What Are Retirement Points and How Do You Earn Them?
Understand military retirement points: how they're earned, calculated, and monitored to secure your future benefits.
Military retirement points are a system used by the Department of Defense to track service for members of the Reserve Components, including the Army Reserve and Air National Guard. These points quantify a service member’s contribution, particularly for those who do not serve on continuous active duty. Their primary purpose is to determine eligibility for and calculate non-regular retirement benefits.
Defining Retirement Points
Retirement points represent a standardized metric established by the Department of Defense to measure and credit service performed by members of the Reserve Components. Unlike active duty service members who primarily accrue time for retirement, reserve members accumulate points to quantify their service. Each point earned contributes to a service member’s overall creditable service, directly influencing their financial security in retirement.
Accruing Retirement Points
Service members can earn retirement points through various activities, each contributing to their overall total. Simply being a member of a Reserve Component garners 15 membership points annually. This ensures that even members in the Individual Ready Reserve (IRR) receive credit for their affiliation.
Scheduled training assemblies, commonly known as drills, also contribute significantly to point accumulation. Service members typically earn one point for each four-hour drill period, often resulting in four points for a standard drill weekend. Additionally, annual training (AT) periods, which are extended training exercises, award one point for each day served. Any periods of active duty, such as active duty for training (ADT) or mobilizations, earn one point per day.
Further opportunities to earn points include completing authorized self-study courses, such as correspondence courses, which generally award one point for every three hours of study. Performing unpaid voluntary duty, such as funeral honors, also accrues points. There is an annual cap on the total points a service member can earn from all sources, typically 365 points per year (366 in a leap year), with a separate limit of 130 points per year for inactive duty training and correspondence courses. To earn a “good year” for retirement purposes, a service member must accumulate a minimum of 50 points within their anniversary year.
Translating Points to Retirement Pay
Accumulated retirement points directly determine a reserve component member’s non-regular retirement pay. The total number of points earned throughout a service member’s career is divided by 360 to convert these points into equivalent years of creditable service. For example, 3,600 points would translate to 10 equivalent years of service. This calculated figure is then multiplied by 2.5% to establish the retirement pay multiplier.
The resulting percentage is applied to the service member’s “high-3” average basic pay, which is the average of their highest 36 months of basic pay, yielding the monthly retirement pay amount. While points are accumulated throughout service, retirement pay for reserve component members begins at age 60, often referred to as the “age 60 rule.” However, exceptions exist that can reduce this age. For instance, qualifying active duty service, such as mobilizations, can reduce the retirement age by three months for every cumulative 90 days of active duty performed, down to a minimum age of 50.
Monitoring Your Retirement Points
Regularly reviewing your accumulated retirement points is important for managing your military career. Service members can access their official “Statement of Retirement Points” or an equivalent document, which provides a detailed record of all points earned. These statements may go by various names depending on the branch of service, such as the Annual Retirement Point Record (ARPR) for Navy Reserve, the Chronological Statement of Retirement Points (DA Form 5016) for Army Reserve, or the Career Retirement Credit Report (CRCR) for Marine Corps Reserve.
These statements are accessible through service-specific online portals, including MyPay, the Integrated Personnel and Pay System – Army (IPPS-A), or the Air Force Personnel Center (AFPC) Secure portal. When reviewing the statement, verify the accuracy of credited years, total points, and the number of “good years” earned. Any discrepancies identified should be promptly reported to the service member’s unit or administrative office for correction, ensuring an accurate record for future retirement benefits.