How to get an armed forces pension forecast

What a pension forecast actually is

A pension forecast is an official statement of what your Armed Forces pension is worth, worked out by Veterans UK from your own service record. It is not a guess or a generic table. It pulls your pay history, your reckonable or qualifying service, your scheme membership and, where it applies, your McCloud position, then runs those through the scheme rules to produce numbers that belong to you alone. When people talk about getting pension figures from Veterans UK, this is what they mean.

Depending on your circumstances a forecast can show the annual pension and any automatic tax-free lump sum, an Early Departure Payment income and lump sum if you qualify, the effect of commuting pension for cash, and the dates those payments would start. For someone weighing up whether to sign off, whether to take resettlement commutation, or simply whether the sums add up, a forecast turns vague hopes into hard planning figures. It is the document I always told soldiers to get before any irreversible decision.

Two things a forecast is not. It is not financial advice, and Veterans UK cannot tell you what to do with the money or whether a choice is wise for your situation. And it is a snapshot, valid on the assumptions and date it was produced, so if your pay, your leaving date or your service changes, the real figures move with them.

Who needs one and when

Anyone with a meaningful decision riding on their pension should get a forecast, and the earlier the better. Serving personnel thinking about their notice or planning a resettlement date are the most common requesters, but it is just as important for people approaching a normal pension age, for those considering whether to commute part of an AFPS 15 pension for a lump sum, and for anyone divorcing where a pension sharing order is on the table.

The scheme you are in shapes what your forecast will show. Under AFPS 75 the pension is final salary, built on representative pay for your rank, reaching up to 48.5% of pay over a full career of 34 years for officers or 37 years for other ranks, with an automatic tax-free lump sum of three times the annual pension and a normal pension age of 60. Under AFPS 05 it is 1/70th of final pay for each year up to roughly 57%, again with a three times lump sum, and a normal pension age of 65. Under AFPS 15 it is career average, banking 1/47th of your pensionable pay each year and revaluing it for inflation, with no automatic lump sum and a normal pension age tied to your State Pension age.

If you were serving across the McCloud remedy period of 1 April 2015 to 31 March 2022, your forecast position is more involved, because you have a choice between your legacy scheme and AFPS 15 for that window. That choice is made through a Remediable Service Statement rather than a standard forecast, and I cover how the two fit together further down.

The forms: form 12 for serving, form 14 for preserved

There are two request routes and the right one depends on whether you are still in uniform. If you are serving, you use form 12 to ask for a forecast of your Armed Forces pension. If you have already left and hold a preserved pension, you use form 14 to ask for a preserved-pension forecast. Getting the form right first time saves a return trip, because a request on the wrong form for your status usually comes back unactioned.

Both forms are published on gov.uk under the Veterans UK Armed Forces pension forms, and both are returned to Veterans UK, which administers the schemes and issues the figures. Fill them in fully. The detail you provide, your service number, National Insurance number, dates of service and current or final pensionable pay, is what lets Veterans UK match the request to your record and produce an accurate result. Missing or wrong identifiers are the single biggest cause of delay.

A useful habit is to keep a copy of whatever you submit, along with the date you sent it. If you need to chase, having your own record and your service number to hand makes the call far quicker, and it gives you a reference point if the figures that come back look different from what you expected.

How to request one, step by step

Start by confirming your status, serving or preserved, because that decides whether you reach for form 12 or form 14. Download the correct form from gov.uk, then gather your service number and National Insurance number before you begin, since those two identifiers tie the whole request together. Have your scheme membership and a recent pay figure ready as well, because they help Veterans UK sanity-check the result against your record.

Complete every field that applies, sign and date it, and return it to Veterans UK by the method stated on the form. If your request is tied to a specific decision, for instance a resettlement or commutation choice with a deadline, say so clearly, and submit it as far ahead of that deadline as you can. A forecast that arrives the week of the decision leaves no room to ask questions or get advice on what it shows.

Serving members should remember that day-to-day pay and personnel admin runs through JPAC and the JPA system, while the forecast itself comes from Veterans UK. Knowing which body owns which job stops you bouncing between them. If your pension is already in payment, queries go to the scheme paying agent named on your payslip or award letter rather than through a fresh forecast.

Timelines and what to expect back

Processing times vary with workload, so treat a forecast as something to request early rather than at the last minute. The safe approach is to put your request in well before any decision deadline, leaving yourself enough breathing space to read the figures properly, ask Veterans UK to clarify anything that looks odd, and, where money decisions are involved, take regulated advice before you commit.

