Steps to Calculate Reserve Retire Pay

To easily calculate your pay at retirement (using today's dollars), follow these 5 simple steps.

1 - The first thing you need to do is figure out how many retirement points you have by going to https://www.hrc.army.mil. (Under Services select Self Service>My Record Portal>Use CAC Login>Reserve/Retiree/Veteran Record>Retirement>CHR Statement of Retirement Points)

2 - Estimate how many more you will get before you file for retirement. 

     a. The most retirement points you can receive in a year is 365 (except for leap year: 366). These    points can be acquired by -

• Active Duty Points: Transferring to the Reserves from Active Duty, Deployment, Annual Training, and Active Duty for Training (ADT). 
• 130 Non-Active Duty Points 
• 48 MUTAs (Battle Assemblies), 15 membership points, 24 RMA points, 12 ATA points. This equals 99 points. To get to 130, you can serve for retirement points (requires DA Form 138

Note: If you are not on Active Duty then the most you can get in a year is 130 retirement points.

3 - Divide this  number by 360.

This gives you the total number of years equivalent to Active Duty years.

4 - Figure out the base pay for the grade you anticipate retiring at by going to https://militarybenefits.info/2021-military-pay-charts/

Note: Replace 2021 with year you run these calculations

5 - Multiply the base pay by the equivalent Active Duty years from step 3 and multiply the result times 2.5%

• Note: For the Blended Retirement System you multiply the result by 2.0%

That is it. You now know your monthly retirement pay.

An example is below.

Step 1 + Step 2

Let's say that my retirement points at retirement are anticipated to be 3600. This is based on my actual retirement points as reported by HRC and my estimated anticipated retirement points. For example, let's say that I have 3 years until retirement but I am sitting at 3300 points. I anticipate getting 300 points over the next 3 years by actively drilling and attending extra training (SHARP, EO, etc). So, this brings me up to 3600.

Step 3

3600/360 = 10

This means I have 10 eligible years for retirement pay calculations

Step 4

Let's say that I am currently an E7 pay grade. I am promotable and plan on achieving E-8 pay grade before retirement. Navigating my browser to https://militarybenefits.info/2021-military-pay-charts/, I find E-8 base pay for 26 years service (these years of service are based on your LES years, not equivalent active duty years). 

The base pay is $6,452

Step 5

Monthly pay = ($6,452*10)*2.5%

Monthly pay = $1,613

Note that Monthly pay is shown in today's dollars. Army Reservists draw retirement pay at age 60 (with an exception of deployment time subtracting from 60 after the year 2008). As a result, retired pay will be more based on cost of living annual increases.  

Note that to get the E-8 pay grade, I would need serve at that level for at least 3 years (High 3). 

I hope this helps clear up any confusion with retirement pay for Reserves.

Sources: 

https://www.hrc.army.mil.

https://themilitarywallet.com/guard-reserve-points/#:~:text=Earning%20Annual%20Participation%20Points,Inactive%20Ready%20Reserve%20(IRR).