How much is an army pension after 10 years?

There is no 10-year rule

Ten years sounds like it ought to be a milestone. It is not. Nothing in AFPS 75, AFPS 05 or AFPS 15 turns on ten years of service: it is not a qualifying threshold, not an accrual cap, not a pension age trigger and not a cliff. If you are looking for the thing that changes at ten years, there is nothing to find, and the useful version of this page says so plainly rather than dressing the arithmetic up as a rule.

That is not the same as saying ten years is worth nothing. You are five times past the two-year minimum of qualifying service, so your entitlement is secure. On AFPS 05, ten years on a £45,000 final salary gives about £6,429 a year, roughly 14.3% of final pensionable pay, with an automatic tax-free lump sum of around £19,286. Every further year adds another seventieth, and the AFPS 05 cap of 40 years is a long way off.

The question worth asking at ten years is therefore not what ten years unlocks, but what is just ahead of it. The answer is two years ahead, and it is worth about £14,000 tax-free.

The threshold two years away: the Resettlement Grant

The next genuine threshold is 12 years, and it is the Resettlement Grant. This is a fixed tax-free lump sum paid on leaving to people who serve a substantial qualifying period but leave before the scheme starts paying them an Immediate Pension or an Early Departure Payment. It is easy to overlook because it is not a pension and does not show up on a pension forecast the way an EDP does.

The qualifying period is 12 years on AFPS 05, 12 years on AFPS 15, and 12 years from age 18 for AFPS 75 other ranks. At April 2025 values, the most recent gov.uk has published, the grant is £14,059 on AFPS 05 and on AFPS 15, and £14,058 for AFPS 75 other ranks. It is paid on top of your preserved pension and costs you nothing: unlike commutation, you give up no pension to receive it.

One condition matters. The grant is for leavers who are not entitled to an Immediate Pension, an EDP or another Resettlement Grant. It sits in the gap between the two, so people who serve on to the EDP point get the EDP instead, not both. And because the qualifying date is driven by your reckonable service dates and your engagement rather than the round number in your head, confirm your own date with Veterans UK before you treat it as fixed.

The one group that has already passed a threshold

There is a single exception to the nothing-happens-at-ten rule, and it belongs to AFPS 75 officers. The officer Resettlement Grant point is 9 years of relevant reckonable service from age 21, with at least two of those years served as an officer, and on the same condition that you are not entitled to an Immediate Pension or another grant. An AFPS 75 officer at ten years has therefore already crossed it.

The amount is different too: £20,397 for an AFPS 75 officer at April 2025 values, against £14,058 for AFPS 75 other ranks at their 12-year point. That is the largest of the four grant figures, and it is available three years earlier.

So two people leaving on the same day with the same ten years on paper can be in different positions, and the split is by scheme and rank rather than by length of service. This is a recurring feature of AFPS 75 and it turns up again at the Immediate Pension point, where officers qualify at 16 years and other ranks not until 22.

What 10 years is worth in each scheme

AFPS 05. One seventieth of final pensionable earnings for each year of reckonable service, so ten years is pay times 10 divided by 70, about 14.3% of pay. On £45,000 that is roughly £6,429 a year with an automatic lump sum near £19,286, both preserved to age 65 unless you draw them early at a reduction.

AFPS 15. A career average scheme, banking 1/47th of each year's pensionable earnings and revaluing it, so ten years is about 10/47ths of your revalued career earnings. Using £45,000 as a stand-in for those earnings gives roughly £9,574 a year. The larger annual figure comes with a catch: there is no automatic lump sum on AFPS 15, so tax-free cash has to be created by commuting pension at the fixed rate of £12 per £1 of annual pension surrendered, within the 25% limit, and the deferred pension is payable at State Pension age.

AFPS 75. Ten years is below both Immediate Pension points, so the outcome is a deferred pension. We are not going to give you a percentage of pay for it. AFPS 75 accrual is faster before the Immediate Pension point than any flat per-year rate implies, which is why multiplying ten years by a single rate produces the wrong answer, and MOD publishes accrued pension by rank and service in its own tables. That is the source Veterans UK will use, and the figure to ask for.

What is still a long way off

An Early Departure Payment is not close. EDP 05 needs 18 years of Regular service and age 40 at exit. EDP 15 needs 20 years and age 40, the 20/40 point, so named because both marks have to be passed. Ten years fails the service test in both schemes, and no amount of age fixes that, so an EDP is off the table at this length however old you are.

The AFPS 75 Immediate Pension is not close either. It needs 16 years of qualifying service from age 21 for officers and 22 years from age 18 for other ranks, and AFPS 75 has no EDP at all, so the Immediate Pension is its only early route.

The practical consequence is worth stating clearly, because it is the thing people plan wrongly. At ten years, whatever your age, nothing is paid to you on the day you leave. The pension is preserved and waits. Between here and the EDP thresholds, the only thing that changes that is the Resettlement Grant at 12 years.

What two more years actually changes

Serving to 12 years does two things. It adds two more years of accrual, which on the AFPS 05 example is about £1,286 a year of extra pension and £3,857 more lump sum. And it moves you across the Resettlement Grant line, which is worth around £14,000 tax-free on AFPS 05 and AFPS 15, paid on leaving rather than at pension age.

The second of those is the reason the leaving date matters more than usual in the ten to twelve year band. Two years of service that would otherwise be an incremental improvement to a pension you cannot touch for decades instead converts into a five-figure tax-free payment in the month you leave. Very few two-year stretches in a career carry that kind of step change.

Two cautions before you plan around it. The qualifying date is a matter of record rather than arithmetic, so get it from Veterans UK. And if you are also approaching 40, check where you sit against the EDP thresholds at the same time, because the grant and an EDP are alternatives rather than a package, and crossing into EDP territory changes the whole shape of the answer.

Run 10 years on your own pay

The worked figures above use a representative salary, so they show the shape of the answer rather than your answer. The army pension calculator takes your own pay, rank and scheme and applies the same rules, and the military pension calculator and MOD pension calculator run the same engine if that wording matches your record better.

Serving beyond 10 years changes the position considerably, because reaching the Immediate Pension or Early Departure Payment point moves you from a preserved pension to money paid now. If you are close to leaving, check where you sit on the Early Departure Payment calculator before you set a date.