How much is an army pension after 7 years?

The short answer at seven years

Seven years is not a milestone in any armed forces pension scheme. It earns a solid preserved pension, it pays nothing on the day you leave, and how much it is worth depends almost entirely on which scheme holds it.

The AFPS 15 figure is seven forty-sevenths of pay, using £45,000 as a stand-in for your career average after revaluation. The AFPS 05 figure is £45,000 times 7 divided by 70. AFPS 75 builds faster before its Immediate Pension point than any flat rate, so we do not put a percentage on it; MOD publishes accrued pension by rank and service, and that is the figure Veterans UK uses.

The bigger AFPS 15 number is not a better deal in every respect. It comes with no automatic lump sum, and it is paid at State Pension age rather than 65, which for someone in their twenties today is likely to be later.

Which scheme your seven years are in

The scheme is fixed by when you joined, and for seven years the answer depends on whether you are leaving now or left long ago.

Leaving in 2026. Seven years back is 2019, and everyone who joined the Regulars from 1 April 2015 went straight into AFPS 15. So a seven-year career ending now is AFPS 15 from first day to last. It also falls outside the McCloud remedy, which only covers people who were serving on or before 31 March 2012 and still serving on or after 1 April 2015. There is no legacy choice to make.

Left years ago. A veteran who served seven years before 2015 holds an AFPS 75 pension if they joined before 6 April 2005, or AFPS 05 if they joined after. Since 6 April 1988 two years' paid service has been enough for a pension to vest, so seven years always earned one. If you are not sure, which AFPS scheme am I in sets out the dates, and the armed forces pension calculator for veterans is built for people who have already left.

What you keep if you leave at seven years

Leaving at seven years gives you a deferred pension. On AFPS 15 it is worked out from the pension you banked each year: one forty-seventh of that year's pensionable pay, increased in line with earnings while you served. From the day you leave, it is increased in line with prices instead, every April, until it is paid.

It is paid at your State Pension age. You can take it from 55, but it is then reduced permanently to reflect the extra years of payment. When it starts, you can give up some of it for tax-free cash at the fixed rate of £12 for each £1 of yearly pension, up to 25% of the benefit. The AFPS 15 booklet is clear that the reduction is for life.

One route people ask about does not apply. Trivial commutation, which cashes in a whole pension, is only for very small pensions: HMRC values a deferred AFPS 15 pension at 20 times the yearly amount, and the limit is £30,000 across everything you hold. Seven years on £45,000 is valued at about £134,000, so it stays a pension.

Nothing arrives automatically at the end, either. You claim a deferred pension on AFPS Form 8, and before then you can ask Veterans UK for a free Form 14 forecast once a year to see the current figure.

What leaving at seven costs against staying to twelve

The next real threshold is 12 years, and it is worth knowing what lies between. On AFPS 15 at £45,000, five more years adds about £4,787 a year to the pension. At 12 years you also cross the line for the Resettlement Grant, a fixed tax-free lump sum paid when you leave. At April 2025 values, the most recent gov.uk has published, it is £14,059 on AFPS 05 and AFPS 15.

The grant is for people who leave before the scheme starts paying them an Immediate Pension or an Early Departure Payment, which nobody does at 12 years, so it is effectively the reward for completing twelve. You give up no pension to receive it.

That does not make staying the right answer for everyone. Five years is a long time to serve for a grant, and a civilian job with its own pension may outweigh it. But it is the honest comparison: at seven years the extra five are worth roughly £4,800 a year of pension for life from State Pension age, plus around £14,000 in cash on the day you go.

How to check your own figure

While you are serving, your Benefit Information Statement, issued on your birthday through JPA or Defence Gateway, shows the AFPS 15 pension you have built. You can also ask for a formal Form 12 forecast, one free in any 12 months, and the MOD's own online calculator works for serving personnel.

Once you have left, the MOD calculator stops working for you, and the official route is Form 14, also free once a year. In between, the calculator on this page runs the same rules on your own pay. Remember to set the scheme to AFPS 15 if your seven years ended recently.

Run 7 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 runs the same engine if that wording matches your record better.

Serving beyond 7 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.