I The four dates
An SCD is a computed date, not your hire date. Creditable service is added up and projected backwards from your current appointment. Because each benefit credits a different set of service, you end up with four.
| SCD | Governs |
|---|---|
| Leave | Annual leave accrual tier — 4, 6 or 8 hours a pay period |
| Retirement | Eligibility and annuity computation |
| RIF | Position on a retention register |
| TSP | Vesting of the agency automatic contribution |
Block 31 of your SF-50 generally shows the leave SCD. Not retirement. Not RIF. Reading block 31 as your retirement date is the single most common and most expensive error on this subject — and nothing on the form tells you it isn’t.
One more divergence worth knowing immediately: the TSP SCD does not include prior military service, where the leave and retirement dates generally do. Verify it directly rather than assuming.
II The part-time trap
Part-time service is prorated for retirement and not prorated for leave.
Four years at half time
For retirement: two years of creditable service — for eligibility and for the annuity computation.
Same four years. The two dates are now two years apart, and they stay apart for the rest of your career.
Anyone who has worked a part-time schedule, at any point, should assume their dates have diverged and check both. The gap does not announce itself — it simply appears at retirement as a date you were not expecting.
III Comparing your dates
How Far Apart Are Yours?
A rough comparison, not an official determination. Your agency computes the real ones.
IV Credit that can be taken back
Under 5 CFR 630.205, a newly appointed or reappointed employee may receive leave-accrual credit for prior non-federal work or active duty uniformed service that would not otherwise count.
If you separate or transfer to another agency before completing one full year of continuous service with the appointing agency, that credit must be subtracted and a new leave SCD established.
Two exceptions: separation to perform service in the uniformed services with a later return through a reemployment right, and separation due to an on-the-job injury with entitlement to injury compensation, followed by recovery and return.
So negotiating this credit at hire is worth doing — and then staying past the first anniversary is worth doing too. Moving agencies at eleven months quietly undoes it.
V Why the RIF date is fiction
The RIF SCD carries additional years of credit based on your ratings of record. Under the rules in effect from August 2026, credit comes from your three most recent ratings within a four-year lookback, at 7, 5, 3 or 0 years each — so 21 years is the ceiling.
They exist for retention competition only. They do not become federal service. They do not make you eligible to retire sooner. They do not increase a FERS or CSRS annuity by a single dollar.
Someone with 21 years of performance credit can outrank a colleague with a decade more actual service on the register — and retire on exactly the same date they would have anyway. See RIF retention standing.
VI Auditing yours
The point to do this is years before retirement, not when the application reaches OPM. Discovering a gap at that stage delays processing and often surfaces further problems.
Start with your agency human resources or benefits office and bring the records. What to gather:
| Record | What it establishes |
|---|---|
| Every SF-50 you hold | Appointments, transfers, separations, and block 31 |
| DD-214s and deposit records | Military service and whether it was bought back |
| Periods with no retirement deductions | Service needing a deposit to count |
| Any refund of CSRS or FERS deductions | Service that may need a redeposit |
| Extended LWOP or nonpay status | Periods that may not be fully creditable |
Correcting one is a personnel action, not a memo. Your agency processes nature of action code 882 — Change in SCD, showing the revised date in block 31 of a new SF-50 with the appropriate remark codes. If you are told it has been fixed, ask for the SF-50.
Breaks in service, refunded contributions and long LWOP are the three things most likely to produce a wrong date — see deposits and redeposits and military buyback.
Before you rely on any of these dates
- Find block 31 on your latest SF-50 and note it is the leave date.
- Ask your benefits office for the retirement SCD in writing.
- Ask for the TSP vesting date separately — it excludes military service.
- If you have ever worked part-time, assume leave and retirement have diverged.
- Gather every SF-50, DD-214 and deposit record you hold.
- Identify any period without retirement deductions withheld.
- Check whether you ever took a refund of contributions.
- If a date is corrected, ask for the NOA 882 SF-50 as proof.
Questions
Up to four, each governing a different benefit: the leave SCD for annual leave accrual, the retirement SCD for eligibility and annuity computation, the RIF SCD for retention standing, and the TSP SCD for vesting of agency automatic contributions. They are built from different sets of creditable service, so the same career can produce four different dates. Only one of them, the leave SCD, normally appears on your SF-50.
Block 31 generally shows the leave service computation date, which is the one that determines whether you accrue four, six or eight hours of annual leave a pay period. It is not your retirement date and it is not your RIF date, and reading it as either is a common and expensive mistake. If you want the others you have to ask your agency benefits office for them specifically.
Because the two dates measure different things. Part-time service is prorated for the retirement SCD but not for the leave SCD. Four years on a fifty percent schedule counts as four calendar years for leave accrual, moving you through the accrual tiers at the ordinary rate, but only two years of creditable service for retirement eligibility and annuity computation. Anyone who has worked part-time should assume their two dates have diverged and check both.
Because prior creditable service is added back and the date is projected backwards from your current appointment. Earlier federal service, creditable military service and in some cases prior non-federal experience credited under 5 CFR 630.205 all move it earlier. This matters most around the three-year and fifteen-year accrual thresholds, where employees who believe they are in the four-hour tier are sometimes already in the six-hour one.
Yes. Where an employee separates from federal service or transfers to another agency before completing one full year of continuous service with the appointing agency, credit granted under 5 CFR 630.205 must be subtracted from total creditable service and a new leave SCD established. There are exceptions, including separation to perform service in the uniformed services with a later return through a reemployment right, and separation because of an on-the-job injury with a later recovery and return.
It is the date used to position you on a retention register, and it carries additional credit based on your performance ratings of record. Those additional years exist for retention competition only. They do not become federal service, they do not make you eligible to retire any sooner, and they do not increase a FERS or CSRS annuity. Someone with substantial performance credit can rank well above a longer-serving colleague on the register while having exactly the same retirement date as before.
No, and this is the one most people get wrong. Unlike the leave and retirement dates, the TSP service computation date does not include prior military service. It marks the point from which you begin fulfilling the vesting period for the agency automatic contribution. Verify it directly rather than assuming the leave or retirement date controls, because they frequently do not agree.
Your agency processes a personnel action to change it — nature of action code 882, Change in SCD — showing the revised date in block 31 of a new SF-50, with the appropriate remark codes. Start with your agency human resources or benefits office and bring the underlying records rather than waiting until a retirement application reaches OPM, because discovering the problem at that point delays processing and may surface further gaps.