What lands back is a statement built on your record and on a stated set of assumptions, typically a leaving date or retirement date and a pay figure. Read those assumptions first, because they drive everything else. If the assumed leaving date or pay is not what you intend, the headline numbers will not match your plan, and you may need to ask for a revised forecast on the correct basis.

Remember that figures move. Pensions already in payment rise each April in line with CPI, and the increase from April 2026 is 3.8%, so a forecast produced before an uprating and one after it can differ for that reason alone. Treat the document as accurate for its date and assumptions, and refresh it if your circumstances or the timeframe shift.

A worked example (illustrative only)

Here is an illustrative example to show how the pieces fit. It is not a quote and the round numbers are chosen only to make the method clear. Imagine an AFPS 15 member with 1/47th accrual, leaving with a deferred pension figure produced by Veterans UK on their forecast. AFPS 15 pays no automatic lump sum, so if they want tax-free cash they commute some pension at the fixed rate of about 12 to 1, meaning roughly 12 pounds of lump sum for every 1 pound of annual pension given up, up to the limit of 25% of the pension.

Now picture the same member leaving early. Under AFPS 15 an Early Departure Payment becomes available from age 40 for those with the qualifying service, broadly 20 years and age 40, paying a taxable monthly income through to pension age plus a tax-free lump sum of 2.25 times the preserved pension. The forecast is where you see these EDP figures attached to your own record rather than to a textbook example, which is exactly why it is worth having before you decide to go.

Treat every number in this paragraph as illustrative. Your forecast, not this example, is the figure to plan against, because it reflects your actual pay, service and scheme, and any McCloud choice that applies to you. If you want a rough sense of the shape while you wait, our calculator will produce an instant estimate, but it is an estimate, not the official forecast.

Common mistakes and how to check your own position

The most frequent errors are simple ones. People use the wrong form for their status, leave out the service number or National Insurance number, or request a forecast against a leaving date they have not really settled on, then puzzle over figures that do not match their plan. Another classic is leaving the request too late, so the figures arrive with no time to question them or take advice. Slow down at the form stage and you save weeks at the back end.

To check your own position before or after a forecast, start with the basics. Confirm which scheme or schemes you are in, count your reckonable or qualifying service honestly, and note that you need two years of qualifying service to earn a pension at all. If you served across the remedy period, expect a McCloud element, and read any Remediable Service Statement alongside your forecast rather than in isolation, because the two answer different questions.

When the forecast arrives, sanity-check it against the scheme rules. An AFPS 75 pension should not exceed 48.5% of pay, an AFPS 05 pension caps around 57%, and AFPS 15 carries no automatic lump sum, so any lump sum there is the result of commutation. If a number looks wrong against those guardrails, ask Veterans UK to explain it. Our free calculator is a handy second opinion for that ballpark sense check, though it never replaces the official figure.

Tax treatment and how a forecast differs from other routes

Tax matters because not every line on a forecast is treated the same way. The automatic lump sums under AFPS 75 and AFPS 05, the lump sum you create by commuting AFPS 15 pension, and the EDP lump sum are all paid tax-free. The pension income itself is taxable as income, as is the EDP monthly income that bridges an early leaver through to pension age. A forecast shows you the gross figures, so knowing which parts are tax-free and which are taxable is what lets you plan your real, in-the-pocket position.

A forecast is also distinct from the other official routes, and it helps to keep them separate. JPAC handles serving members' pay and personnel admin through JPA, but it does not issue your pension figures. Veterans UK administers the schemes and produces the forecast from form 12 or form 14. The scheme paying agent deals with a pension once it is actually in payment. And a Remediable Service Statement, rather than a standard forecast, is the document that frames your McCloud choice between legacy and AFPS 15 for the 2015 to 2022 period.

Two boundaries are worth stating plainly. This site is independent and not affiliated with the MOD, Veterans UK or JPAC, and it provides estimates, not regulated financial advice. The only official forecast is the one from Veterans UK on the correct form. For decisions that turn real money, a commutation choice, an EDP versus staying-in comparison, a pension sharing order, take the forecast to a regulated financial adviser before you act.

Next steps

If a decision is coming, act now rather than later. Confirm your status, download form 12 if you are serving or form 14 if your pension is preserved, gather your service number and National Insurance number, and send the request to Veterans UK with plenty of time before any deadline. If McCloud applies to you, make sure you also understand your Remediable Service Statement, because that is where your legacy-versus-AFPS 15 choice lives.

While you wait for the official figures, use our free calculator for an instant estimate of your pension, lump sum and any EDP, so you can plan with a ballpark figure. When the forecast lands, read the assumptions first, sense-check the numbers against the scheme rules, and, for anything that commits real money, speak to a regulated adviser before you sign.