Gurkha Pension Calculator

What the Gurkha Pension Scheme is

The Gurkha Pension Scheme (GPS) is a separate scheme from the Armed Forces Pension Scheme. It pays four pensions: the Gurkha Retirement Pension for Gurkha Commissioned Officers, the Gurkha Service Pension, the Gurkha Disability Pension and the Gurkha Family Pension.

Its rates are set differently from anything else on this site. The MOD's 2026 award letter says they are based on Indian Army pensions and issued under the Gurkha Pension Manual, with "a welfare related cash uplift to take account of the benefits in kind provided to Indian Army ex-servicemen". They are expressed as monthly amounts in Indian Currency Rupees (ICR) and converted to Nepali rupees for payment at a fixed rate of ICR 1 to NCR 1.6. Where a pension is paid in Brunei, Hong Kong or the UK, local currency is used instead.

A Gurkha Service Pension needs at least 15 years' service from age 18, so 33 is the earliest age it can start. Below 15 years there is no service pension, unless a disability caused or made worse by service was assessed at 20% or more, in which case a service pension is paid whatever the length of service.

Current GPS rates and the 2026 uprating

GPS rates rise each 1 April by inflation in Nepal, measured by the Nepal Rastra Bank consumer price index, not by UK CPI. The 2026 award is 1.63%, from 1 April 2026, set out in Defence Letter AFVS/26/01 of 16 April 2026. The 2025 award was 6.05%.

A sample of the 2026 Gurkha Service Pension rates from Annex C, monthly, in Indian rupees:

The calculator holds every rank and every year in Annexes A, B and C, including King's Gurkha Officers granted honorary rank and the two Gurkha Commissioned Officer retirement pensions. Where the table leaves a cell blank, for example a Corporal at 26 years, the calculator says so rather than guessing.

The award letter sets the minimum pension at ICR 30,764.75 a month from 1 April 2026. The note printed on Annex C still shows last year's figure of ICR 30,271.33; the letter's figure is the 2025 minimum raised by 1.63%, which is why we use it.

Disability and family pensions

A Gurkha Disability Pension has two parts: a service element, from the same tables as the service pension, and a disability element from Annex D. It is granted on invaliding for a disability "attributable to, or aggravated by, military service assessed at 20% or more". Below 20% there is no disability pension. The disability element is banded at 20% to 40%, 50% to 70% and 80% to 100%, and rises with rank.

Annex E sets the family pensions paid to widows and dependants, of which there are four kinds:

• Ordinary Family Pension (OFP): after the death of a pensioner, where the death was not caused or made worse by service.
• Ordinary Family Pension at enhanced rates (OFP(ER)): after a death in service not caused by service, for a limited period, then an ordinary family pension.
• Special Family Pension (SFP): after a death in service caused or made worse by service, or a pensioner's death from the condition they had a disability element for.
• Liberalised Family Pension (LFP): after a death on operations or in training for deployment. Annex E shows no LFP rate for the honorary and commissioned officer ranks.

The extra pension from age 80

The Gurkha Pension Manual pays older pensioners an extra share of their service pension. It is not shown on the 2026 annexes, so the annex rates are before any age addition.

The calculator adds it to the service pension when you enter an age of 80 or more. It does not add it to a family pension, because the manual describes it as a share of the service pension.

If you transferred to the AFPS under GOTT

In 2007 the government set up the Gurkha Offer to Transfer (GOTT). It let Gurkhas who served after 1 July 1997 move that service from the GPS into the AFPS. The House of Commons Library sets out the terms: a year served after 1 July 1997 counted as a year in the AFPS, but a year before that date counted only as "between 23 and 36 per cent depending on rank". Those who left before 1 July 1997 could not transfer.

Two consequences follow. First, a GOTT pension is an AFPS 75 or AFPS 05 pension, so this page's rates do not apply to it. Second, your AFPS service is not your years served: it is the converted figure, plus any service credit given to officers and to soldiers from the 1993 intake and earlier. If you use our AFPS 75 calculator or AFPS 05 calculator, enter the converted reckonable service from your own statement.

Some transferees are paid both. The MOD says that if you had reached your immediate pension point and left when you accepted GOTT, "you will be paid GPS pension until age 60 (AFPS 75) or 65 (AFPS 05), then will be paid the benefits accrued from AFPS after this point." The MOD's own Gurkha pension calculator, a 2013 spreadsheet on gov.uk, is built for GOTT transferees and adjusts for service credit; it does not give GPS rates.

Who to contact about a Gurkha pension

Three bodies share the work. Army headquarters sets GPS policy and publishes the rates. Defence Business Services (Veterans UK) assesses and authorises service, disability and family pensions. Headquarters British Gurkhas Nepal pays pensions in Nepal and India and investigates cases.

For pensioners, the first point of contact is a Gurkha Veterans' Advice Centre. The centres handle pension payment questions, records, overpayments and the yearly Life Certificate, which every GPS pensioner must renew. Their services are free. Contact details as published by the MOD in October 2026:

Pensioners living in the UK can renew their Life Certificate through the Gurkha Welfare Advice Centres in Salisbury or Aldershot. The gov.uk armed forces pension contact centre handles AFPS pensions, so it suits GOTT transferees rather than GPS members.