A break in service under federal retirement law is triggered when you work 500 or fewer hours during a plan’s 12-month computation period, and the break in service rules that follow decide whether you keep your vesting credit, your health coverage, your accrued leave, and your right to return to a federal job. The consequences scale with how long you’re gone: a short absence usually preserves everything, while a long one can wipe out years of pre-break service, force a new health plan waiting period, and close off reinstatement pathways you previously qualified for.
What Counts as a Break in Service
Under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act, a one-year break in service happens when you complete 500 or fewer hours of work during the plan’s designated 12-month computation period.1Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 29 USC 1053 – Minimum Vesting Standards That period is usually the calendar year or the plan year, set by the plan document. Work 400 hours in a calendar-year plan and you’ve triggered a one-year break even if you were technically employed the whole time.
You don’t have to resign or be fired. Part-time schedules, seasonal work, and long unpaid leave can all put you under 501 hours. Plans can measure either hours worked or hours paid (including paid vacation and sick time), but the 500-hour floor stays fixed.2eCFR. 29 CFR 2530.200b-4 – One-Year Break in Service
How a Break Affects Retirement Plan Vesting
Vesting schedules control when your employer’s contributions become permanently yours. Traditional pensions can use a five-year cliff or a graded schedule running from 20 percent at three years to 100 percent at seven. Employer contributions in a 401(k) or similar plan vest faster: either a three-year cliff or a graded schedule from 20 percent at two years to 100 percent at six.1Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 29 USC 1053 – Minimum Vesting Standards Your own contributions are always 100 percent vested, so a break never touches money you put in yourself.
The Rule of Parity
The rule of parity decides whether your pre-break service years survive when you return. If you weren’t fully vested when you left, the plan can disregard your earlier service only if your consecutive one-year breaks equal or exceed the greater of five years or your total pre-break years of service.1Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 29 USC 1053 – Minimum Vesting Standards Three years of service before you left means your breaks must reach at least five consecutive years before those three years can be wiped out. Seven years of service before you left raises the threshold to seven consecutive breaks. Return before hitting the threshold and your prior service gets added back to the vesting calculation.3U.S. Department of Labor. FAQs About Retirement Plans and ERISA
One important limit: the rule of parity only applies to nonvested participants. If you were already fully vested before leaving, your accrued benefit is locked in and can’t be forfeited regardless of how long you stay away.
Absences That Don’t Create a Break
Several categories of leave are shielded from the 500-hour rule. Knowing which protection applies to your situation is the difference between preserving your service record and losing a year of credit.
Parental Leave
If you’re absent for pregnancy, childbirth, adoption, or caring for a child right after birth or placement, your plan must credit you with up to 501 hours of service solely to prevent a one-year break.1Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 29 USC 1053 – Minimum Vesting Standards Those hours don’t earn additional benefits, but they keep the computation period from registering as a break. When the plan can’t determine how many hours you would normally have worked, it defaults to eight hours per day of absence. The plan can require documentation, so notify your plan administrator in writing before an extended leave for a new child.
FMLA Leave
Leave protected under the Family and Medical Leave Act does not create a break in service. FMLA provides up to 12 workweeks of unpaid, job-protected leave per year for qualifying medical or family reasons, with a right to return to the same or an equivalent position at the same pay and benefits.4U.S. Department of Labor. FMLA Frequently Asked Questions Your employer must also continue group health coverage during the leave on the same terms as if you were still working.5U.S. Department of Labor. Fact Sheet 28 – The Family and Medical Leave Act
The distinction that matters is between a leave and a separation. FMLA maintains the employment relationship; a resignation or termination ends it. If HR miscodes a protected leave as a separation, your service computation date and vesting timeline are both disrupted, so verify the coding before the leave starts.
