How we calculate your pension

The armed forces pension isn't one scheme but three, AFPS 75, AFPS 05 and AFPS 15, each with its own formula, lump-sum rules and pension age. Our calculators apply the published formula for the scheme you choose to the pay and service figures you enter. This page sets out, scheme by scheme, exactly how that is done, what we take from official sources, where we have to simplify and why, and the points at which you should stop trusting an estimate and go and get your official figure. We have written it for serving personnel and veterans who want to understand the working, not just the answer.

A word on honesty before we start. This is an independent education site. We are not affiliated with the Ministry of Defence, Veterans UK or JPAC, and nothing here is regulated financial advice. The calculators give you a reasoned estimate built from the public rules of the schemes. They do not have your service record, your exact dates, your rank history or the representative pay tables the MOD uses, so they cannot match a formal benefit statement to the penny. Treat every number as a sensible ballpark to help you plan and ask better questions, not as a promise of what will land in your account.

Our sources, and why primary sources matter

Every rate, accrual figure and factor in our calculators traces back to a primary source: the body that actually writes or administers the rule. Pension figures get copied, rounded and garbled as they pass from one explainer to the next, so we go to the document of record rather than to a forum post or a half-remembered brief. When a figure changes, we change the source first and the calculator second. Here is what we use and what each one gives us.

Why labour the point about primary sources? Because the armed forces schemes are full of figures that look interchangeable but are not. The age at which an AFPS 05 pension is paid (65) is different from the age at which it starts catching up with inflation (55). The minimum service for a pension (two years) is different from the minimum service for a Resettlement Grant. A small mistake in which rule you copy produces a number that is confidently wrong, which is worse than no number at all. Tying each figure to a named source is how we keep ourselves honest and how you can check our working.

AFPS 75: final salary

AFPS 75 is a final-salary scheme based on representative pay for your rank. As a broad rule, your annual pension builds towards a maximum of 48.5% of representative pay at full service, scaled by your length of reckonable service. Officers reach that maximum over 34 years and other ranks over 37 years, so our calculator asks which applies and scales accordingly. On top of the pension, AFPS 75 pays an automatic tax-free lump sum of three times your annual pension (3x).

Under the bonnet we build the pension up in a straight line to that 48.5% ceiling. We take your maximum service window, 34 or 37 years, work out how much of the 48.5% each year is worth, multiply by your reckonable years and stop at the ceiling. Serve beyond the maximum and the fraction does not keep climbing; the calculator flags that your figure has hit the cap. So a full-career officer lands at 48.5% of pay, and someone with half the service lands at roughly half that fraction.

One important caveat: AFPS 75 is based on the representativerate of pay for your final rank, not your literal salary. Members on the same rank with the same service normally get the same pension, because the scheme uses a set rank rate rather than your individual pay packet. We don't hold the MOD's rank-by-rank representative pay tables, so we use the pay figure you enter as a close proxy. That is fine for an estimate, but it is the single biggest reason an AFPS 75 figure from us can drift from your official one, especially for senior ranks. If you want to narrow the gap, enter the representative rate for your final rank rather than your gross salary.

AFPS 75 does not pay early leavers through an EDP. Its early-payment route is the Immediate Pension, paid once you reach the service point: 16 years from age 21 for officers, or 22 years from age 18 for other ranks. The Immediate Pension is paid flat until age 55, then all the inflation since you left is applied in one go and CPI is added each year thereafter. If you leave before the Immediate Pension point you keep a deferred pension instead, paid at age 60.

AFPS 05: final salary

AFPS 05 is also final-salary but uses a simpler accrual. The annual pension is broadly:

In other words you accrue 1/70th of pensionable pay for each year of service, up to a maximum of 57% of final pay(reached at 40 years). As with AFPS 75, there's an automatic tax-free lump sum of three times the annual pension (3x). Our calculator works the raw accrual, compares it with the 57% ceiling, takes whichever is lower and tells you when the cap has bitten. Because AFPS 05 uses your final pensionable pay rather than a rank rate, the proxy problem is smaller than on AFPS 75: the pay you enter is closer to the figure the scheme would use.

