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Updates

What is changing in FERSCalc.

A running history of updates to the FERSCalc site and calculator.

A first estimate takes less work

  • A new plan now produces a result as soon as your dates, High-3, and TSP balance are in: the starting withdrawal plan is the 4% rule, so you no longer have to choose a monthly withdrawal amount before seeing anything. Social Security and FEHB start switched on and are listed as needing your figures, instead of being left out silently — a federal retiree’s first number no longer quietly omits the health premium. Medicare and Retirement Elections start collapsed and open by themselves once a plan uses them. Existing plans keep every setting you already chose.

Smaller first-run annoyances, fixed

  • Empty date and number fields no longer say “your last valid value is unchanged” when you never entered one. Importing a shared plan labels the copy instead of leaving two plans with the same name. The Medicare milestone now reads “turns 65 this year; premiums start Jun 1” instead of reporting age 64. Setup notes that Virginia is preselected as the filing state, so it is not applied silently.

TSP withdrawals no longer start before you retire

  • A monthly TSP withdrawal used to be scheduled in the month you separate — so retiring on March 31 was modeled as taking a withdrawal on March 1, while still working. That added an extra month of withdrawals to the retirement year and, if you retire before 59½, charged a 10% early-withdrawal tax on a payment that never should have existed. Withdrawals now begin after you separate. Saved plans are recalculated with the new model revision.

The survivor benefit no longer looks like it is costing you

  • A plan with no spouse or partner had “Full (50%) — 10% pension reduction” selected by default, even though no survivor benefit can be paid and no reduction was ever applied to the projected pension. The election now says it is not modeled, and shows no reduction, until a spouse or partner is added. The same applies to the survivor share on an “Other pension”.

You can see which High-3 your pension is based on

  • When you retire three or more years from now, FERSCalc projects your High-3 forward from your current salary and the salary-growth assumption instead of using the High-3 you typed — which it did without telling you. The salary section now shows the figure the pension is computed from, says when your entered value is used instead, and links to the growth assumption.

Exports no longer invent a spouse

  • The cash-flow CSV listed a spouse for one-person households — an internal placeholder aged 26 — and the printed report said “Married Filing Jointly” when a spouse was switched on but not filled in. Both now follow the household actually projected.

A cleaner calculator

  • Removed the planning-limitations banner and the notices at the top of Setup, the summary panel, and printed reports, and trimmed repeated hedging sentences throughout results, inputs, and help text. Assumptions, rule sources, and known gaps are still documented on the Assumptions & Coverage page, linked from the calculator.

The FERS supplement is no longer lost when Social Security is excluded

  • Retiring before 62 with an immediate unreduced annuity earns the FERS supplement until 62. Turning off “Include Social Security in projection” used to drop the supplement to $0 as well, even with an age-62 estimate entered. The supplement is now modeled from that estimate either way, you can enter the estimate directly in the supplement section, and a missing estimate is flagged in the plan’s material assumptions. Saved plans are recalculated with the new model revision.

Saved plans calculate right away

  • Removed the “Input valuation baseline” confirmation from Setup. Plans saved or shared before September 8 used to stop calculating until that box was confirmed; they now open and calculate immediately. If a plan’s balances and salary were entered in an earlier year, a short note offers to mark them current or keep the earlier year.
  • Fixed text on Setup that could appear blank when your device is in dark mode but FERSCalc is set to light.

Enter a pension from outside federal service

  • Each person can now add an “Other pension” — a pension from private, state, or local employment — with an annual amount, a start at retirement or an entered age, an optional yearly COLA, and a survivor share for a spouse. It is fully taxable income, appears in cash flow and the year-by-year tables as its own “Other pension” line, and is treated as a private-employer pension for state tax — a state, local-government, or military pension may be taxed differently by your state and is not distinguished. In Arizona, the $2,500 government-pension deduction now applies only to the FERS annuity, not to an Other pension amount.

Test your spending plan against changed assumptions

  • With a household spending plan, the Summary tab’s sensitivity section can now run a set of assumption stresses on demand — slower post-retirement returns, poor returns around the first retirement, higher inflation, a higher spending target, or a horizon five years longer. Each stress runs as a full solved drawdown in the background and the results are ranked worst-first by their effect on your plan’s funding: whether the plan stays funded, lifetime shortfall, the first short year, unfunded goal years, reserve-floor breaches, the ending-balance drop, and the bequest gap. The longer-horizon stress is reported separately under “if the plan must last longer”, and stresses that change nothing you see are called out. Scenarios without a plan keep the automatic income-ranked sensitivity chart.

