Retirement benefits

Follow this link to the quick guide to calculating DFRDB retirement benefits

If you retire on non-medical grounds and have 20 or more years of effective service, or have 15 or more years of effective service and have reached your statutory retiring age, you are entitled to retirement pay and there is an option to commute part of your future retirement pay to a lump sum.

Retirement pay becomes effective on the day after the date of your discharge from the Defence Force, and it will be paid to you fortnightly for the rest of your life, unless you re-enter the Defence Force.

Calculation of retirement pay

Your benefit is worked out as a percentage of your salary when you retire. The two factors which are used to work out your retirement pay are your annual rate of pay and your completed years of effective service.

Your rate of pay, for Scheme purposes, is the maximum rate of pay which applies to your rank and pay level, including any recognised environmental allowance.

Effective service is the total of your continuous full-time contributory service, plus any periods of past service you may have bought back. You can find out how much effective service you have by looking at your most recent annual Member statement and then adding the effective service that you have accumulated since the date of that statement.

The following table shows the amount of retirement pay that you can expect to receive, depending on your annual rate of pay and your completed years of effective service. You can use the table and the following example, to estimate how much retirement pay you will be entitled to when you leave the Defence Force.

To estimate your potential retirement benefit you can also use the i-Estimator. You will need your access number to use this service.

Retirement pay as a percentage of annual salary
Years of service	Percentage
20	35.00
21	36.50
22	38.00
23	39.50
24	41.00
25	42.50
26	44.00
27	45.75
28	47.50
29	49.25
30	51.25
31	53.25
32	55.50
33	57.75
34	60.25
35	62.75
36	65.75
37	67.75
38	70.50
39	73.50
40 (or more)	76.50

Forms and Fact Sheets

D20 Application for DFRDB Retirement Pay, Commutation and Superannuation Productivity (PDF 612KB)

PDFs can be viewed and printed using the FREE Adobe Acrobat Reader.