EDP 05 vs EDP 15: what's the difference?

Same benefit, two different rulebooks

An Early Departure Payment is a bridging benefit. Leave Regular Service before your scheme's pension age but with enough time behind you, and it pays a tax-free lump sum the day you go, then a monthly income that runs until your deferred pension comes into payment. Both AFPS 05 and AFPS 15 offer one, and in both it is paid on top of your pension, not instead of it. That much is common ground.

The differences are in the qualifying rules and the sums. AFPS 05 built its EDP around 18 years' service; AFPS 15 raised the bar to 20. The lump sum multiple is bigger under 05, the monthly income is worked out differently under 15, and only 15 lets you trade the lump sum for more income. Get the scheme wrong and every figure you plan around will be off, so it is worth knowing which rulebook you are reading from.

Qualifying age and service

The age test is identical: you must be at least 40 on the day you leave to draw an EDP under either scheme. Below 40 there is no EDP, whatever your length of service, though a preserved pension still builds in the background for later.

Service is where they part company. EDP 05 needs 18 years' qualifying service. EDP 15 needs 20, which combined with the age 40 floor is why people call it the 20/40 point: you have to clear both. Someone who leaves at 40 with 19 years qualifies under 05 rules but would fall short under 15.

There is also an upper limit. To take an EDP rather than go straight to your pension, an AFPS 05 member must leave before 65 and an AFPS 15 member before 60. Leave after that and you are into pension territory rather than a bridging payment, so the EDP question no longer arises.

EDP 05 vs EDP 15 at a glance

Here is how the two sit side by side. Every figure below is a scheme rule rather than a personal quote, so treat it as the framework your own numbers slot into.

The tax-free lump sum

The lump sum is the headline both schemes pay on exit, and it is tax-free in each. EDP 05 pays 3 times your preserved pension. EDP 15 pays 2.25 times your deferred pension. On the same notional pension the 05 multiple is clearly the larger, which is one reason the older scheme's early-leaver terms are often seen as more generous up front.

AFPS 15 offers something AFPS 05 does not, though. Through inverse commutation you can give up part or all of your EDP lump sum to lift your monthly income instead. Whether that suits you depends on whether you value cash now or a steadier income across the bridging years. EDP 05 has no equivalent lever, so the 3-times lump sum is simply what you get.

The monthly income

The monthly income is the part that runs for years, so it usually matters more than the lump sum. EDP 05 keeps it simple: the income is around 50% of your preserved pension, give or take, however far past 18 years you served.

EDP 15 scales with service. The income starts at 34% of your deferred pension and adds 0.85% for every year you served beyond 20. Serve exactly 20 and the fraction is 34%. Serve 25 and it is 34% plus five lots of 0.85%, which comes to 38.25%. On a £25,000 deferred pension, 38.25% works out at £9,563 a year, about £797 a month, alongside a lump sum of £56,250, which is 2.25 times the £25,000.

That scaling means the longer you stay past 20 years, the higher EDP 15 income climbs, while EDP 05 sits at roughly half regardless. To see the figures against your own service and pay rather than a worked example, run the EDP calculator.

How the income is uprated, and when it converts

In both schemes the EDP income is flat from the day you leave until age 55. It does not rise with inflation during that stretch, so its buying power drifts down a little each year. From 55 it becomes CPI-linked, and AFPS 15 adds a catch-up at 55 that restores the value lost while it was frozen.

The income is not forever. It bridges the gap until your deferred pension comes into payment at your scheme's pension age, at which point the pension takes over and the EDP stops. Because the EDP was paid on top of the pension all along, nothing about drawing your pension later is reduced by having taken the EDP first.

AFPS 75 has no EDP

If your service sits in AFPS 75, there is nothing to compare, because that scheme has no EDP. Its early-payment route is the Immediate Pension instead: officers reach it at 16 years' service from age 21, and other ranks at 22 years from age 18.

The Immediate Pension is a full pension paid straight away, not a bridging benefit that later hands over to a deferred pension, so the EDP 05 versus EDP 15 comparison simply does not apply. Confirm which scheme you are in before you plan around an EDP, because assuming the wrong one is an easy mistake to make.

Working out which applies to you

Which rulebook you read comes down to which scheme your service sits in. Anyone still building pension since April 2022 is doing so in AFPS 15, but earlier service can sit in AFPS 05 or AFPS 75, and many longer careers straddle more than one, so it is common to have EDP 15 terms on recent service and older rights alongside them.

This site is independent and not affiliated with the MOD, Veterans UK or JPAC, and the figures here are estimates rather than regulated financial advice. Use the numbers to get a feel for how your EDP would be built and to ask sharper questions, then confirm the specifics with an official Veterans UK forecast before you act on them.