November Sees Rise in Federal Retirement Claims

While the digital processing times were still over a month, the pace has picked up considerably, having been reduced by nearly 16% in just one month. The figures indicate that the shift towards digital retirement claims is happening pretty quickly thus far. With the release of the November retirement figures, the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) has begun publishing new data which show a breakout of the digital retirement claims that are now coming in a result of the new Online Retirement Application (ORA) that launched over the summer. The Retirement Quick Guide can also provide you with information about the overall retirement application process when you retire from Federal service.

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Effective July 15, 2025, OPM would facilitate applications through OPM’s Online Retirement Application (ORA) and no longer accept paper submissions.\u00a0 Tom Hanks, playing Jim Lovell in Apollo 13, used this\u00a0modified version of the astronaut’s famous quote, \”Houston, we have a problem!\” I wonder if these words have been spoken at the Office of Personnel Management’s Retirement Operations Center in Boyers, Pa., where an astounding 43,737 applications arrived by mail, FedEx or electronic ORA system from federal agencies across the country and around the world during October and November. As 2025 is winding down and many federal employees are in the transition period between federal employment and retirement. During the processing time at OPM, retirees receive interim payments of a rough estimate of their benefits due, although time is required to begin them, as well. Also, the average processing time figures at OPM do not reflect that in some cases the wait for new retirees can be much longer.

OPM Retirement Processing Status: November 2025

• OPM officials however say they are working as fast as they can, and say digital is helping.
• Legacy systems, with outdated technology and cumbersome procedures, have delayed retirements and frustrated employees who have dedicated their careers to public service.
• Of the 23,393 claims received in November, roughly ⅓ or 7,833 were digital, and 15,560 were paper.
• The agency’s “steady state goal” of pending applications is 13,000.
• According to the new data, OPM received 6,176 new digital claims in October and 7,833 in November.

In addition, many of these applications are still being sent in on paper, despite OPM saying it would no longer accept paper submissions earlier this year. OPM currently has about 48,396 applications awaiting final processing, compared to just 13,844 at the end of November 2024. Federal retirees are facing delays in retirement processing as the backlog swells to end 2025, triple the amount from last year.

• It topped 60,000 that year, so while it is not at an all time high, it is still a standout to be sure.
• Reach out to a Federal Retirement Consultant (FRC®) who understands your unique benefits.
• For those and all future applications, any newly created paper retirement packages would not be accepted and would be sent back to the agency for digital resubmission.
• Before reaching OPM, applications pass through agency personnel and payroll office review, lasting from as little as about a week to a month or more.
• At the end of November 2025, OPM had an inventory of 48,396 retirement applications (both paper and digital) awaiting final processing.

Find our current processing times for the retirement and survivor benefit types listed below. OPM Director Scott Kupor posted on X that those employees left on their own volition and “received severance of up to 8 months as a result of new programs that the government put in place to help ease the transition.” Digital processing times were much faster, averaging 38 days in November. In November, just 7,833 of the nearly 24,000 total claims received were submitted digitally via its Online Retirement Application (ORA).

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While the backlog continues to grow, Retirement Services (RS) processed 4,363 of the digital claims received and 4,344 of the paper applications. The average time to process digital applications was 38 days in comparison to 94 days for paper applications. OPM’s Retirement Services recently conducted an analysis on the most common errors in submitted retirement applications from federal employees. The backlog of processing retirement applications at the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) has been a challenge for the agency for many years.

This gives us confidence as we prepare for retirement activities in 2025 and into 2026.” “Despite record high retirement volumes this year, ORA is performing well. OPM officials however say they are working as fast as they can, and say digital is helping.

If there is some reprieve in the incoming claims and OPM can get some of the backlog reduced, particularly if the pace of processing digital applications continues to increase, that will certainly help to manage what could be an even busier January than usual. When the ORA system was launched, OPM said that it would only accept digital retirement applications in the future, so as of July 15, 2025, OPM has only been accepting digital applications. The introduction of the Online Retirement Application (ORA) was intended to streamline the antiquated method of manual processing of federal retirement claims. As the fallout from the Deferred Resignation Program and the uncertainty surrounding the federal workforce continue to play out, OPM received 23,393 federal retirement claims in November. During the same two months of 2024, OPM received 13,680 applications for processing.

Digital Claims from the Online Retirement Application

Over the course of your federal career, you’re likely to build a healthy balance in your Thrift Savings Plan. Reach out to a Federal Retirement Consultant (FRC®) who understands your unique benefits. Not sure if you’re retirement ready? The most common mistakes include incomplete personal identification details, incorrect marital status documentation, and discrepancies in federal service records. But some employees who took the DRP told GovExec that is not the case, saying they felt they had no choice because they thought their unit was going to be shut and their job eliminated. Meanwhile, OPM says that 92 percent of the 317,000 departures in the federal workforce so far in 2025 were voluntary.

