How to Apply for Deferred Annuity Years Later
You Left Federal Service Years Ago — Now It's Time to Collect
You resigned from your federal job 15 or 20 years ago, left your FERS contributions in the fund, and now you're approaching age 62 (or 60 with 20+ years of service). Nobody from your former agency is going to call you. OPM doesn't send reminders. The burden of filing falls entirely on you.
Former employees submit deferred or postponed applications directly to OPM through the Online Retirement Application (ORA) at retire.opm.gov. The former paper application was RI 92-19 — Application for Deferred or Postponed Retirement.
The Filing Window
OPM recommends submitting your ORA application at least 60 days before the date you want your annuity to begin.
If you have at least 5 years of creditable civilian service and leave your contributions in the fund, a deferred annuity can start the first day of a month after you reach the applicable age:
- Age 62 with 5+ years of creditable civilian service — unreduced
- Age 60 with 20+ years of service — unreduced
- MRA with 10–29 years, including at least 5 years of creditable civilian service — if you left before reaching MRA, the annuity is reduced by 5% for each year it starts before age 62; if you left at or after MRA, you may elect an MRA+10 annuity and postpone its start to reduce or eliminate the age reduction
- MRA with 30+ years of service — unreduced
The annuity commencing date is always the first day of a month. If you turn 62 on March 15, your earliest annuity start date is April 1. File by early January to give OPM processing time.
What You Need Before Filing
Your service history documentation. You won't have access to your former agency's systems, so you need copies of key records:
- SF-50s (Notification of Personnel Action) — showing your appointment, separations, promotions, and retirement plan coverage. If you downloaded your eOPF before leaving, you have these. If not, you can request your Official Personnel Folder from the National Personnel Records Center (NPRC) in St. Louis.
- Retirement service history — the service computation date for retirement can differ from the leave service computation date shown in Block 31 of your SF-50. Ask your former agency or OPM to verify the service OPM will credit toward retirement.
- Proof of age — birth certificate or passport.
- Marriage certificate (if applicable) — for spousal survivor benefit elections on Schedule A of RI 92-19.
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Information to Prepare
The paper RI 92-19 groups this information into sections; use this list to prepare before entering your application in ORA.
Section 1: Personal information — name, SSN, date of birth, current address, phone. Use your current legal name; if it changed since separation, include documentation of the change.
Section 2: Federal service history — every period of federal employment covered by FERS or CSRS. Include agency, dates, and retirement plan. If you had breaks in service, list each period separately.
Section 3: Election of type of annuity — deferred or postponed. Specify your requested annuity commencing date.
Schedule A (Spousal Consent): If you're married, your spouse must sign this section, acknowledging the survivor benefit election you've chosen. A full survivor annuity provides 50% of your unreduced annuity to your spouse after your death and reduces your own annuity by 10%; a partial survivor annuity provides 25% and reduces yours by 5%. Declining survivor coverage requires your spouse's notarized consent.
Submit Through ORA
OPM's published processing-time page does not include deferred or postponed claims, so it does not provide an average for this application. Submit through ORA at least 60 days before your chosen start date; missing records can extend the timeline.
After You File
OPM reviews your application against your Official Personnel Folder on file. If records are incomplete or don't match your claimed service, they'll request additional documentation — which restarts portions of the processing clock.
Once adjudicated, OPM begins monthly annuity payments by direct deposit. Your first check may include retroactive pay back to your annuity commencing date if processing took longer than expected.
FERS annuities generally do not receive COLAs until age 62, with exceptions for certain special categories and CSRS components. The High-3 salary in the calculation is frozen at the level you earned at separation — COLAs apply to the annuity amount, not the underlying salary figure.
One Thing That Changed Since You Left
The Social Security Fairness Act (H.R. 82), signed January 5, 2025, repealed the Windfall Elimination Provision (WEP) and Government Pension Offset (GPO) for benefits payable from January 2024 onward. If you never applied for Social Security because of those offsets, file a new claim with SSA — they won't initiate it automatically. The repeal does not change other statutory offsets, including FERS disability offsets.
The Leaving Federal Service Early toolkit includes the complete deferred or postponed application walkthrough with a pre-submission checklist and the supporting document inventory.
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