Guide · updated 2026-07-30
Your SF-50, Decoded — The Boxes That Decide Your Federal Retirement
The SF-50 Notification of Personnel Action is the document your FERS retirement is built from. A box-by-box tour of the fields that matter for your money: retirement coverage code, service computation date, pay plan and step, and locality — and how to spot errors early.
Why this form runs your retirement
Every hire, promotion, within-grade increase, and separation generates an SF-50 in your eOPF. At retirement, OPM reconstructs your career — creditable service, high-3, coverage — from these forms. An error that sits uncorrected for a decade is far harder to fix at 61 than at 31.
Box 30: retirement plan code
The one-letter code in box 30 says which retirement system covers you — K/KR-type codes for FERS and its variants (FERS-RAE and FERS-FRAE carry different employee contribution rates but the same benefit formula). A wrong code here is the classic source of retirement-coverage corrections.
Service computation date (box 31)
Your SCD-Leave shown here drives leave accrual, but note it is not always your retirement SCD — bought-back military time and certain temporary service affect the retirement computation date separately. If you made a military deposit, confirm your records show it.
Pay plan, grade, step, and locality (boxes 4–12, 39)
These boxes carry the salary history your high-3 will one day be computed from: pay plan (GS or otherwise), grade, step, basic pay, and duty station (which sets locality). Cross-check the salary against the official pay table for that grade, step, and locality year.
Keep your own file
Download your eOPF periodically and keep every SF-50 from every agency. OPM's retirement processing is document-driven; retirees with complete records get adjudicated faster and argue corrections from evidence, not memory.
Official sources for this guide
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