What is the High-3 average salary?
The High-3 is the average of your highest 36 consecutive months of basic pay. OPM uses it as the salary input in the FERS pension formula — it is not your most recent salary, not your peak year, and not a simple three-year average of recent pay. It is specifically the 36-month window that produces the highest average, expressed as an annualized figure.
The pension formula is: High-3 × years of creditable service × multiplier. The standard multiplier is 1%. An employee with a $110,000 High-3 and 30 years of creditable service would receive $33,000/year ($2,750/month) in gross pension. Every dollar your High-3 increases by $1,000 adds $10 per year of service to your annuity — permanently.
What counts as basic pay
For High-3 purposes, basic pay means your scheduled annual salary plus locality pay. Law enforcement officers with law-enforcement availability pay (LEAP) include that as well.
The following do not count: overtime pay, bonuses, performance awards, cash awards, holiday premium pay, allowances (housing, subsistence, etc.), and military pay. The figure to use is your annual rate of basic pay as shown on your Standard Form 50 (SF-50) or your Leave and Earnings Statement — not your gross pay for the year.
Highest 36 consecutive months — not always the last three years
For most federal employees, the highest 36 consecutive months are the final three years before retirement, since salaries generally increase over a career. But this is not always the case. If you took a voluntary downgrade, accepted a detail that reduced your pay, or relocated to a lower locality pay area, an earlier period of your career may have paid more.
OPM is required to identify whichever 36-consecutive-month window produces the highest average. If you suspect an earlier period was your peak, enter that window in the time-weighted mode rather than assuming the last three years are definitive.
How the High-3 drives your annuity
The FERS multiplier is 1% per year for most retirements. Employees who retire at age 62 or later with 20 or more years of creditable service qualify for a 1.1% multiplier — a permanent 10% increase over the standard rate.
The FedHorizon Timeline puts your High-3 into the full retirement picture — projecting your pension across multiple retirement ages, modeling the FERS Supplement, and estimating your net monthly income after FEHB and taxes.