How much is an army pension after 22 years?
How much you get after 22 years depends on your scheme and final pensionable pay. As a guide, 22 years on a £45,000 final salary gives roughly £14,143 a year on AFPS 05, plus a tax-free lump sum of around £42,429. Use the calculator for your own figures.
Key takeaways
- On AFPS 05 (£45,000 final salary), 22 years gives about £14,143/yr plus a £42,429 tax-free lump sum.
- AFPS 05 pension = final pay × years ÷ 70; the lump sum is three times the annual pension.
- AFPS 15 builds 1/47th of career-average pay a year, with no automatic lump sum, so you commute for cash.
- With this much service you may qualify for an Early Departure Payment if you leave before pension age.
Your details
Scheme, pay & service
Your estimate
Pension, lump sum & EDP
EDP 05 (left before 65)
How this is worked out
AFPS 05 accrues 1/70th of final pensionable pay per year, up to a maximum of 57%. Figures use published AFPS rates. See our methodology. Estimate only, not financial advice.
What 22 years of service is actually worth
Twenty two years is the classic full career mark, and it lands you in a much stronger position than someone leaving at the 6, 12 or 16 year points. The exact figure depends entirely on which scheme you are in and what your pensionable pay is when you leave, but the shape is the same across all three: a yearly pension for life, and in most cases a tax-free lump sum on top. As a single illustrative benchmark, 22 years on a final pensionable pay of £45,000 works out at roughly £14,143 a year on AFPS 05, with an automatic tax-free lump sum of around £42,429. Treat that as a guide only and run your own pay through the calculator above.
The first thing to be clear on is that these are three different schemes with three different sets of rules, not one pension with three names. AFPS 75 and AFPS 05 are final-salary schemes, so they reward you on the pay you finish on. AFPS 15 is a career-average (CARE) scheme, so it banks a slice of each year's pay as you go and revalues it for inflation. Most people serving 22 years today will have time in more than one scheme, because everyone still serving moved onto AFPS 15 on 1 April 2022, so the real answer is usually a blend.
The other thing 22 years changes is access. At shorter lengths of service you usually walk away with a preserved pension you cannot touch until pension age. At 22 years you are far more likely to qualify for money that starts flowing sooner, whether that is an Immediate Pension on AFPS 75, an Early Departure Payment on AFPS 05 or AFPS 15, or both an EDP income and a preserved pension running in parallel. That is the real value of this length of service: not just a bigger number, but earlier access.
The maths behind each scheme
AFPS 05 is the easiest to picture. It accrues 1/70th of your final pensionable pay for every year of reckonable service, capped at 57% of pay, which you only reach at 40 years. So the annual pension is final pay multiplied by years, divided by 70. On a £45,000 final salary, that is 45,000 times 22 divided by 70, giving about £14,143 a year. The tax-free lump sum is automatic and equals three times the annual pension, so around £42,429 in this example. Nothing here is commuted or chosen; it simply arrives.
AFPS 15 works differently because it is CARE. Each scheme year the MOD banks 1/47th of that year's pensionable earnings into a pot and revalues the pot to keep its value, so for an estimate you can use current pensionable pay times years divided by 47. On £45,000 over 22 years that is about £21,064 a year. That looks larger than the AFPS 05 figure, but remember AFPS 15 has no automatic lump sum and a later pension age, so the two are not like for like. If you want cash up front on AFPS 15 you commute, giving up pension at a fixed rate of £12 of lump sum for every £1 of yearly pension surrendered, up to a maximum of 25% of the pension.
AFPS 75 is the most generous final-salary scheme but also the hardest to model precisely, because it pays on the representative pay rate for your final rank rather than your actual salary, and our calculator uses the pay you enter as a proxy. It builds towards a maximum of 48.5% of representative pay over a full career, which is 37 years for other ranks and 34 for officers. Working it as a proxy on £45,000 across 22 years gives roughly £12,980 a year for an other-ranks profile, with the usual automatic lump sum of three times that, around £38,939. Your true AFPS 75 figure will track the MOD's rank tables, not a flat salary, so use it as a sense check rather than a quote.
Worked examples at different pay levels
Because the final-salary schemes scale straight off pay, you can move the numbers up and down easily. These are illustrative figures using the scheme formulas above, not quotes. On AFPS 05 at 22 years, a £30,000 final pensionable pay gives about £9,429 a year plus a £28,286 lump sum. At £45,000 it is about £14,143 a year plus £42,429. At £60,000 it climbs to roughly £18,857 a year plus a £56,571 lump sum. The pattern is purely linear, so a 20% higher salary means a 20% higher pension and lump sum.
On AFPS 15 over the same 22 years, the deferred pension before any commutation is about £14,043 a year on £30,000 of pensionable pay, about £21,064 on £45,000, and about £28,085 on £60,000. There is no automatic lump sum attached to any of those. If you wanted a lump sum, commuting the full 25% on the £45,000 example surrenders about £5,266 of yearly pension to release a tax-free lump of roughly £63,191, leaving a residual pension of about £15,798 a year. Whether that trade is worth it depends on your age, health and plans, and it is permanent, so think hard before you commit.
If you served any time between 1 April 2015 and 31 March 2022, your real 22 year figure is a combination, not a single scheme. Service in that remedy window can be taken as either your legacy scheme (75 or 05) or AFPS 15, and from 1 April 2022 everyone builds AFPS 15. So a typical 22 year leaver today might have a chunk of legacy service, a McCloud choice for 2015 to 2022, and a slice of pure AFPS 15 on the end. The calculator handles one scheme at a time, so run each portion and add them up.
