Federal Employee Sick Leave Conversion Calculator

Calculating your sick leave credit is easier than ever! Simply enter your total unused sick leave hours in the field below and click calculate. The calculator will show you the amount of time that will be added to your creditable service in the computation of your retirement pension.

After calculating your credit, take a moment to calculate your monthly pension as well and get an idea of what retirement looks like for you. Thank you for your service as a civilian federal employee, what you do makes a big difference!

Use the detailed information below to understand the qualifications to use sick leave during federal employment as well as the process for calculating sick leave in a FERS/CSRS retirement annuity.

Sick Leave Used During Federal Employment

Policies are in place that allow for federal employees to take time off of work to care for a personal concern. Sick leave is commonly used for an employee to be able to take care of their own health, a family member who has serious health issues, bereavement, or if they are finalizing an adoption.

Accruing Sick Leave

There is no limit to the number of sick days that a federal employee can accumulate. Full time employees receive 1/2 day (4 hours) of sick leave for every biweekly pay period. Part time employees accumulate 1 hour of sick leave for every 20 hours within a pay status. And those participating in Uncommon Tours of Duty receive 4 hours times the average number of hours worked in a biweekly period divided by 80.

Sick Leave Usage Limits

For concerns involving the employee directly, all the sick leave that has been accumulated can be used, and in some cases sick leave can be advanced to the employee.
For bereavement and general family care, an employee is eligible for up to 13 days (104 hours) of sick leave.
For care of a family member with serious health issues, an employee is eligible for up to 12 weeks (480 hours) of sick leave.

If an employee must use their sick leave to take care of their family, they are only allowed to use 12 weeks total. The 13 days available to them for bereavement and general family care must be subtracted from the 12 weeks allotted. This means that the 12 weeks of sick leave used to care for a family member with a serious illness will include the 13 days used for bereavement and general family care.

Part time employees and those participating in Uncommon Tours of Duty will calculate their family-care sick leave according to their pay schedules and the average number of hours worked each week.

Requesting Sick Leave

Sick leave must be requested by the employee within a time frame that is set by each agency. Absences of 3 or more days may require supporting evidence to verify the validity of the concern. Each agency is to have a consistent policy of requiring supporting evidence applied to all employees that cooperates with the collective bargaining agreement associated with the employees.

Supporting evidence could include a medical certificate or an employee’s self-certificate that is distributed to the agency within 15 days of the request. If 30 days pass without specified evidence, the agency will deny the sick leave proposal.

Sick leave can be requested during annual leave if the employee becomes sick during annual leave or if they have to take care of a family member with a health-related issue.

Family and Medical Leave

As mentioned previously, federal employees can use their accrued sick leave for family care within certain parameters.

Definition of Family Member

A family is anyone who is immediately related to the employee or their spouse including adopted children and anyone under their guardianship. View a complete list of definitions of family members on the OPM website. The agency must have a clearly defined system to verify the context of care needed for family members and is entitled to request official documentation in order to prevent leave abuse.

FMLA

Federal employees are allowed by law to receive 12 weeks of unpaid leave during a 12 month time period according to the Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993. This type of leave is approved for situations that involve:

• Birth
• Adoption
• Serious medical issues of family members
• Family care for serious medical conditions
• Any other exigency requiring a member of the armed forces to return to duty

FMLA can be used intermittently and substituted with sick leave or annual leave as well.

During FMLA, employees are allowed to pay the premiums associated with the employee’s insurance to prevent a lapse in coverage. Upon returning to work, employees are required to receive a position that is consistent with their previous position’s salary, benefits, and general requirements.

Pregnancy and Childbirth

During pregnancy, a federal employee is entitled to sick leave for any health concerns that affect the health of the employee or a family member. A serious health condition involving incapacitation that requires prenatal care qualifies as a reason for receiving sick leave. Sick leave can be approved for up to 3 calendar days even if a health professional isn’t seen during the incapacitation and can only be used during the incapacitation, birth, and recovery. Neither bonding with the newborn nor childcare responsibilities qualify as a valid reason to receive sick leave.