Post-retirement wages now pay state payroll withholding

  • Corrected every modeled state payroll contribution — California SDI, New York Paid Family Leave, Paid Leave Oregon, and the other thirteen — to charge a federal retiree’s post-retirement wages, which are non-federal employment. Previously those wages were silently exempt because the federal-employee exemption followed the person rather than the wage source. Post-retirement federal re-employment cannot be told apart and is treated as non-federal; the priced exempt branch on Summary now shows federal retirees what the exemption would be worth. Saved plans recalculate with the corrected model.

Compare withdrawal-source rules against your spending plan

  • With a household spending plan, the Taxes tab can now compare the shipped Traditional/Roth withdrawal-source rules on demand — each one runs as a full solved drawdown in the background and is ranked by a disclosed order: whether it funds the plan, then lifetime shortfall, reserve-floor breaches, ending TSP balance, and lifetime federal tax + Medicare. If your two-person settings mix rules, your current selection is shown as its own baseline row. Scenarios without a plan keep the automatic tax-ranked table.

Retirement-date comparison answers funding under a spending plan

  • With a household spending plan, comparing a second retirement date is now run on demand in the background and reports whether each date funds the plan — funded years, shortfalls, reserve-floor breaches, TSP depletion, and ending balance over a shared horizon — instead of an income headline that cannot answer the question. Scenarios without a plan keep the automatic income comparison.
  • Corrected the "plan funded" verdict in the roll-in and payroll-exempt branch comparisons to account for a bequest goal; a plan whose bequest is missed now reads "not funded". Saved plans recalculate with the corrected model.

Timezone-proof partial-year amounts

  • Corrected retirement-year pay and the final-year FERS supplement to count calendar days exactly, so estimates no longer drift by an hour of DST depending on the computer’s timezone. Saved plans recalculate with the corrected model.

Retirement-year tax thresholds count net pay

  • Corrected threshold-limited Traditional withdrawals and Roth conversions in the retirement year to size against wages net of the pre-tax TSP deferral, matching the tax ledger. Saved plans recalculate with the corrected model.

More precise tax-threshold amounts

  • Corrected rounding at tax thresholds so a feasible cent is no longer missed and required distribution minimums are not rounded down. Saved plans recalculate with the corrected model.

The main retirement decisions come first

  • Print reports now explain their scope and point to Results Summary for funding, date comparisons, and material-input review.
  • Annual snapshots are expandable and link to cash-flow evidence. Cumulative income now sits with its working-pay reference, with clearer limits on what the comparison means.
  • Optional playbooks, policy shocks, sensitivity drivers, and the working-baseline table are now expandable supporting analysis, with direct links and visible limitations.
  • Summary now highlights missing and unverified facts, preserves exclusions and zero entries in an expandable list, and shows all six scenario rate assumptions behind the estimate.
  • Results Summary now puts the household spending decision directly after the first annual cash-flow headline.
  • Plans with a target show funded years or the first and largest shortfall, with a link to year-by-year funding details.
  • Plans without a target clearly say affordability was not assessed and link to spending entry.
  • The next view reconciles annual household gross income, modeled deductions, and net across the last full working year, blended transition year, and first full retirement year.
  • An optional retirement-date comparison leads with a common input-baseline-dollar difference, preserves each nominal first-full-year estimate, and links to cumulative household cash flow.
  • The generic California tax-policy shock copy is removed; your saved filing-state choices remain unchanged.

A clearer path to your first estimate

  • Choose whether a plan should explore projected retirement income or test a household spending target; Continue follows that choice.
  • Enter a spending target monthly or annually. FERSCalc shows the annual amount used by the projection and remembers your preferred entry unit.
  • The plan snapshot now lists required inputs that remain instead of showing a blanket completeness percentage.
  • Missing, excluded, entered-$0, and unverified salary, Social Security, FEHB, and household facts are now identified before you rely on a projection.
  • The fixed monthly TSP withdrawal is clearly separated from the spending-target solve, which preserves that amount but determines its own yearly withdrawal.
  • Advanced service, withdrawal-source, RMD, tax-exception, and Roth-conversion settings are grouped into expandable sections. Any active custom setting reopens automatically when you return.
  • The Results Details audit and cash-flow CSV now include the modeled FEHB household enrollment plus Medicare and IRMAA assumptions, provenance, and unmodeled boundaries.