The normal pension age for AFPS 05 is 65. Leave earlier and you have a preserved pension paid at 65, unless you qualify for the Early Departure Payment, which we cover below. As with AFPS 75, the pension is held flat until 55 and then inflation-proofed; we estimate the current-rate figure rather than projecting it year by year into the future.

AFPS 15: career average (CARE)

AFPS 15 is a Career Average Revalued Earnings (CARE) scheme. Instead of using your final salary, it builds a slice of pension each year worth 1/47th of that year's pensionable earnings. While you're serving, every slice is revalued in line with average earnings; once you leave, it rises with prices (CPI). Because in-service revaluation tracks earnings, entering your current pensionable paygives a sound estimate of the whole pot, which is why our AFPS 15 calculator asks for current pay rather than a true career average you'd struggle to work out.

It is worth being clear about why that shortcut is fair rather than lazy. In a CARE scheme each past year is supposed to keep its value, and AFPS 15 does that by revaluing the older slices in line with average earnings while you remain in service. The official worked example runs it the long way: a year on roughly £47,000 of pensionable earnings adds about £1,000 to the pot, the next year on roughly £47,500 adds another £1,010, and the first year's £1,000 is also uplifted. Add it all up and you are close to what you get by taking current pay, multiplying by years and dividing by 47. So for someone whose pay has tracked the normal pattern, current pay times years over 47 is a sound estimate of the whole pot. It will read a little high for someone who had a big late promotion and a little low for someone whose pay fell back, because those careers do not match the smooth assumption, but for most members it is close.

Lump sums and commutation

The two final-salary schemes and the CARE scheme treat the lump sum in opposite ways, and our calculators reflect that. On AFPS 75 and AFPS 05 the lump sum is automatic and fixed: three times your annual pension, tax-free, with nothing to decide. We simply multiply your estimated pension by three and show it as a separate line.

AFPS 15 pays no automatic lump sum. Instead you can commute, give up part of your annual pension in exchange for tax-free cash, at a fixed factor of £12 of lump sum for every £1 of yearly pension you give up, capped at 25% of your pension. Our calculator uses that factor to estimate the cash you could take and the reduced pension that results. Move the commutation slider and you can see the trade: more cash now means a permanently smaller monthly pension, because the reduction does not reverse. This is the one commutation case we can model precisely, because the 12:1 rate is fixed and applies to everyone, regardless of age.

We deliberately do not try to model the optional resettlement or trivial commutation that AFPS 75 and AFPS 05 members can sometimes take on top of the automatic lump sum. Those use age-banded factor tables published by GAD, where the multiplier depends on your exact age in years and months at the relevant date. There is no single number that fits everyone, so showing one would be guesswork dressed up as precision. We would rather model the automatic 3x lump sum accurately and leave the age-banded options to your official forecast.

Early Departure Payment (EDP)

If you leave before your scheme pension age but have served long enough, you may qualify for an Early Departure Payment, a tax-free lump sum plus a monthly income that bridges the gap until your full pension comes into payment. EDP is separate from, and paid on top of, your deferred pension. The thresholds differ by scheme:

For EDP 15 our calculator works the income fraction exactly as the scheme does. It starts at 34% of the deferred pension and adds 0.85 of a percentage point for each whole year over 20. To make that concrete, take an illustrative early leaver with 25 years served and a £25,000 deferred pension. The fraction is 0.34 plus five lots of 0.0085, which is 0.3825, so the income is about £9,563 a year, or roughly £797 a month, and the EDP lump sum is 2.25 times £25,000, which is £56,250. That example is for illustration only; your own figures depend on your real service and pay.

The EDP 05 income is the one place we lean on a headline rate rather than an exact formula. The commonly published figure is around 50% of the preserved pension, and the precise award actually varies with your exact service and exit age, so we treat the 50% as an estimate and say so on screen. AFPS 75, as noted above, has no EDP at all; its early route is the Immediate Pension, so our calculator shows no EDP line for it. For all schemes the EDP income is paid flat until age 55 and then uprated for inflation.

