Armed Forces Pension Calculator for Veterans

Why the MOD calculator does not work once you have left

The MOD runs its own Armed Forces Pension Calculator, and most people who served have heard of it. It is no use to a veteran. Its own terms say it "provides projections only for those currently serving", and its front page says it is "designed to be used by serving Regular, MPGS and Reservist personnel". Once you have left, it cannot see your record.

gov.uk puts it plainly: if you are no longer serving, you need to ask for a preserved pension forecast on Form 14 instead. That forecast is the official figure, but it takes time to arrive, so this calculator gives you an independent estimate in the meantime. Our page on the MOD's online pension calculator covers who the official tool is for and what to do when it will not load.

Estimate your preserved pension

A preserved pension is worked out on the day you leave, from three things: your scheme, your pensionable pay at that date and your reckonable service. It then waits until your scheme's pension age. So the inputs that matter are the ones from the day you left, not what the same rank earns now.

• Scheme. AFPS 75 if you joined before 6 April 2005, AFPS 05 if you joined from then until 31 March 2015, AFPS 15 for service from 1 April 2015.
• Pay. Your final pensionable pay when you left. On AFPS 15, use your pay in your last year, because each year's pension is kept broadly in line with earnings while you serve.
• Service and age. The years of reckonable service you finished, and your age on the day you left.

The result is your pension at the date you left. It has not stood still since. A preserved pension is increased every April in line with the Consumer Prices Index, the same increase paid on pensions already in payment. The last three were 6.7% in 2024, 1.7% in 2025 and 3.8% in 2026, so a pension that has been through all three full increases is about 12.6% higher than it started. The pension increase calculator applies the 2026 increase to any figure.

If your career crossed a scheme boundary, you hold a separate pension in each scheme, each worked out under its own rules and paid at its own age. Run the calculator once for each part.

When your preserved pension is paid

This is the detail veterans most often get wrong, because each scheme has two ages. The Normal Pension Age is when someone still serving gets an immediate pension. The preserved pension age, which is the one that applies to you once you have left, is later.

AFPS 05 and AFPS 15 preserved pensions can be taken from 55, but they are then reduced permanently to reflect the extra years of payment. An AFPS 75 pension can be paid in two stages at two different ages, because the split falls on 6 April 2006 rather than on a scheme rule.

From 6 April 2028 the minimum age for most private and workplace pensions rises to 57. Armed forces schemes are exempt, so an AFPS pension can still be drawn from 55. A civilian pension you built after leaving will usually be locked until 57, which matters if you plan to draw both at once.

How to claim: Form 8

A preserved pension is not paid automatically. gov.uk says preserved benefits "are not paid automatically and have to be claimed", and the claim is AFPS Form 8, sent to Veterans UK by post. If Veterans UK has an address for you from decades ago, nobody will chase you.

The scale of the problem is real. Answering a written question in September 2026, the MOD said there were 17,018 unclaimed armed forces pensions in 2025-26. If you think one of them could be yours, our page on unclaimed armed forces pensions explains how to check.

Form 8 also has a route for early payment on ill-health grounds, for someone whose health stops them working before pension age. Our guide to AFPS Form 8 covers the form itself. Once the pension starts, it is paid by Equiniti Paymaster, which handles payments, tax codes and bank details for pensions in payment.

Getting an official figure: Form 14

The official forecast for someone who has left is AFPS Form 14. Since 18 May 2026 it can be requested online through gov.uk's digital form as well as on paper. The service says members "can get a free forecast of their deferred benefits every 12 months". Further requests in the same year cost £90 (£75 plus VAT).

If you were serving on or before 31 March 2012 and still serving on or after 1 April 2015, the forecast includes your legacy scheme benefits, and the official comparison of your McCloud remedy options comes in a Remediable Service Statement instead. Deferred members can ask for one free statement a year. Our Form 14 guide covers the request in detail.

If your pension is already being paid, a forecast comes from Equiniti Paymaster rather than Veterans UK. For anything else about a pension not yet in payment, the JPAC Enquiry Centre is on 0800 085 3600, or +44 141 224 3600 from overseas.

What a preserved pension is worth: worked examples

Three illustrations show the shape of the answer. They use round figures, not anyone's record.

The AFPS 05 figure is £40,000 times 12 divided by 70. The AFPS 15 figure is £35,000 times 8 divided by 47, using final pay as a stand-in for the revalued career average. AFPS 15 pays no automatic lump sum, so tax-free cash comes from giving up pension at the fixed rate of £12 for each £1 of yearly pension, up to 25%.

AFPS 75 is the exception. It builds a pension from the representative rate of pay for your rank, faster before the Immediate Pension point than any flat yearly rate implies, so multiplying years by a single fraction gives the wrong answer. Use the calculator as a rough guide and treat the Form 14 forecast as the real figure.

Very short service, and very small pensions

Since 6 April 1988 a pension vests after two years' paid service. Under two years there is no preserved pension, but the position is not nil: you may have a right to a cash transfer sum, which our guide to the armed forces pension cash transfer sum explains.

At the other end, a very small preserved pension can sometimes be cashed in whole. The limits are tight, and most people with more than two or three years' service are over them. The armed forces pension trivial commutation page has a checker.