Recoverable saves and a stable input baseline

  • The calculator remains available when browser storage is blocked, including recovery/export controls and session-only theme changes.
  • Optional death years can be cleared and percentage fields retain fractional rates. Local draft inconsistencies remain available for correction.
  • Save failures and conflicting changes in another tab are visible. Unreadable saves are preserved, with recovery downloads and bounded backup history.
  • Existing plans are kept when you import JSON or open a shared scenario. Household and comparison switches stay with each plan.
  • Plans retain their January 1 input baseline across calendar-year changes. Older plans require a baseline review in Setup before calculating.
  • Refreshing the baseline is explicit and does not automatically update balances or salary. Exports identify the model and input basis.

Safer dollar and date entry

  • Invalid dollar edits now show an explanation and leave the last valid amount unchanged. Valid zero and cents are preserved.
  • Date fields validate completed calendar dates and field bounds before committing changes.
  • JSON and shared-link imports reject invalid numeric and date values before adding scenarios.

Consistent pension previews and clearer result explanations

  • Pension previews, monthly benefit timing, and reports now use the same resolved High-3 and survivor election as the annual projection.
  • Dated retirement and benefit events show ages on their modeled dates; annual planning ages are explicitly labeled January 1.
  • Medicare explanations distinguish coverage-month and premium-rate changes from actual IRMAA band changes, with supporting fields in CSV exports.

Monthly benefit timing is now separate from annual planning

  • The calculator rail now steps through monthly benefit timing from annuity commencement through year-end, then moves to explicitly annual planning cards.
  • Monthly cards show only the FERS annuity, FERS Supplement, and Social Security timing; taxes, TSP withdrawals, premiums, gross income, and net cash flow remain annual.
  • Delayed-annuity gap years and the commencement-year annual context are preserved, and each annual card reconciles gross income, deductions, and net.
  • Summary, Compare, Paycheck Bridge, Taxes, Cash Flow, Details, and printable reports now label annual household totals, Person A-only fields, calendar years, annual planning amounts, and true monthly benefit timing explicitly.
  • Annual-row-divided-by-twelve equivalents were removed from Details rather than presented as monthly cash flow.
  • Arbitrary strong/watch/risk grades and income-percentage “at-risk” thresholds were replaced with neutral scenario facts and objective attention points.
  • Mandatory FERS employee payroll contributions now reduce annual household net in the engine, spending-plan solve, every results view, CSV, and printable report; 6C-covered employees use the corresponding 1.3%, 3.6%, or 4.9% special-group rate. The separate Simplified Method input is explicitly the total FERS cost at annuity start, so future modeled payroll deductions are not added to that manual total.
  • Optional detailed Person A LES lines are now an exact current-statement reference with 26-pay-period equivalents, not a calibration of projected taxes or cash flow.

State-tax coverage classification and honesty fixes

  • Each state is now classified by how much of its rules the model attempts (detailed, approximate, or no income tax), derived from the documented per-state simplifications.
  • The "50 states + DC" coverage counts across the app are now checked against a single source of truth, so the public page, the calculator dropdown, and the engine can no longer disagree.
  • Removed the prior flat-default Maryland county-tax estimate so county, city, and other local income taxes are excluded everywhere; Maryland results now disclose the missing county share.

Medicare Part B enrollment choice and IRMAA timing

  • Medicare Part B is now an enrollment choice per person, not automatic — you can opt out, and opting out charges no Part B premium.
  • The year you turn 65 is now prorated from your coverage effective month (a July start charges 6 months, not 12), instead of a full year.
  • The income-based IRMAA surcharge now uses your income and filing status from two years prior (the CMS lookback); the first two projection years, where that income predates the projection, are disclosed as using the earliest modeled year as a proxy.
  • Disclosed the boundaries: SSA-44 life-changing-event reductions and Part D IRMAA are not modeled.

FEHB modeled as a household enrollment

  • FEHB is now a single household enrollment held by one person: a Person B-only plan is charged (previously ignored), and a household is charged once — never a premium per person.
  • You can record the coverage tier and attest whether the 5-year continuous-enrollment rule is met; leaving it unknown discloses the eligibility as unverified rather than assuming you qualify.
  • The projection warns when the enrollee is a deferred retiree (generally ineligible to continue FEHB) and when both people entered FEHB (so you can pick which plan covers the household).
  • The household plan’s premium now stops at the enrollee’s month of death; a surviving spouse’s continued FEHB and a coverage-tier downgrade after a covered dependent’s death remain disclosed as not modeled.

