Federal Severance Pay Calculator

1. Weekly rate: annual rate of basic pay divided by 2,087, rounded to the nearest cent, times 40.
2. Basic allowance: 1 week of pay for each full year of creditable service through 10 years, 2 weeks for each full year beyond 10, and 25% of the applicable amount (1 or 2 weeks) for each full 3 months beyond the last full year (550.707(a)).
3. Age adjustment: 2.5% of the basic allowance for each full 3 months of age over 40, which is 10% for each full year (550.707(c); 5 U.S.C. 5595(c)(2)).
4. Limit: the fund cannot exceed 52 weeks of pay, taking into account weeks you received before (550.707(d), 550.712).
5. Payment: twice the weekly rate each biweekly pay period until the fund is used up.

OPM's example: $78,262 a year, 20 years 4 months of service, age 45 years 8 months

Source: OPM Severance Pay fact sheet and Severance Pay Estimation Worksheet. The calculator also matches every row of the worksheet's Age Adjustment Factors Table (ages 40 to 70).

You must meet all three conditions in 5 CFR 550.704(a): a qualifying appointment (career, career-conditional, or an excepted appointment without a time limit, other than Schedule C or Schedule G), at least 12 months of continuous service with no break over 3 calendar days (550.705), and removal by involuntary separation, which means an agency-initiated separation for a reason other than unacceptable performance or conduct (550.703).

You are not eligible if you (550.704(b)):

• serve under a nonqualifying appointment: term and other time-limited, intermittent, Schedule C, Schedule G, noncareer SES, emergency, Presidential, or a noncovered agency;
• decline a reasonable offer: written, for a position you are qualified for, in your agency and commuting area, of equal or greater tenure, with the same part-time or full-time schedule and no more than two grades or pay levels lower;
• are eligible on separation for an immediate annuity from a federal civilian retirement system or from the uniformed services, even if it is offset or reduced (this includes discontinued service retirement and voluntary early retirement);
• receive injury compensation under 5 U.S.C. chapter 81 that is not paid concurrently with pay;
• work in an agency scheduled by law or Executive order to end within a year of your appointment (with exceptions); or
• hold a Schedule Policy/Career position and your agency gives unacceptable performance or misconduct as the reason in writing (added by E.O. 14410, June 2026).

5 U.S.C. 5595(a)(2)(i) also excludes employees whose pay is fixed at an Executive Schedule level or exceeds the maximum rate for Executive Schedule level I, which is $253,100 in 2026 per OPM Salary Table 2026-EX. The calculator applies the $253,100 test. General Schedule employees whose locality pay is capped at the level IV rate ($197,200) are not excluded. It does not ask about the agency-termination and Schedule Policy/Career items, so check those yourself.

Resigning: a resignation is voluntary and earns no severance pay, with one exception. If you resign after a specific written notice that you will be separated on a particular date, or after a general written RIF notice that says resigning counts as involuntary for all employees in your competitive area, you are treated as involuntarily separated. If the agency cancels the notice before your separation takes effect, you are not (550.706). A general notice qualifies only if it announces that the agency will abolish (or move out of the commuting area) all positions in the competitive area within a year, and a Certification of Expected Separation is not a qualifying notice. Declining a move within your commuting area is not involuntary, and deferred resignation and VSIP separations are voluntary (OPM severance pay FAQ).

Retirement-eligible employees: the immediate annuity rule is the most common reason people lose severance pay. It covers MRA + 30, age 60 with 20 years, age 62 with 5 years, a reduced MRA + 10 annuity, special-category retirement, voluntary early retirement, and discontinued service retirement (an involuntary separation with 25 years of service, or age 50 with 20 years). The FERS retirement calculator shows the regular FERS dates but does not model discontinued service or voluntary early retirement. Choosing to postpone an annuity you are eligible for does not restore severance pay.