Disabled Veterans

Any veteran who is employed in civil service is allotted sick leave or annual leave without pay for any disability associated with their time in the Armed Forces.

Exposure to Communicable Diseases

Federal employees who are suffering from communicable diseases or other illnesses that could jeopardize the health of their fellow employees are entitled to sick leave. This also includes employees that are exposed to a family member who has a communicable disease or needs to be isolated in quarantine according to CDC guidelines.

If a family member is actively experiencing the symptoms of a communicable disease or sickness and needs the employee to provide care, sick leave may be granted even if the employee is not the sole-provider of care. However, it is inappropriate for an employee to miss work if the family member is asymptomatic.

Advanced Sick Leave

Occasionally, an agency will allow an employee to receive an advance on their sick leave under certain conditions. Most importantly, the employee is expected to return to work after the time away. If the employee is not expected to return to duty or are already receiving an annuity, they will not qualify for advanced sick leave. It is important to note that advanced sick leave will not be allowed until the employee has used up their FMLA allotted time.

Max Amount of Advanced Sick Leave

For full time employees, 240 hours (30 days) of sick leave can be allotted if the employee:

• Has become incapacitated because of their duties as an employee
• Develops a serious health condition or must take care of a family member who develops a serious health condition
• Might jeopardize the health of others because of their exposure to a communicable disease or sickness
• Is finalizing an adoption

For part time employees, 140 hours (13 days) of sick leave can be allotted if the employee:

• Needs medical treatment for a serious health concern
• Must provide medical care to an incapacitated family member
• Might jeopardize the health of others because of their exposure to a communicable disease or sickness
• Needs to make funeral arrangements

An employee employed part time or in an Uncommon Tour of Duty will be prorated sick days according to their pay schedule. Supporting evidence might be requested according to individual agency policy.

Liquidation of Advanced Sick Leave

There are three instances in which advanced sick leave might be liquidated:

An employee separates from federal service
An employee who transfers to another agency without a break in service. The negative sick leave balance will transfer to the receiving agency.
An employee enters active military service. In this case, the employee’s advanced sick leave will be held until they return to civil service, or it will be liquidated after separation.

The employee could opt for a cash buy out if it makes sense for the agency to do so once advanced sick leave has been determined to qualify for liquidation

Calculating & Crediting Sick Leave for FERS and CSRS Employees

Any unused sick leave can be added into the calculations for annuity for immediate retirement or a death in service. Every CSRS employee automatically retires with 100% of their sick leave credit applied to their annuity calculation. FRS employees who separated from 10/28/2009 to 12/31/2013 only retired with half of their accrued sick leave. Ever since 1/1/2014, FRS employees are now able to retire with 100% of their sick leave applied to their annuity calculation.

Calculating Sick Leave in Creditable Service Towards an Annuity

There is no limit to the amount of sick leave that can be factored into the annuity calculations. However, the government will only allow full years and months to count toward the annuity. Any leftover days will be dropped. The first step in calculating sick leave credit is to determine how many years and months of accrued sick leave is eligible.

One year of credit is equivalent to 2,087 hours of accumulated sick leave. That averages to about 6 hours per day. OPM calculates annuities on a 12 month (30-day) cycle which is 360 days. 360 days divided by 6 hours per day is 2,087 hours total for a year.

Crediting Unused Sick Leave Towards Your Creditable Service

Once the calculation of how many years and months of sick leave is completed, the remaining days will be dropped. For example, if you worked 25 years, 3 months, and your sick leave totals 11 months and 10 days, you would receive 11 months of creditable service. The 10 days will not count.

Remember, sick leave is only used in the computation of your retirement annuity. Just to clarify, it is not used in the calculation of any of the following:

• Determining retirement eligibility
• Computing your “high-3” salary
• Meeting VERA requirements for eligibility

Recrediting Sick Leave

Occasionally an employee has a break in employment, but they can still use their sick leave as long as they return to civil service. That means that an employee with a break in service who returns to federal civil service will be allowed to recredit their full sick leave regardless of the length of the break. Recrediting sick leave only applies to federal employees who are not already drawing from their annuity.