Survivor elections, filing status, and basis

  • A single household (no living spouse) now has no FERS survivor reduction by default; a survivor election is applied only when an eligible spouse exists.
  • The survivor-spending factor now scales only voluntary TSP withdrawals — it no longer changes your pension or Social Security income.
  • Qualifying Surviving Spouse filing status now requires you to attest a dependent child in the home (IRS Pub 501); without it, the survivor files single after the year of death instead of getting the 2-year joint-rate window.
  • The decedent’s FERS contribution basis and the survivor’s continued cost recovery now share one pool, so the entered basis is never recovered twice across the death boundary.
  • The decedent’s TSP is modeled as a spousal rollover into the survivor’s account; separate inherited-account treatment and inherited RMDs are disclosed as not modeled.
  • Existing saved scenarios recompute on next load: a single household’s pension is no longer reduced for a survivor, and a modeled death now files single after the year of death unless you check the new Qualifying Surviving Spouse box.

Date-accurate death events

  • A death is now modeled as a dated event with one within-year timing convention across cash flow, tax, premiums, and account ownership, instead of a start-of-year on/off switch.
  • A deceased person’s FEHB and Medicare premiums now stop at the death month (previously they continued for the whole death year and every year after), and their salary and Social Security are prorated to the months before death rather than zeroed for the whole year.
  • Survivor Social Security in the death year is now a within-year dual-entitlement top-up (the survivor keeps their own benefit and adds only the survivor-benefit excess for post-death months), consistent with the survivor pension and never summing two full benefits.

Social Security claim timing and earnings test

  • The projected benefit now uses your entered age-62 and age-70 estimates (interpolated with the FRA estimate), not just the FRA amount, and the in-app preview uses the same calculation so it matches the projection.
  • Social Security now begins at your claim age independently of your federal retirement date, so you can model claiming while still working.
  • Added the Social Security retirement earnings test for a claimant who is still earning wages before Full Retirement Age, including the higher $1-for-$3 limit in the year FRA is reached; the withheld amount is reported.
  • Documented the modeling boundaries: whole-year claim ages, no post-FRA restoration of withheld months, and a simplified survivor-benefit reduction.

FERS supplement earnings-test timing and civilian service

  • The supplement earnings test now reduces the benefit based on the prior year’s post-retirement wages, applied the year after the earnings year, so the first supplement year is never reduced.
  • Special-category (6C) retirees — law enforcement, firefighter, air traffic control — are now exempt from the earnings test until they reach their minimum retirement age.
  • The supplement’s service factor now uses FERS civilian service only: military bought-back time counts toward the pension but no longer inflates the supplement, and part-time civilian service is counted at full calendar time per OPM Chapter 51.

Roth qualification and IRMAA-conversion corrections

  • A designated Roth TSP distribution is now treated as nonqualified (earnings taxable) when the first Roth contribution year is unknown, instead of optimistically assuming it is qualified. Affected years are flagged in the Taxes tab and CSV export.
  • Clarified that the entered Roth year is the TSP plan’s own five-year clock; Roth IRA accounts have a separate clock the calculator does not model.
  • IRMAA-aware Roth conversion and threshold-aware withdrawal guardrails now compare a year’s income against the IRMAA threshold table for the premium year it governs (two years later), matching the CMS two-year MAGI lookback.

TSP RMD and early-distribution audit

  • Added a dated Traditional TSP RMD audit with the prior-year balance, IRS Uniform Lifetime Table divisor, required amount, modeled payment, shortfall, and first-payment timing choice.
  • Added a separately shown 10% federal early-distribution additional-tax estimate for eligible taxable Traditional TSP cash distributions, with explicit user attestations for SEPP, total and permanent disability, and qualified public-safety treatment.
  • Added disclosures for unmodeled Roth in-plan-rollover recapture, inherited-balance provenance after a modeled spousal merge, generic nonfederal accounts, sole-younger-spouse Table II treatment, and other statutory exceptions.

FERS service record and annuity-start correction

  • Added optional detailed FERS service periods for breaks, civilian or military service, actual/full-time part-time hours, actual 6C coverage, and deposit/redeposit status.
  • FERS eligibility and pension amounts now freeze service at separation, enforce five-year civilian-service vesting, apply OPM’s day-before-birthday retirement-age convention, use OPM-style service and sick-leave timing, and begin supported immediate annuities on the first day of the next month.
  • MRA+10 and deferred paths now show supported first-of-month commencement choices and apply the permanent full-month age reduction from the selected start date.

Current-to-retirement timeline correction

  • Future-retirement projections now accumulate salary, TSP contributions, and investment returns from the current calendar-year valuation point through each person’s retirement date.
  • 4% and fixed-annuity strategies now start from the accumulated retirement-date TSP balance instead of the balance entered today.