The 2026 CPI increase and revaluation

Pensions in payment and preserved (deferred) pensions are index-linked, rising each year with the Consumer Prices Index measured to the September before each April uprating. The increase applied from April 2026 is 3.8%(CPI to September 2025). That is the rate sitting in our engine now, and we date-stamp our figures so you can see which year's rates you are looking at.

Revaluation is not quite the same thing as the annual increase, and the two schemes handle it differently, so it is worth separating them. On AFPS 75 and AFPS 05 the pension is held flat from when you leave until age 55, at which point all the accumulated inflation is applied in one catch-up and CPI is added every year after that. On AFPS 15, while you are still serving your pot is revalued in line with average earnings, and once it is deferred or in payment it rises with CPI instead. Our calculators show a present-day estimate using the current rate. They do not project your pension forward year by year with future CPI, because we cannot know what inflation will be, and pretending to would make the figure look more certain than it is.

The assumptions we make, and the limits

A public calculator has to make assumptions, and the honest thing is to list them rather than bury them. Here are the main ones, and what they mean for how much to trust the output.

• We do not have your service record. We work from the pay, years, age and scheme you type in. If those are approximate, the answer is approximate. Your official record may use different reckonable dates, breaks in service or part-time periods that we cannot see.
• AFPS 75 uses representative pay, and we use yours as a proxy. We do not hold the MOD rank-by-rank pay tables, so we substitute the pay you enter. For senior ranks in particular this can move the figure noticeably.
• AFPS 15 assumes your pay tracked the normal pattern. The current-pay shortcut is a fair approximation for most careers but will read high after a late promotion and low after a drop in pay.
• The EDP 05 income is a headline rate. We use around 50% of the preserved pension; the exact award depends on your service and exit age.
• We model the automatic lump sums only. We do not attempt age-banded resettlement or trivial commutation on AFPS 75 and AFPS 05, because those need the full GAD tables and your exact age.
• We show a present-day estimate, not a lifetime projection. We do not forecast future CPI year by year, and we do not model tax on your pension, the McCloud remedy choice between legacy and AFPS 15 benefits for the remedy period of 1 April 2015 to 31 March 2022, added pension purchases, pension sharing on divorce, ill-health enhancements or death benefits.
• You need at least two years of qualifying service for most scheme benefits. Below that, the picture is different and our estimate may not apply.

None of this means the estimate is useless. It means you should read it as a well-founded approximation built from the public rules, accurate enough to plan around and to sense-check what you are told elsewhere, but not a substitute for the formal figure that takes your full record into account.

How we keep the figures current

Pension rules and rates move, so a methodology is only as good as its upkeep. Every figure we use lives as a single named constant in the calculator code, each with its source noted right beside it, which means there is one place to change when a rule changes and no stray copies to forget. When the annual Pensions Increase is confirmed each year, or a scheme rule is updated, we update that constant, re-check it against the primary source and date-stamp the change so you can see how current the figures are. The research behind the engine was captured in June 2026 and re-verified against live official sources, and the April 2026 increase of 3.8% reflects that check.

When to get an official forecast or regulated advice

Use our calculators to understand the shape of your pension and to plan. Get an official figure, and if money is changing hands get advice, before you make a decision that is hard to undo. As a rule of thumb, go and get the formal numbers when:

• you are within a few years of leaving, or deciding when to leave around an Immediate Pension or EDP point;
• you are weighing how much of an AFPS 15 pension to commute, because that reduction is permanent;
• you are affected by the McCloud remedy and have a choice to make between legacy and AFPS 15 benefits;
• your pension is part of a divorce settlement, a transfer, or any decision involving regulated financial advice.

Your official, member-specific forecast comes from Veterans UK: use form 12 if you are still serving and form 14 if you have a preserved pension. For advice on what to do with the numbers, speak to a regulated financial adviser; the Forces Pension Society and MoneyHelper are good starting points for impartial guidance.