Military Service Under USERRA
The Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act preserves reemployment rights as long as your cumulative military-related absences from a single employer don’t exceed five years.6Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 38 USC 4312 – Reemployment Rights of Persons Who Serve in the Uniformed Services Several service categories don’t count against the cap, including required Reserve or Guard training, service during a national emergency, and involuntary retention on active duty.7U.S. Department of Labor. A Guide to the Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act (USERRA)
For retirement plan purposes, your entire period of military-related absence must be treated as continuous employment. Your employer determines vesting and benefit accrual as if you never left, and any required employer contributions must be made no later than 90 days after reemployment or when contributions for that plan year are normally due, whichever comes later.8U.S. Department of Labor. VETS USERRA Fact Sheet 1 – Frequently Asked Questions – Employers Pension Obligations to Reemployed Service Members Under USERRA
Health Coverage Between Jobs
COBRA
When a break ends your employer-sponsored health coverage, COBRA lets you continue the same plan at your own expense for 18 to 36 months, depending on the qualifying event. You have 60 days from the date coverage ends to elect it, and the coverage is retroactive to the day your prior plan ended even if you enroll late in that window.9U.S. Department of Labor. COBRA Continuation Coverage Premiums are steep because you pay the full cost your employer used to share, plus up to a 2 percent administrative fee. For anyone with ongoing treatment or a pre-existing condition, the gap in coverage often costs more than the premium.
The 13-Week Rehire Rule
If you return to the same employer, how quickly you get back on the health plan depends on how long you were gone. Under the Affordable Care Act, employers using the lookback measurement method must treat a rehired employee who was away 13 weeks or fewer as a continuing employee who keeps whatever full-time status they previously earned. A rehire after more than 13 weeks can generally be treated as new, with a fresh eligibility determination and waiting period, though no waiting period can exceed 90 days.10eCFR. 45 CFR 147.116 – Prohibition on Waiting Periods That Exceed 90 Days Employers can’t use a termination-and-rehire pattern to keep resetting the clock.
Leave and Reinstatement for Federal Employees
Federal civilian employees under Title 5 have their own break-in-service consequences that run parallel to the ERISA rules. Private-sector employers set their own leave policies; there’s no general federal requirement to reinstate sick leave for rehired private workers, though federal contractors covered by Executive Order 13706 must reinstate paid sick leave for employees rehired within 12 months unless the balance was already paid out.11U.S. Department of Labor. Executive Order 13706, Establishing Paid Sick Leave for Federal Contractors – Questions and Answers
Sick Leave Comes Back
Return to federal employment after a break and your previously accumulated sick leave balance is restored with no time limit. Two months or twenty years away, it makes no difference.12eCFR. 5 CFR 630.502 – Sick Leave Recredit The re-credit applies to anyone returning on or after December 2, 1994. A 600-hour balance you left with in 2005 is still waiting in 2026.
Annual Leave and the Service Computation Date
Annual leave doesn’t come back the same way. When you separate, you receive a lump-sum payment for unused annual leave at the rate of pay you would have earned had you stayed through that period.13U.S. Office of Personnel Management. Fact Sheet – Leave Upon Transfer or Separation That payment closes the account.
What does get adjusted is your accrual rate. Federal employees earn four hours per pay period with fewer than three years of service, six hours with three to 15 years, and eight hours with 15 or more years.14Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 5 USC 6303 – Annual Leave; Accrual A break longer than three calendar days forces a recalculation of your service computation date for leave purposes; breaks of three days or fewer are absorbed into the prior service and ignored.15U.S. Office of Personnel Management. Chapter 6 – Creditable Service for Leave Accrual The recalculation moves your SCD forward by the length of the break, which can delay the date you reach the next accrual tier.
Reinstatement Rights
For competitive-service employees, whether you can come back through the reinstatement pathway depends on career tenure. Career-tenure employees and veterans’ preference eligibles have no time limit; they can apply for competitive-service positions through reinstatement indefinitely.16eCFR. 5 CFR 315.401 – Reinstatement
Leave before completing the service requirement for career tenure and the window shrinks to three years from your separation date. After that you lose reinstatement eligibility and must compete with the general public.16eCFR. 5 CFR 315.401 – Reinstatement The clock runs from the date you left your last career-conditional or competitive-status appointment. Reinstatement doesn’t guarantee a job; it gives you access to vacancies that aren’t open to the public, which is a real competitive advantage worth tracking.
Before any voluntary break from federal service, confirm whether you’ve reached career tenure. That single fact determines whether your path back is a reinstatement or a full restart through USAJobs.