In a blog posting, OPM director Scott Kupor said that applications through the Online Retirement Application portal, launched in mid-2025, now are “exceeding those still coming in via the paper route.” Image: STILLFX/Shutterstock.com
By: FEDweek Staff
A tipping point was recently passed with the majority of federal retirement applications now being made online, OPM has said, while adding that the processing time before those applications even reach that agency for adjudication averages more than three months.
In a blog posting, OPM director Scott Kupor said that applications through the Online Retirement Application portal, launched in mid-2025, now are “exceeding those still coming in via the paper route.”
“ORA offers a ton of advantages – including faster processing times, greater visibility into where the bottlenecks may be in the system, and greater transparency and ease of use for the applicant, agency HR personnel, payroll providers, and of course, OPM staff,” he wrote.
The posting comes soon after the inventory of applications pending at OPM has been above 50,000 since December, following a surge of applications in the prior months, largely reflecting employees who retired at the end of deferred resignation periods.
There always is a surge of retirements around the turn of the year for reasons including maximizing payouts for unused annual leave; the deferred resignation program may have lessened that impact by advancing the retirements of some who would have retired several months later.
OPM has been criticized for many years how long retiring employees wait before receiving their full benefits, while commonly responding that adjudication there is only part of the process. Applications first go through agency HR offices and then through the agency’s payroll provider before reaching OPM.
The posting says that currently on average, the HR office step consumes 60 days and the payroll step another 51 days—longer than prior accounts and possible affected to some extent by the government shutdown from October through mid-November.
Of the more than 100,000 applications in the ORA system, he said, half are at OPM, 30 percent with payroll providers, 12 percent with agency HR offices and the rest have been opened—but not yet completed—by the employee. On average, employees submit applications 14 days after starting them, he said, although “it doesn’t take 14 days’ worth of work.”
OPM’s latest data show an average processing time in January of 48 days for applications filed through the ORA and 77 days overall, counting paper applications as well. Interim retirement payments begin on average in nine days and average about 80 percent of the finalized amount.
However, because those times are averages, waits in some cases can be much longer. Similarly, interim payment amounts in some cases are well below 80 percent.
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See also,
Why Standard Social Security Optimization Falls Short for Federal Employees
The Retirement Math Gap: Why Your Current Estimates are Wrong
How Withdrawal Order Affects Taxes for Federal Retirees