An uncharacteristic massive influx of retirement applications caused the OPM retirement backlog to grow sharply last month.
The Office of Personnel Management (OPM) received 15,048 retirement claims in May. This caused the outstanding backlog to grow to 21,483, a 33% increase over the end of April when it was 16,173. It is now at the second-highest level so far this year, second only to January which is typically the busiest month of the year.
OPM processed 9,739 claims during May, also higher than what you would typically see for this time of year. It took 49 days on average to process claims.
The table below shows how May 2025 compares to the last few years. None of the years since 2020 even come close to the number of incoming retirement applications from this year.
| Received | Processed | Inventory | |
|---|---|---|---|
| May 2025 | 15,048 | 9,739 | 21,483 |
| May 2024 | 6,751 | 8,793 | 14,035 |
| May 2023 | 6,096 | 8,355 | 18,125 |
| May 2022 | 7,673 | 10,266 | 15,532 |
| May 2021 | 7,684 | 8,451 | 24,619 |
| May 2020 | 6,648 | 8,360 | 18,177 |
| Average | 8,317 | 8,994 | 18,662 |
So why this unusual mid-year surge?
My guess is it stems from the federal government’s efforts to reduce the size of the federal workforce. Agencies have been conducting VERAs (voluntary early retirement authority) and the deferred resignation buyout offers, and OPM confirmed that VERAs are one of a number of factors that impact the retirement numbers. The recent downsizing efforts can lead to a situation where the OPM retirement backlog is likely to grow quickly as federal employees retire.
OPM’s Retirement Processing Modernization Effort
The OPM retirement backlog has been a persistent reminder of how the federal government is often slow to modernize its systems since it has continued processing paper retirement applications by hand in the Internet era, but the days of federal employees waiting for months to get their retirement applications processed and the agency struggling with a backlog of tens of thousands of paper retirement applications may soon become a distant memory.
OPM announced on June 3 that it had launched a new Electronic Official Personnel Folder (eOPF) platform and completed the migration of more than 400 million files and over five million user accounts to the new system.
It said that the new system replaces the legacy Official Personnel Folder (OPF) system that was decommissioned at the end of May. Some of the enhanced new features include:
- Files can be viewed directly in the platform without downloading PDFs
- A cleaner, more intuitive interface for seamless access to personnel records
- Streamlined options for printing and downloading documents
OPM had announced recently in a memo to agency heads that it was rolling out a new online-only retirement processing system governmentwide beginning Monday, June 2. All retirement applications for federal employees must now be submitted electronically using the new system, and OPM said that for these and all future applications, any newly created paper retirement packages will not be accepted and will be returned to the agency for digital resubmission.
Effective July 15, 2025, OPM will facilitate retirement applications through its Online Retirement Application (ORA) and no longer accept paper submissions.
An article published last month in Fast Company said that much of OPM’s new digital retirement processing system was developed under the Biden administration even though the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) team has been taking credit for it.
According to the article, the ORA pilot was launched in 2023, and there are concerns that it may not be ready for use governmentwide yet. The article added, however, that DOGE brought in its own development team to the project to speed up development and that it “has kept its version of the ORA system largely under wraps.”
I tend to be skeptical of articles that cite anonymous sources for information, but I think there is validity to the point about the project starting earlier.
Federal News Network reported last year that OPM was conducting a pilot test of a new online retirement processing system it had been developing at several agencies. OPM’s chief information officer said in that interview that it was going to take “many years” for the agency to modernize the system but that it was using a “small bite” approach in which it didn’t try to solve all the current system’s problems in one fell swoop.
Regardless of who developed it, OPM obviously believes that the new system is ready for prime time since it put it into production this week. If it proves to be successful, it has the potential to greatly enhance and expedite the process for retiring federal employees and presumably would eliminate the retirement applications backlog that has plagued OPM for years.
OPM Retirement Processing Status: May 2025
| Month | Claims Received | Claims Processed | Inventory (Steady state goal is 13,000) | Monthly Average Processing Time in Days | FYTD Average Processing Time in Days |
| Oct-23 | 6,924 | 6,098 | 16,678 | 73 | 73 |
| Nov-23 | 5,207 | 6,059 | 15,826 | 66 | 69 |
| Dec-23 | 5,662 | 7,196 | 14,292 | 68 | 69 |
| Jan-24 | 12,997 | 6,467 | 20,822 | 66 | 68 |
| Feb-24 | 8,794 | 10,025 | 19,591 | 47 | 62 |
| Mar-24 | 7,943 | 10,711 | 16,823 | 55 | 61 |
| Apr-24 | 6,901 | 7,647 | 16,077 | 61 | 61 |
| May-24 | 6,751 | 8,793 | 14,035 | 60 | 61 |
| Jun-24 | 6,919 | 5,614 | 15,340 | 64 | 61 |
| Jul-24 | 6,451 | 5,994 | 15,797 | 65 | 61 |
| Aug-24 | 7,083 | 7,702 | 15,178 | 64 | 61 |
| Sep-24 | 5,618 | 6,302 | 14,494 | 63 | 62 |
| Oct-24 | 6,872 | 6,458 | 14,908 | 62 | 62 |
| Nov-24 | 6,808 | 7,872 | 13,844 | 55 | 58 |
| Dec-24 | 5,020 | 4,988 | 13,876 | 57 | 58 |
| Jan-25 | 16,101 | 6,700 | 23,277 | 64 | 60 |
| Feb-25 | 9,637 | 12,364 | 20,550 | 44 | 55 |
| Mar-25 | 7,803 | 11,559 | 16,794 | 50 | 54 |
| Apr-25 | 8,332 | 8,953 | 16,173 | 49 | 53 |
| *May-25 | 15,048 | 9,739 | 21,483 | 49 | 52 |
Disability determinations are included in the pending number after approval. Average Processing Time in Days represents the number of days starting when OPM receives the retirement application through final adjudication.
*Initial retirement cases produced in less than 60 days, on average took 30 days to complete; whereas cases that were produced in more than 60 days, on average, took 110 days to complete.
