About Armed Forces Pension Calculator

Who's behind this site

Every calculator, guide and scenario here is written and maintained by one named author, James Hartley, a former Army Warrant Officer who spent his career in unit personnel and pensions administration. There is a single writer, not an anonymous content team. Figures are checked against official gov.uk, GAD and Veterans UK guidance, and the full method is set out in our editorial policy.

Our mission

Leaving the forces, or planning a career in them, comes with one of the biggest financial questions you'll face: how much will my pension actually be? The official tools are accurate but sparse, and good advice can be hard to find. We built this calculator to give every serving member and veteran a free, instant, honest estimate, with guides that explain the schemes in plain English.

The armed forces pension is one of the best parts of the remuneration package, yet it is also one of the least understood. Most people meet it twice: once at a resettlement brief that covers a lot of ground quickly, and again years later when a decision is already on them. Our aim is to fill the gap in between, so you can sit down at any point in your career, put in a few honest numbers, and see roughly where you stand. No jargon, no sales pitch, and no pressure to act. The figure on the screen is there to start a conversation with Veterans UK or an adviser, not to replace it.

We also try to be honest about what a calculator cannot do. It can show you the shape of your benefits and how a choice such as commutation or taking Early Departure Payments changes the numbers. It cannot know your tax position, your health, your other savings or your plans, and those often matter more than the pension formula itself. So we explain the mechanics clearly and then point you to the right person for a decision.

How we keep our calculations accurate

The armed forces pension isn't one scheme but three, AFPS 75, AFPS 05 and AFPS 15, each with its own formula, lump-sum rules and pension age, plus the McCloud remedy across 2015 to 2022. Getting a figure right means tracking all of them and the factors that change each year.

The three schemes work in genuinely different ways, which is why a single rule of thumb never holds. AFPS 75 is a final-salary scheme that builds to a maximum of 48.5% of final pay, after 34 years for officers or 37 years for other ranks, with an automatic tax-free lump sum of three times the pension and a normal pension age of 60. AFPS 05 is also final-salary, accruing at one seventieth of final pay for each year of service up to about 57%, again with an automatic three-times lump sum, an Early Departure Payment route, and a normal pension age of 65. AFPS 15 is a career-average (CARE) scheme: it banks one forty-seventh of your pensionable pay each year and revalues that pot for inflation, has no automatic lump sum but lets you commute up to 25% of the pension at roughly twelve pounds for each one pound of pension given up, and its normal pension age tracks the State Pension age. We keep each of these formulas coded separately so a change to one never quietly corrupts another.

Every rate, accrual figure and factor we publish comes from a primary source. When the annual increase, a GAD factor or a scheme rule changes, we update the affected calculators and guides and show the date the change applies from. Where a case is genuinely complex, such as commutation, transfers or divorce, we say plainly that regulated advice is worth taking.

Inflation uprating is the change that touches the most people, so we treat it carefully. Pensions already in payment, and preserved pensions, rise each April in line with the Consumer Prices Index measured the previous September. In recent years that has meant an increase of 6.7% in 2024, 1.7% in 2025 and 3.8% from April 2026. We change the relevant figures once the official rate is confirmed rather than guessing in advance, and we date-stamp the update so you can see exactly which uprating an estimate already includes.

A worked example, illustrative only

To show how the method works in practice, here is an illustrative AFPS 15 case. Suppose someone earns pensionable pay of £35,250 in a given year. AFPS 15 banks one forty-seventh of that pay, so the amount added to their pension pot for the year is £35,250 divided by 47, which is about £750. That £750 is then revalued for inflation every year until the pension is paid, which is why a career-average scheme can still keep pace with prices. If, much later, they chose to commute part of the pension for a lump sum, each £1 of yearly pension given up would buy roughly £12 of tax-free cash, up to the 25% commutation limit. The figures here are rounded and for illustration only; your own pay, full service history and the factors in force at the time decide the real result, which is why we always say to confirm it with Veterans UK.

Behind that simple sum sits the work we do not show on the page. We separate the inputs you can control, such as your pay and dates, from the constants the scheme sets, such as accrual rates and GAD factors, so that updating a factor is a single, traceable change. We test the calculators against published example figures where the schemes provide them, and we sanity check edge cases, like very short service that fails the two-year qualifying threshold, so the tool flags them rather than returning a misleading number.

We deliberately work from primary and official sources rather than from other calculators or forum threads, which can repeat old figures long after they change. When two sources differ, the scheme regulations and the official Veterans UK and gov.uk guidance take priority, with the Government Actuary's Department factors used for anything involving commutation or Early Departure Payments. The list below is where our numbers come from.

Who this site is for

We write for three groups in particular. First, serving personnel who want to see how their pension is building and what a posting decision, a commission or a move between schemes under McCloud might mean later. Second, people approaching a transition, whether that is the resettlement window, a medical discharge or simply weighing up whether to sign off, who need to compare options such as taking Early Departure Payments against staying in. Third, veterans already drawing or holding a preserved pensionwho want to sense check a statement or understand how each April's increase affects them.

Family members read these pages too, often a spouse or partner trying to make sense of the choices alongside the person who served, and sometimes someone dealing with a pension on divorce or after a bereavement. We try to keep the language plain enough to help all of them without watering down the detail that a long-serving senior rank needs. Eligibility milestones run through everything: the two years of qualifying service needed for benefits at all, and the Early Departure Payment thresholds of broadly 18 years and age 40 under AFPS 05, or 20 years and age 40 under AFPS 15, with an AFPS 15 EDP lump sum of 2.25 times the preserved pension.

Editorial independence

Our editorial decisions are made on accuracy alone. No part of the Ministry of Defence, Veterans UK, JPAC or any commercial firm reviews, approves or pays for our content, and no adviser or product provider can buy a recommendation, because we do not make product recommendations. We cite official guidance because it is the authoritative source, not because anyone asked us to. If guidance is unclear or the schemes themselves disagree on a detail, we say so rather than papering over it, and we would rather mark something as uncertain than state a figure we cannot trace. Corrections are treated as part of the job, not an embarrassment: when we get something wrong we fix it and note when. The full method, including how the single author works and how updates are logged, is set out in our editorial policy.

How the site is funded

Right now the site carries no advertising. The core calculators and guides are, and will remain, free. In future we may introduce light, clearly-labelledads or affiliate links to cover running costs, but we'll never cover the calculator result, use pop-ups, or let funding compromise accuracy, and we'll update this page transparently if that changes.

We are upfront about this because funding can quietly shape what a site tells you, and on a money topic that matters. The rule we hold ourselves to is simple: nothing we earn from will ever change a figure, and nothing will sit between you and the result you came for. If we ever add an affiliate link, it will be clearly labelled, it will point to something we would suggest anyway, and it will never be dressed up as advice. If a future arrangement could create even the appearance of a conflict, we will explain it here first.

Independence & disclaimer

Armed Forces Pension Calculator is an independent website providing educational information. We are not affiliated with the Ministry of Defence, Veterans UK, JPAC or HM Government. Our tools provide estimates based on publicly available information and are not regulated financial advice. For an official forecast, contact Veterans UK; for advice on your situation, speak to a regulated financial adviser. For official guidance see gov.uk.

To put it plainly: treat anything here as a well-informed estimate, not a promise. An official forecast comes from Veterans UK, using form 12 while you are still serving or form 14 for a preserved pension, and that statement is what counts when you make a decision. We are not authorised by the Financial Conduct Authority and we do not advise on whether to commute, transfer, opt out or buy added pension. Where money, tax or timing genuinely turns on the choice, please take regulated advice. Using our calculators gives you a clearer head before that conversation; it does not replace it.