Preserved pension, immediate pension or EDP
At 22 years the headline question is when the money starts. On AFPS 75, other ranks reach the Immediate Pension point at 22 years' service from age 18, and officers at 16 years from age 21, so a 22 year other-ranks leaver typically gets an Immediate Pension paid straight away rather than waiting. That pension is flat until age 55 and then increased for all the inflation since you left, plus CPI each year after. The automatic three times lump sum is paid at the same time.
On AFPS 05 there is no Immediate Pension, but there is the Early Departure Payment. If you leave at age 40 or over with at least 18 years' service, which a 22 year career comfortably clears, you qualify for EDP 05. That pays a tax-free lump sum of three times your preserved pension and a monthly income of broadly 50% of the preserved pension until your pension proper starts at 65. On the £45,000 example that is an EDP income of around £7,071 a year, about £589 a month, alongside a lump sum near £42,429. The preserved AFPS 05 pension itself still sits waiting and comes into payment in full at 65.
On AFPS 15 the equivalent is EDP 15, reached at the 20/40 point: at least 20 years' service and leaving at age 40 or over. At 22 years you are two years past the 20 year threshold, so the income is 34% of the deferred pension plus 0.85% for each year over 20, giving 35.7% here. On a deferred pension of about £21,064 that is an EDP income of roughly £7,520 a year, about £627 a month, with a tax-free lump sum of 2.25 times the deferred pension, around £47,394. The full AFPS 15 deferred pension then becomes payable at your State Pension age. If you leave before 40, or before 20 years, you get a preserved pension only and no EDP.
What changes your number
Pensionable pay is the single biggest lever on the final-salary schemes. AFPS 05 and AFPS 75 pay on what you finish on, so a promotion in your last couple of years lifts the whole pension, not just the years after promotion. That is why people watch their final rank and pay band closely as they approach the 22 year mark. On AFPS 15 the effect is gentler because it is career average, but higher pay still feeds bigger annual slices into the pot.
Your age and reason for leaving matter just as much as pay. EDP eligibility hinges on leaving at 40 or over, so the same 22 years can produce an EDP for one person and only a preserved pension for someone who reached 22 years younger. The McCloud remedy choice for any 2015 to 2022 service is another variable: for some members the legacy scheme is better for that window, for others AFPS 15 is, and you make the choice from a Remediable Service Statement when benefits become payable.
Finally, commutation and inflation shift the headline. On AFPS 15, how much of your pension you swap for a lump sum changes the yearly figure permanently. Pensions already in payment are uprated each year, rising by 3.8% from April 2026 in line with CPI. The calculator cannot guess these for you, which is why its figure is an estimate and a Veterans UK forecast is the document to act on.
How it is taxed
The lump sums are the good news. The automatic three times lump sum on AFPS 75 and AFPS 05, the lump sum you create by commuting on AFPS 15, and the EDP lump sums on both EDP 05 and EDP 15 are all paid tax-free. That is a meaningful chunk of money landing without deduction, which is why the lump sum often does the heavy lifting in resettlement planning.
The income side is treated as earned income. Your annual pension, and any EDP monthly income, is taxable through PAYE in the normal way and counts towards your total income for the year. If you leave the forces and go straight into civilian work, your pension or EDP income stacks on top of your new salary, so it is easy to be pushed into a higher tax band than you expected in that first year or two. It is worth modelling your combined income rather than looking at the pension in isolation.
Two points often catch people out. First, an EDP income runs alongside, not instead of, your eventual scheme pension, so you can have EDP income now and a separate pension starting later, each taxable in its own right. Second, commuting AFPS 15 pension trades a tax-free lump sum for a smaller taxable income for life, so the cash is tax-free but the trade has a long tax tail. None of this is tax advice; if the numbers are large, take regulated advice first.
How to check your own position and next steps
Start by being honest about which scheme or schemes your 22 years actually sit in. If you joined before April 2005 you have AFPS 75 service; April 2005 to March 2015 means AFPS 05; everyone still serving has been building AFPS 15 since April 2022; and any service in the 2015 to 2022 remedy window carries a McCloud choice. Knowing the split is the difference between a rough guess and a figure you can plan around.
Use the calculator above to model each portion: enter your pensionable pay, your years and your age at leaving, and for AFPS 15 try it with and without commutation so you can see the trade clearly. Run a couple of pay scenarios too, because your final rank and pay band can still move before you leave. Add the scheme portions together for a blended estimate, and remember the AFPS 75 figure is a proxy on representative pay rather than an exact quote.
When you want the real numbers, go to the source. An official forecast comes from Veterans UK, requested on form 12 if you are still serving or form 14 if you already hold a preserved pension. That statement, with your Remediable Service Statement for any McCloud choice, is what you should base decisions on. This site is independent and not affiliated with the MOD, Veterans UK or JPAC; it gives estimates to help you think, not regulated financial advice. Use it to get oriented, then verify before you sign anything.
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Frequently asked questions
James Hartley
James Hartley spent 22 years in the British Army, including unit personnel administration and pensions and records duties, and now writes the scheme guides and scenario pages on this site. He is not a regulated financial adviser, so the content is general information rather than personal advice.
Sources: gov.uk · GAD factors · Veterans UK · Forces Pension Society · MoneyHelper.