Federal Employees Sick Leave Calculations

Authorities meanwhile admitted at the press conference that they are still working on nailing down key details in the case — including the victims’ time of death and even potentially finding the murder weapon. Even if prosecutors pursue the death penalty, Gov. Gavin Newsom ​has had a moratorium ​in place halting all executions in the Golden State ​since March 2019. “Prosecuting these cases involving family members are some of the most challenging and heart-wrenching cases that this office faces because of the intimate and often brutal nature of the crimes involved,” he said during a Tuesday afternoon press conference. For example, if your case involves a court order, special computation, workers’ compensation, missing documentation, or is a deferred or postponed application it may take longer to process. The federal government employs a unique system for calculating work hours and unused sick leave.

Retirement Processing Times

In both months, OPM processed about 8,700 claims, with processing of claims from the portal—which is in growing, but not universal, use across agencies—accounting for about 4,400 of those, compared with the 1,700 of October. According to the new data, OPM received 6,176 new digital claims in October and 7,833 in November. By harnessing modern technology and inter-agency collaboration, OPM has been working to deliver a retirement process that is fast, user-friendly, and responsive to the needs of our employees.

Are you in favor of an additional Christmas holiday for federal employees this year? The latest unaltered retirement processing statistics from OPM are included below. The total claims backlog saw a 46.9% increase over the end of September. The number of digital claims processed more than doubled from October to November. Most of the figures in the table below are from OPM’s latest retirement processing statistics from November 2025. Legacy systems, with outdated technology and cumbersome procedures, have delayed retirements and frustrated employees who have dedicated their careers to public service.

OPM’s statistics indicate that about 26% of all retirement applications come in the first six weeks of the year. OPM experiences its largest surges in retirement applications in January and beaxy review February each year. The monthly average processing time for August decreased to 64 days, down from 74 days a year ago. For those and all future applications, any newly created paper retirement packages would not be accepted and would be sent back to the agency for digital resubmission. A May 7, 2025, memo from then-Acting Director of OPM Charles Ezell declared that effective June 2, 2025, all new retirement applications started on that date or later, along with any supporting documents, must be submitted electronically.

Separately, there always is a surge of retirements around the turn of the year for reasons including maximizing payments for unused annual leave; those applications typically are mostly reflected in data covering applications received by OPM in January and February. Before reaching OPM, applications pass through agency personnel and payroll office review, lasting from as little as about a week to a month or more. The monthly numbers reflect applications received by OPM, not those who retired in that month. The 7,800 that came through the portal was up from about 6,200 in October and the average processing time for them was 38 days, compared with 45 in October.

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The number of applications, the backlog and the average processing time have been increasing in recent months, largely reflecting those who retired at the end of deferred resignation periods—which in general ended September 30, although some were later. On average thus far, OPM has received 7,005 digital retirement claims per month and processed 3,025. OPM said that the processing times for paper claims are nearly 3 times longer than digital; it took 38 days on average in November to process digital claims versus 94 for paper. The Office of Personnel Management (OPM) received nearly 44,000 retirement applications at its retirement operations center in Pennsylvania in October and November 2025. At the end of November 2024, OPM had an inventory of 13,844 retirement applications waiting for final processing. In contrast, the average processing time for paper claims was 94 days.

Currently, the backlog stands at 13,835 digital applications and 34,561 paper versions for a total inventory of 48,396 federal retirement applications awaiting processing. The inventory of retirement applications pending at OPM grew in November to about 49,400 from the 34,600 in October, although the average processing time there decreased from 79 to 73 days, as use of the online portal OPM launched in the summer is starting to show some impact. Mistakes or missing information in federal retirement applications can significantly delay processing, postponing your access to full benefits. At the end of November 2025, OPM had an inventory of 48,396 retirement applications (both paper and digital) awaiting final processing.

Overwhelmed by navigating the complex process of federal retirement? Though the deadline for the DRP was September 30, employees who would become retirement eligible by the end of the year were given an extension. This is due to a confluence of factors, including the thousands of workers exiting the federal government due to the Deferred Resignation Program (DRP) and other reasons, and a switch to an online retirement system. The agency’s “steady state goal” of pending applications is 13,000. OPM\u2019s retirement backlog skyrockets as deferred resignees begin offboarding Retiree applications pile up as year-end approaches