I The two loans
| General purpose | Primary residence | |
|---|---|---|
| Used for | Anything — no documentation | Buying a primary home |
| Repayment | 1–5 years | Up to 15 years |
| Fee | $50 | $100 |
You may borrow $1,000 to $50,000, limited to half your vested balance and to your own contributions plus their earnings. One of each type at a time, with a 60-day wait after paying one off before taking another of the same kind.
The rate is the G Fund rate for the month before you request the loan, and it is fixed for the life of the loan. The interest you pay lands in your own account, not with a lender.
That is the strongest argument for a loan over a withdrawal, and it is why the real cost of a TSP loan is the growth you forgo on the borrowed balance rather than the interest itself.
Repayment runs through payroll deduction while you are in federal service. Which sounds unremarkable until you leave.
II What separation does
The loan survives your separation. The payroll deduction does not.
The sequence
Miss the TSP’s deadline and the outstanding balance plus accrued interest becomes taxable income. That is foreclosure.
An active employee with a taxed loan can still repay it. A separated participant cannot repay a foreclosed loan. Once declared, that money is permanently out of your retirement account — you cannot restore it later when your finances recover.
If you are under age 55 in the year of foreclosure, add the 10 percent early withdrawal penalty on top of income tax. Rolling the amount into an IRA before the filing deadline for the year of separation can avoid the tax.
So the practical rule: before your last day, check the outstanding balance and decide how it gets paid. This belongs on the same checklist as changing agencies and any separation.
III Furlough and nonpay
Two rules that matter whenever pay stops — a lapse in appropriations, extended LWOP, a suspension.
| Situation | Rule |
|---|---|
| New loan while in nonpay status | Not permitted |
| Existing loan | Deductions auto-suspend up to 1 year |
| Nonpay for military service | No one-year limit — until you return |
The first line is why a TSP loan is a weaker bridge during a shutdown than people assume: by the time you need it, you are already in nonpay status and cannot take one. The time to arrange a loan is before the pay stops, not after.
The suspension is automatic once your agency reports the status change — but interest continues to accrue, so a suspended loan is a deferred cost rather than a free pause.
IV Hardship withdrawals
A financial hardship withdrawal permanently removes money from your account. It is taxed as ordinary income in the year you take it, plus a 10 percent penalty if you are under 59½.
A hardship withdrawal does not suspend your contributions or your agency match. That six-month suspension rule was eliminated by the TSP Modernization Act in September 2019, and people are still repeating it.
You do have to wait six months before taking another hardship withdrawal.
The qualifying categories are specific, not general — recurring negative monthly cash flow, unpaid medical expenses not covered by insurance, personal casualty losses, legal expenses for separation or divorce, and certain extraordinary expenses. A signed affidavit explaining the reason is required.
Needing money urgently is not itself a category.
V Which one, and when
For anyone who qualifies for both and can borrow enough to cover the need, a loan almost always costs less.
| Loan | Hardship | |
|---|---|---|
| The money | Goes back | Gone |
| Tax now | None | Ordinary income |
| Interest | To your account | n/a |
When a hardship withdrawal is the right call
Outside those, the withdrawal is the more expensive way to get the same cash.
Worth knowing how common both have become. FERS loan usage rose every year from 2022 to 9.5 percent of participants in 2025, the highest on record, with hardship withdrawals at 4.9 percent. During the 2025 shutdown, hardship withdrawal initiations rose 77.5 percent year on year — against roughly 50 percent for loans.
That gap is the wrong way round. The people hit hardest by a pay interruption reached for the more expensive instrument, largely because the cheaper one was closed to them the moment nonpay status began.
What separation does to an outstanding loan
One branch is reversible. One is not.
Before you borrow, and before you leave
- Check whether a loan covers the need before considering a withdrawal.
- Understand the real cost is forgone growth, not the interest.
- If a pay interruption looks likely, arrange any loan before it starts.
- Know that you cannot take a new loan once in nonpay status.
- Before your last federal day, check any outstanding loan balance.
- Decide how it gets paid once payroll deduction stops.
- Understand a foreclosed balance can never be repaid.
- If foreclosure happens, ask about an IRA rollover before the filing deadline.
Questions
The loan does not disappear, but payroll deduction stops and it becomes your responsibility to send payments by check, money order or direct debit. The terms themselves do not change, so the rate and the payoff date stay the same. If you neither pay the loan off nor begin making payments by the deadline the TSP sets, the outstanding balance and accrued interest are treated as taxable income. That is called foreclosure, and it is the point of no return.
No, and this is the detail that matters most. Unlike an active federal employee with a taxed loan, a separated participant may not repay a TSP loan balance once it has been foreclosed. The money is permanently out of your retirement account. You cannot put it back later when your finances recover, which makes the deadline after separation one of the few genuinely irreversible moments in the whole system.
A general purpose loan, which can be used for anything with no documentation or explanation required, repayable over roughly one to five years with a one-time fee of fifty dollars. And a primary residence loan for buying a home, repayable over up to fifteen years with a one-time fee of one hundred dollars. You may only have one of each type outstanding at a time, and you must wait sixty days after paying one off before requesting another of the same type.
Between one thousand dollars and fifty thousand, limited to half your vested account balance, and limited to your own contributions and the earnings on them. The interest rate is the G Fund rate for the month before you request the loan and it stays fixed for the life of the loan. Crucially, that interest is paid back into your own account rather than to a lender, which is the main argument for a loan over a withdrawal.
You cannot take out a new loan while in nonpay status, which is why a loan is a weaker bridge during a lapse in appropriations than people expect. For an existing loan, the TSP automatically suspends your payroll deductions for up to one year once your agency reports the change in status. Where the nonpay status is because you are performing military service, the one-year limit does not apply and the suspension continues until you return to civilian pay status.
No, not any more, and this is a widely repeated myth worth killing. The six-month suspension of contributions that used to follow a financial hardship withdrawal was eliminated by the TSP Modernization Act in September 2019. Your contributions and your agency match continue. You do, however, have to wait six months before taking another hardship withdrawal.
For anyone who qualifies for both and can borrow enough to cover the need, a loan almost always costs less. A hardship withdrawal is gone permanently, taxed as ordinary income in the year you take it, and subject to a ten percent early withdrawal penalty if you are under fifty-nine and a half. A loan puts the same money back where it started with interest that lands in your own account. The hardship withdrawal makes sense mainly when you already have the maximum loans outstanding, cannot afford the repayments, or the need exceeds the fifty thousand dollar loan cap.
Recurring negative monthly cash flow, medical expenses you have not paid and are not covered by insurance, personal casualty losses, legal expenses for separation or divorce, and certain extraordinary expenses set out in the TSP booklet. A signed affidavit explaining the reason is required. Note that the categories are specific rather than general: needing money urgently is not by itself one of them.