Your rate of basic pay is your base rate plus locality payments and special rate supplements, plus certain other pay that is part of your regular rate: annual premium pay for standby duty, administratively uncontrollable overtime, law enforcement availability pay, straight-time pay for firefighters' regular overtime, night differential for prevailing rate employees, and a Border Patrol agent's regularly scheduled overtime supplement (550.703). Other pay, such as overtime, bonuses and awards, is not included. A GS employee can pull the 2026 rate from the helper above or the GS pay calculator.

Creditable service includes civilian service as an employee (without nonpay time that is not creditable for annual leave), Postal Service service, military service that interrupted civilian service when you returned through a restoration right, certain nonappropriated fund service in the Department of Defense and Coast Guard, and District of Columbia government service for people first employed by that government before October 1, 1987, excluding service as a DC public school teacher or librarian (550.708). Military service before your civilian career does not count, even if you paid a deposit or it counts for annual leave (OPM severance pay FAQ), and the service computation date on your SF-50 is for leave. Service for which severance pay was already received is handled through the weeks-received deduction, not by dropping the service.

Severance pay accrues day by day after separation, with each workday worth one-fifth of a week, and is paid at the same pay period intervals as your salary (550.709). Each payment uses the rate of basic pay you had just before separation. The agency that separated you pays it. Paying 2 x your weekly rate each biweekly period is the estimate OPM uses; the first and last payments can be partial periods. See the federal pay period calendar for 2027 for pay period dates.

Taxes: payments are subject to income and Social Security tax deductions (550.709(b)). The calculator shows gross amounts. Other rules: severance pay is not a period of federal service and does not count toward other federal benefits (5 U.S.C. 5595(f)). If you die before the payments end, they continue to your survivor (5 U.S.C. 5595(e)). A lump-sum payout of unused annual leave is separate from severance pay.

• Federal or D.C. government job: severance pay ends (550.711). The hiring agency records the weeks you received on your appointment document (550.712(a)).
• Entitled again later: the agency recomputes the allowance using all your creditable service and your current age, then deducts the weeks you already received. Enter them in the calculator's "weeks received before" field. The 52-week lifetime limit includes them.
• Nonqualifying time-limited appointment: payments are suspended while it lasts and resume, without recomputation, when it ends (550.710).

A reduction in force, a transfer of function and the abolition of a position are the typical involuntary separations. Severance pay comes in addition to your final salary and the lump-sum payment for unused annual leave. Two points matter when a RIF is announced. If you are eligible for an immediate annuity, including discontinued service retirement, you get that instead of severance pay. And if you plan to resign before the separation date, wait for the written notice described above, because a resignation without it is voluntary. OPM's Employee Guide to Pay, Leave and Other Benefits During a RIF covers the rest of the package. Your agency HR office decides your eligibility and applies the rules to your appointment.

Where the sources are silent, this calculator reads them this way:

• Service and age are counted in full years and full 3-month periods. OPM's worksheet rounds down months of service to whole quarters, and the age table groups months in threes (0-2, 3-5, 6-8, 9-11). Partial quarters earn nothing.
• Exactly 10 full years plus a partial year uses the 2-week rate for the partial year, following the worksheet's "more than 10 years" step.
• Age from a birth date counts completed calendar months, so a month is complete on the same day of the month as the birth date. If that day does not exist in the month (born on the 31st), the last day of the month completes it.
• Part-time with a fixed schedule uses the hourly rate times your scheduled hours. The regulation spells out only how to average varying schedules.
• Money is kept in cents and a fraction of a cent in the age adjustment rounds up. OPM's worksheet shows no such case.

Out of scope, not approximated:

• Varying work schedules, seasonal employees and standby or night-differential averaging over 26 pay periods (550.707(b))
• Intermittent schedules, which are not covered at all, and firefighters on 53, 56 or 72-hour tours (550.707(b)(5))
• Retained grade or pay, and pay that is not in the rate of basic pay
• A lump sum under a specific legal authority (550.709(g)). The Department of Defense option in 5 U.S.C. 5595(i) covered only separations before October 1, 2018
• Nonappropriated fund, Foreign Service, Tennessee Valley Authority, Panama Canal Commission and legislative-branch special rules
• Whether a specific offer was "reasonable", whether your notice qualifies, and your state unemployment benefits