The OPM retirement backlog continued its growth trend in December and has now surpassed 50,000 total claims.
The total inventory of retirement claims at the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) now stands at 50,566 as of the end of December, a 4.5% increase over the previous month.
Federal Workforce Reduction in 2025
The growth in retirement claims is, of course, primarily a result of the Trump administration’s efforts to shrink the size of the federal workforce as part of its overall plan to reduce government spending.
Besides increasing the number of retirement claims submitted by federal employees in 2025, OPM Director Scott Kupor wrote recently that approximately 317,000 federal employees left their jobs in 2025, and the agency hired about 68,000 people. He said this exceeded President Trump’s goal of four reductions for every one new hire into government.
A group of lawmakers recently sent Kupor a letter criticizing the Trump administration’s efforts to shrink the federal workforce and the resulting growth in the OPM retirement claims backlog.
They said in their letter that the Deferred Resignation Program (DRP) and the Trump administration’s other workforce reduction policies have resulted in a chaotic and inefficient retirement system, leaving many federal employees in financial and administrative limbo.
“The influx of new retirement applications under the DRP, combined with government-wide RIFs and early-out packages have reduced both the capacity and staffing levels of agency human resources offices and supporting organizations. This has put the federal retirement system under enormous strain,” stated the Congressmen in the letter.
They went on to ask Kupor for answers to the following questions:
What guidance has OPM provided to agencies to ensure that retiring employees who lost access to government email and internal systems can continue to communicate with human resources offices using personal contact information?
What steps is OPM taking to address retirement applications that remain stalled at agencies or payroll providers and have not yet been transmitted to OPM for processing?
How is OPM assessing the impact of agency human resources staffing reductions on retirement processing delays across the federal government?
How does OPM track and account for delays that occur at agencies and payroll providers, rather than solely within OPM’s own retirement processing timelines?
OPM has heavily advertised its new digital retirement tool, the Online Retirement Application (ORA), and promoted its role in retirement processing reform. Please provide a list of named agencies (with components when applicable) that have wholly adopted and launched ORA for their entire HR teams and workforce. For agencies that remain in interim status, please provide a list of agencies (by component when applicable) and what the adoption status is, and the estimate for full usage. Please also provide what number and percentage of current cases are and are not using ORA, what the reasons are for non-adoption and usage, and what steps remain to be taken by OPM and employing agencies for full implementation.
Please list any step and/or discrete action under the end-to-end retirement processing process that is not captured by ORA.
What has been the impact on OPM’s customer service and support for the existing retiree population amidst the growing number of new retirements, and have there been any staffing or work assignment changes within the components that manage this process since December 2024?
December 2025 Retirement Processing Statistics
The concerns reflected in the letter about the growth of the retirement claims backlog are evident in the retirement processing statistics, however, the new Online Retirement Application (ORA) launched over the summer appears to be helping OPM make significant progress in the pace at which it can process federal employees’ retirement claims.
As it did in November, OPM now publishes information about the new digital retirement claims being processed through the ORA.
OPM stepped up its processing pace in December, processing 8.3% more total claims than it did in November. However, the pace of processing the digital claims slowed as 857 fewer claims were processed in December than November, but OPM received 23% fewer digital claims in December and the processing time of the digital claims was double the pace of the paper claims (40 days on average for digital versus 81 days for paper). In November, the difference was even more significant: 38 days for digital vs. 94 days for paper.
On the paper side, OPM received 7,119 claims in December, processed 5,922, and the total inventory of paper claims now stands at 35,271.
The table below shows a breakout of the total OPM retirement backlog between digital and paper for the fourth quarter in 2025.
DigitalPaperTotalOctober 202510,25224,33534,587November 202513,83534,56148,396December 202515,29535,27150,566
2025 Retirement Processing Data
According to OPM, 112,679 federal employees were added to the annuity rolls in fiscal year 2025. That figure includes both FERS (Federal Employees Retirement System) and CSRS (Civil Service Retirement System).
According to OPM’s retirement processing data, the agency received 151,068 total retirement applications from federal employees in calendar year 2025 at an average rate of 12,589 per month. Claims were processed at an average rate of 9,364 per month.
The table below shows how the total retirement claims received during each calendar year fared since 2012. 2025 was by the largest by far.
YearTotal Claims Received2025151,068202488,157202388,7732022102,8192021104,699202092,0882019101,5802018107,612201795,923201693,713201597,0322014101,5682013114,697201257,091
January 2026 is likely to be an eventful month. Since this is normally the busiest month of the year for incoming retirement claims, it will be interesting to see how the higher than average numbers carry forward into the new year and impact the overall state of the OPM retirement backlog.
2025 OPM Retirement Processing Statistics
The table below shows the complete retirement data for 2025.
MonthDigital Claims ReceivedTotal Claims ReceivedDigital Claims ProcessedTotal Claims ProcessedDigital Processing Time in DaysTotal Average Processing Time in DaysFYTD Digital Processing Time in DaysFYTD Average Processing Time in DaysDigital InventoryTotal InventoryJanuary 202516,1016,700646023,277February 20259,63712,364445520,550March 20257,80311,559505416,794April 20258,3328,953495316,173May 202515,0489,739495221,483June 202513,4308,585455226,328July 20258,2958,485595226,138August 20259,41611,195705424,359September 20256,0957,902765623,552October 20256,17620,3441,6868,7514579457910,25234,587November 20257,83323,3934,3638,7073866407313,83548,396December 20256,05513,1743,5069,4284067407115,29550,566
Retirement Services (RS) is working towards a fully digital retirement application process; RS is working with agencies and payroll offices to update legacy processes. During this period of transition, RS is still receiving many new retirement claims on paper.
In December RS Received 13,174 new retirement claims; of these 6,055 were digital and 7,119 were paper
The processing of digital cases is faster. With systematic checks of data, annuitants experience less delays due to missing information or incomplete packages.
In December RS processed 9,428 new retirement claims; of these 3,506 were digital and 5,922 were paper.
In December digital cases were processed in 40 days, and paper claims were processed in 81 days.
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