Annual rule provenance gate

  • Added a source, effective-year, reviewer, and renewal registry for annual calculator rule surfaces.
  • Production builds now stop for missing source metadata, overdue annual reviews, or stale exact-year tables; source cataloging is not presented as independent fixture certification.

Planning limitations and rule-source disclosures

  • Added a prominent calculator limitation notice for the known timeline, rule-year, income-program, survivor, health, state, and Monte Carlo gaps.
  • Printable retirement reports now repeat those planning limitations so saved PDFs and paper copies retain the decision-critical disclosure.
  • Renamed the Monte Carlo display as a TSP balance-survival metric and clarified that it does not measure spending sufficiency or certify retirement readiness.
  • Added official source and effective-year context to Assumptions & Coverage, and corrected stale Social Security and SRS guidance.

New blog post: FERS survivor benefit elections

  • Published a guide on spouse survivor benefit choices, pension reductions, FEHB considerations, and surviving-spouse cash-flow planning.

Tightened FERS supplement eligibility and assumptions

  • The FERS Special Retirement Supplement is now automatically excluded for MRA+10, deferred, not-vested, non-federal, and age-62+ retirement paths.
  • The supplement service fraction now uses FERS service rounded to the nearest whole year, capped at 40, matching OPM Chapter 51.
  • The SRS earnings test now uses the exact known exempt amounts for 2025 and 2026 before projecting future unknown limits.

Corrected FERS pension, supplement, TSP, and Monte Carlo rules

  • Standard FERS pension COLAs now wait until age 62 unless special-category rules apply.
  • FERS Special Retirement Supplement amounts now stay flat before age 62 and can be reduced by modeled post-retirement earned income.
  • Pre-retirement TSP employee contributions now respect statutory elective-deferral and catch-up limits, and agency matching now uses the capped effective contribution rate.
  • Monte Carlo stress testing now works when Person B is the only federal retiree.

Added visible update history

  • New /updates page with a running changelog of site and calculator changes.
  • Footer shows the last-updated date and links to the changelog.

Fixed several FERS calculation edge cases

  • Corrected pension, TSP, and tax calculations in reported scenarios.

Simplified the public site navigation

  • Streamlined menus, landing page, and field guide for easier browsing.

Revamped the public homepage

  • Refreshed the homepage for first-time visitors.

New blog post: unused sick leave under FERS

  • Published a guide on how unused sick leave affects pension calculation.

New blog post and projection accuracy

  • Added FEHB 5-year rule guide.
  • Updated Medicare surcharge projections to use annual CMS tables.
  • Fixed pre-retirement salary growth so it correctly projects High-3 salary.

New blog post and results improvements

  • Added FERS supplement earnings-test guide.
  • Fixed FICA, AGI, and RMD calculation accuracy.
  • Added break-even trend curve and Monte Carlo uncertainty bands.
  • Added clearer readiness indicators and recommendations on the Results page.

New blog post: OPM retirement backlog

  • Published a guide on what the OPM backlog means for new retirees.

Accuracy and trust improvements

  • Fixed Georgia retirement-income exclusion, Social Security wage-base indexing, and tax-exempt-interest handling.
  • Added Qualifying Surviving Spouse filing-status support.
  • Updated the Assumptions & Coverage page.

Historical stress testing

  • Added historical retirement scenario replay for stress testing.

Clarified the free pricing posture

  • Updated pricing and messaging to make the free-by-intent posture explicit.

Shareable scenarios and contextual help

  • Added shareable scenario URLs via the Share button.
  • Added contextual ? field help and the /field-guide reference page.

Refined state tax modeling

  • Improved state tax calculations with more detailed rules for specific states.
  • Published the Assumptions & Coverage page.

Initial FERSCalc release

  • FERS retirement calculator with pension, TSP, Social Security, and FEHB projections.
  • State income tax modeling, Monte Carlo TSP stress testing, scenario comparison, and Person B household support.

Ready to run your own numbers?

Open FERSCalc to compare retirement dates and projected income.

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FERSCalc

A free, local-first planning tool for comparing federal retirement timing and income.

FERSCalc helps you pressure-test scenarios before you make a decision. It is not affiliated with OPM or any federal agency, and it does not replace official benefit estimates or professional advice.

A Makefield Works project

Expectations

  • Scenario values and calculations stay in your browser; only anonymous allowlisted usage-event names and visit metadata may be sent.
  • State income tax is modeled for all 50 states and DC.
  • Results depend on your inputs and planning assumptions.

© 2026 FERSCalc. All rights reserved.

Last updated September 16, 2026

Confirm final decisions with official sources and qualified advisors.