DOE/Charter School employees whose TRS membership date is after February 27, 2008: As a participant in the Age 55 Retirement Program, you are initially required to contribute 4.85% of your gross pensionable compensation to the QPP.

If your membership date is after February 27, 2008 and before December 11, 2009, your QPP contributions would be reduced to 1.85% once you have attained 10 years of membership or credited service, and would continue until you have attained 27 years of Total Service Credit. If your membership date is after December 10, 2009, your QPP contributions would be reduced to 1.85% once you have attained 27 years of Total Service Credit, and would continue until you retire.

CUNY employees: You are required to contribute 3% of your gross pensionable compensation to the QPP until you have attained 10 years of membership or credited service.

DOE/Charter School employees who are participating in the Age 55 Retirement Program: If your membership date is before February 28, 2008, you are required to contribute 4.85% of your gross pensionable compensation to the QPP until you have attained 10 years of membership or credited service. Your QPP contributions would then be reduced to 1.85% and would generally continue until you have attained 25 years of Total Service Credit.

DOE/Charter School employees who did not "opt in" to the Age 55 Retirement Program: You are required to contribute 3% of your gross pensionable compensation to the QPP until you have attained 10 years of membership or credited service.

TRS determines a Certified Rate of Contribution for you based on factors such as your age and credited prior service. If you are a Tier II member participating in the Age 55 Retirement Program, you are also required to contribute 1.85% of your gross pensionable compensation to the QPP, generally until you have attained 25 years of Total Service Credit.

Your payability date is generally the date on which you become eligible to receive a retirement allowance. If you are eligible for immediate payment of a retirement allowance, your payability date would be the same as your effective retirement date. However, if the receipt of your retirement allowance is deferred, your payability date would be either a) the date that you are eligible to begin receiving retirement allowance payments, or b) a subsequent date that you designate for payments to begin.

You may generally file your retirement application no sooner than 90 days before your effective retirement date, and TRS must receive your application no later than 1 day before your effective retirement. However, if you are a Tier I or Tier II member who wants to retire under a deferred payability, it would be in your best interest to file your retirement application as soon as you leave service. Your initial payability date will be deferred until the date you would have received 25 years of service credit had you remained in service. Once TRS receives your retirement application, we will begin counting towards the 25-year service credit date. For example, a 62-year-old member leaves service after acquiring 20 years of service credit. Five more years must elapse before the member can begin receiving deferred retirement payments, but TRS does not begin counting down those five years until we receive that member's retirement application. If the member were to wait five years and then file an application, five additional years would have to elapse before the member can receive deferred retirement payments.

If you choose to retire earlier than normal retirement age, an age-reduction factor may be applied to your service retirement allowance, depending on your tier and retirement program.

Tier VI Members

The chart below shows the percentage of the full benefit that you may receive if you retire before age 63 with less than 30 years of Total Service Credit. Note: Under Chapter 58 of the Laws of 2026, effective April 1, 2026, age reductions would not apply to members who retire at age 58 (or later) with at least 30 years of Total Service Credit.

Tier II, III^, and IV Members

The chart below shows the percentage of the full benefit that you may receive if you retire before age 62 with less than 30 years of Total Service Credit. Age reductions would not apply to members who retire with at least 30 years of Total Service Credit. Note: Participants in the Age 55 Retirement Program who retire with at least 25 or 27 years of Total Service Credit (as applicable) would also not be subject to age reductions; for more information, please see the What is the Age 55 Retirement Program? FAQ above.

^Different age-reduction factors apply to retirements under Tier III. However, those factors are rarely used and not shown because Tier III members normally retire under Tier IV.

Tier I Members

Age reductions would not apply if you are at least age 55 at your payability date. You may retire before age 55 (with an age-reduction factor) if you have at least 30 years of Total Service Credit. The chart below shows the percentage of the full benefit that you would receive in this case:

No. TRS will not release your information to a third party.

Chapter 504 had broad effects on New York State public retirement systems. Individuals who became TRS members after December 10, 2009, but before April 1, 2012, are affected as follows:

• Members who are represented by the United Federation of Teachers (UFT) become vested after they have ten years of service credit. (Note: This provision was superseded by Chapter 56 of the Laws of 2022, which changed the vesting requirement to five years.)
• Members who participate in the Age 55 Retirement Program ("55/27" participants) will make pension contributions of 4.85% of gross pensionable compensation until they have 27 years of service credit, and contributions of 1.85% of gross pensionable compensation after reaching 27 years of service credit

In addition, Chapter 504 affected certain members regardless of their membership date: For all participants in the Tax-Deferred Annuity (TDA) Program who are serving in (or resigned/retired from) UFT-covered titles, the annual interest rate paid by the Fixed Return Fund is 7% as of December 11, 2009.

Note: Chapter 504 also established a new tier—Tier V—for New York State public retirement systems and the Optional Retirement Program (available to CUNY employees). This change did not apply to TRS.