deployments don’t count for an early Reserve retirement if you were part of the active-duty forces during those two deployments and not a Reserve or Guard member who was mobilized on Title 10 orders.

    However you might be eligible for some 90-day periods after the law was modified in 2013 and late 2014. You can read this post for the details:
    https://themilitarywallet.com/national-guard-and-reserve-early-retirement-age/

  13. Doug Nordman says

    Joe, here’s a summary from DFAS:
    https://www.dfas.mil/RetiredMilitary/plan/separation-payments/voluntary-separation-incentive/
    You’re always eligible to collect a pension that you earn through service (or qualify for through disability), but when you receive a pension then you have to pay back the gross amount (pretax) of the VSI.

    It’ll be recouped from your pension payments at a default amount of 40%, although you can repay it more quickly:
    https://www.dfas.mil/retiredmilitary/plan/separation-payments/vsi-ssb-recoupment/

  15. David McDonald says

    You need to contact your branch. HRC Start here: Christopher L Hill
    LTC, AG
    Chief, Gray Area Retirements Branch (GAR)

    U.S. Army Human Resources Command
    1600 Spearhead Division Avenue
    Fort Knox, KY 40122
    Work Desk: (502) 613-8452

    Good luck I am still trying to straighten out my 2012 retirement fiasco.

    V/r,

    David L McDonald

  17. Doug Nordman says

    You’re welcome, Megumi, I’m glad it’s helping!

    I’ll describe your process for tracking an estimate until age 60.

    You’ll use today’s pay tables for your estimates because that produces results in today’s dollars. It helps simplify your retirement spending plans because you don’t have to adjust for years of inflation, and using today’s dollars for pension income & retirement expenses feels more realistic than future dollars.

    50 points per good year is conservative as the minimum. (Your annual points will probably be a bit higher than that over the next 12 years.) I’d start with your current point count (as of 2020) and then project at 50 points/year. Every year or two you could update this estimate with your current point count.

    The federal law for a Reserve pension says that when you retire awaiting pay (“gray area”) then your longevity at your retirement rank continues to accrue as if you were on active duty all the way up through age 60. Your commissioning at age 21 means that at age 60 you’d be considered to have longevity of >38 years in the pay tables at your retirement rank. You’d essentially use the pay table’s columns for the highest O-4 or O-5 pay. Keep an eye on the pay table’s >38 column in case Congress changes the rules for the pay tables over the next three decades.

    Although you won’t have pay stubs after you retire awaiting pay, your pension calculation (at age 60) assumes that you’d earned whatever the future pay tables over the years have at your highest 36 months of pay. For most retirees that would be your ages 57-60.

    To do an estimate in today’s dollars, you could average the highest 36 months of pay in today’s pay tables for O-4 or O-5 in the >36 and >38 columns. To simplify that calculation you could also assume that the High Three average of those months is 96% of today’s pay, which reflects annual pay raises of roughly 2%/year.

    When you update your estimate, you’d project your latest point count at 50 points/year through 20 good years. Then you’d use today’s pay tables for the highest O-4 or O-5 pay, and estimate its High Three average as 96% of that pay table’s numbers. Put those numbers into the Reserve pension formula, and that would give you a pension estimate in today’s dollars.

    When you retire awaiting pay then you’d continue updating your estimate every year or two with your final point count and the latest future pay tables.

  18. Doug Nordman says

    I appreciate the logic, John, and the federal law would have to be changed. Currently, pay raises are based on the Employer Cost Index (for retention) and COLAs are based on the Consumer Price Index.

    The best way to do that is working with your local veteran’s organizations and elected representatives.

  19. John says

    Thanks, BTW I just noticed your a fellow bubblehead. I was on George Bancroft Gold from 1981 to 1984, ET/Reactor Operator. It just seems like it is such a waste and so unfair, all this effort going into figuring a retiree’s Service Percent Multiplier, then one year later it means NOTHING. (The way to COLA’s are currently figured).

  20. Doug Nordman says

    “Submarines once!” In 1984 I was just arriving at USS JAMES MONROE BLUE.

    I understand the frustration about the world’s most complicated retirement system, but the federal laws are designed around military retention in the shorter term. Only 15% of servicemembers qualify for a pension, and DoD is more focused on retaining people for the first decade of service.

    If you decide to advocate for change, here’s several examples of how to boost your efforts:
    https://themilitarywallet.com/how-to-be-your-own-advocate/

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