High 3 Calculator
Estimate your high-3 retirement pension for the military High-3 system or the federal FERS high-3 system. Enter your creditable years of service, the three highest consecutive years of base pay, and your retirement age to see your annual and monthly benefit with the correct accrual multiplier applied automatically.
How the high-3 formula works
Both the military High-3 retirement system and the FERS high-3 pension use the same core structure. The high-3 average is the mean of the three consecutive highest-paid years of base pay (no bonuses, no housing allowance, no overtime). That average is then multiplied by an accrual rate and the number of creditable years of service.
Military high-3 retirement pay chart formula: Annual pension = high-3 average x 2.5% x years of service, capped at 75% of the high-3 average. A retiring O-5 with a $120,000 high-3 and 22 years earns 55% of $120,000 = $66,000 per year.
FERS high-3 calculator formula: Annual pension = high-3 average x 1.0% x years of service. If you separate at age 62 or later with at least 20 years of creditable service, the multiplier bumps to 1.1%. A GS-13 with a $105,000 high-3 and 30 years retiring at 62 earns 30 x 1.1% x $105,000 = $34,650 per year.
Military high-3 retirement vs BRS
Military high-3 retirement applies to service members who entered between Sep 8, 1980 and Jul 31, 1986, or who opted out of the Blended Retirement System (BRS) during the 2018 election window. Members who entered on or after Jan 1, 2018, are automatically under BRS, which reduces the multiplier to 2.0% but adds a TSP match. If you are under BRS, use a BRS calculator rather than this high-3 tool.
FERS high-3 calculator inputs
For FERS, the high-3 is based on your basic pay, which includes locality pay but excludes overtime, bonuses, and cash awards. Locality pay is a major component (often 15-40% of salary) and is fully creditable. Run OPM's retirement estimator or use this FERS high-3 calculator to sanity-check your numbers before filing paperwork. Many federal employees also build unofficial FERS high-3 calculator Excel sheets to stress-test promotion and locality scenarios; this tool replaces that spreadsheet with the same math.
Special category employees
Law enforcement officers, firefighters, air traffic controllers, and certain other FERS employees use an enhanced formula: 1.7% per year for the first 20 years plus 1.0% per year after. This calculator uses the standard FERS formula. Adjust manually if you fall into a special category.