Agency-Specific Planning

FERS Retirement Planning by Federal Agency

Every agency has its quirks: how it handles military service credit, which buyout authorities apply, whether special provisions cover your job series. Pick your agency to see how PlanWell helps.

Agencies we work with

Department of Defense

750,000+ civilian employees

With 750,000+ civilian employees across every state and 80+ countries, DoD is the largest civilian employer in the federal government. The rules are the same FE...

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Department of Veterans Affairs

400,000+ civilian employees

The VA is the largest healthcare employer in the federal government, with over 400,000 civilian employees across 1,200 facilities nationwide. Your retirement pi...

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Department of Homeland Security

250,000+ employees across all components

DHS is a patchwork of components, each with its own mission, pay structure, and retirement considerations. Whether you are a CBP officer with special provisions...

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U.S. Postal Service

~530,000 career employees (640,000+ total workforce including non-career)

USPS is one of the most complex retirement environments in the federal workforce. With approximately 530,000 career employees (and 640,000+ total workforce incl...

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Internal Revenue Service

90,000+ employees (Treasury Department)

IRS employees spend their careers helping enforce the tax code, which makes it quietly ironic that many of them have not optimized the tax treatment of their ow...

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Department of Justice

115,000+ employees across all components

DOJ has the most concentrated population of law enforcement special-provision employees in the federal government. FBI agents, DEA investigators, ATF special ag...

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Department of State

75,000+ civil service and Foreign Service employees

The State Department has two distinct retirement systems running simultaneously: FERS for civil service employees and the Foreign Service Pension System (FSPS) ...

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National Aeronautics and Space Administration

18,000+ civil service employees

NASA civil servants are among the most credentialed and well-paid employees in the federal government. Aerospace engineers, physicists, and research scientists ...

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Department of Health and Human Services

80,000+ employees across all operating divisions

HHS spans CDC, NIH, FDA, CMS, HRSA, SAMHSA, and more, and its workforce ranges from epidemiologists with NIH salaries north of $200,000 to benefits examiners pr...

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Social Security Administration

60,000+ employees nationwide

SSA employees spend their careers explaining Social Security benefits to the public, which creates a specific paradox: most of them understand Social Security b...

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Environmental Protection Agency

15,000+ employees across headquarters and regional offices

EPA has a highly educated workforce with deep institutional knowledge, and its employees tend to stay long. The average EPA tenure is among the highest across m...

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Department of Energy

15,000 federal employees and 90,000+ contractor M&O employees

The Department of Energy has a small federal workforce and a massive contractor workforce. If you are a federal employee at DOE, you are in FERS with the same r...

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Department of Agriculture

100,000+ employees across agencies and field offices

USDA is one of the most geographically dispersed agencies in the federal government, with employees in almost every county in the country. Food Safety and Inspe...

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Department of Commerce

50,000+ employees across bureaus

Commerce is a more varied agency than its size suggests. NOAA meteorologists and oceanographers, Census Bureau statisticians who surge once a decade for the dec...

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Department of the Interior

70,000+ employees across bureaus

The Department of the Interior manages more public land than any other agency in the federal government, and its employees often work in locations so remote tha...

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Do not see your agency? FERS rules are the same across the civilian federal government. Attend a free workshop and bring your questions.

Free 3-hour FERS workshop

Whatever your agency, the retirement math is the same. Come learn it.