Pending Retirement Applications Top 50K; Bill Offered to Help Those Waiting for Full Benefits

Applications reach OPM only after first being processed by the personnel and payroll offices of the employing agency, which can take as little as a week or two or a month or longer. Image: M-Production/Shutterstock.com
By: FEDweek Staff

The number of retirement applications pending at OPM crossed the 50,000 mark in December, as the agency received about 3,400 more applications than it processed and the average processing time remained about flat.

The number of claims received last month, nearly 3,200, was down by about 10,000 from the number of November and by about 7,000 from the number of October. Applications reach OPM only after first being processed by the personnel and payroll offices of the employing agency, which can take as little as a week or two or a month or longer.

In October and November the numbers reaching OPM had jumped to levels typically not seen until around the turn of the year, likely largely reflecting employees who had retired at the end of deferred resignation periods. Most of those periods ended September 30 at the end of fiscal year 2025 but some were extended until the end of calendar year 2025.

In addition, the government shutdown that ran from October 1-November 12 slowed the processing within agencies in many cases. After the shutdown ended, OPM told agencies that any delayed applications “should be quickly processed and submitted to OPM so that OPM will be able to begin annuity payments as soon as possible.”

The annual surge of retirements around the turn of the year—for reasons including maximizing payouts of unused annual leave—typically is reflected in the OPM figures for January and February of applications received. Those upcoming numbers may be lessened somewhat by the impact of employees who otherwise would have retired in recent weeks having already done so.

Total average processing time in December was 67 days, essentially the same as the 66 of November, but within that number there is a difference between applications filed on paper vs. those filed through the Online Retirement Application portal launched in mid-2025—for the latter, the average was 40 days. In addition, the average figure masks waits that can be much longer—in some cases, up to a year or more.

During the processing time at OPM, retirees receive interim payments of a rough estimate of their monthly benefits due—commonly around 80 percent, although in some cases much lower—with the difference squared up on final adjudication.

Meanwhile, a bill (HR-6929) has been offered in the House to allow new retirees to take withdrawals from their TSP accounts of up to $100,000 while their applications are being processed. The withdrawals would exempt from the general 10 percent tax applying to those taking withdrawals before age 59 ½ so long as the money was returned to the account within three years.

The bill would apply the same policies to employees involuntarily separated.

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