The CalPERS service retirement formula is service credit × benefit factor × final compensation = unmodified allowance. Enter your years of service credit, your age at retirement, your final compensation and the benefit factor from your own formula chart, and this tool multiplies them. It cannot look up your formula, your tier, your caps or your service credit — so what comes out is arithmetic on your inputs, not a benefit estimate.
Before you use this: get your actual benefit factor. The benefit factor is not a number you should guess, and it is not the same for any two people by default. It depends on your retirement formula — 2% at 55, 2% at 60, 2% at 62, 3% at 50, 2.5% at 55, 2.7% at 57 and others all exist — which in turn depends on your employer's contract, your membership date, your classification (miscellaneous or safety) and whether you are a PEPRA member (generally, first hired into CalPERS-covered employment on or after 1 January 2013). Within your formula the factor then rises with age, usually in quarter-year steps. Find your formula on your CalPERS Annual Member Statement and read the benefit-factor chart for that formula in your CalPERS member publication, or in myCalPERS. Type that number below. If you enter a factor from the wrong chart, every figure this page produces will be wrong.
Your three numbers
Arithmetic on the numbers you typed
Assumptions used — read these before trusting the number
- This is one multiplication. Service credit × benefit factor × final compensation. Nothing else is applied. Every input comes from you, and the output is only as good as the worst of them.
- The benefit factor is yours to supply, and it is the hard part. It varies by formula, by membership date, by classification, and by your age at retirement in quarter-year increments. This tool has no formula chart built in, deliberately — a wrong chart silently produces a confident wrong answer.
- Caps are not applied. The PEPRA pensionable compensation cap limits the pay that counts toward a PEPRA member's benefit — for 2026 that cap is $159,733 for a new member who participates in Social Security and $191,679 for one who does not (source: CalPERS Circular Letter 200-001-26) — certain formulas cap the total allowance as a percentage of final compensation, and Internal Revenue Code §415(b) limits apply. None of that is modelled.
- The unmodified allowance is the maximum, and it ends when you do. If you elect a survivor continuance option, your own monthly check is permanently reduced. The reduction depends on the option and on your beneficiary's age — the row above is a wide illustrative range, not a quote. The decision framework →
- Nothing else is included. No cost-of-living adjustments, no health premium deductions or vesting for retiree health, no federal or California income tax withholding, no service credit purchase, no reciprocity with another California system, no disability or industrial disability retirement, no golden handshake, and no unused sick leave conversion.
- Sick leave, reciprocity and purchased service can all move service credit — in your favour — and none of them are visible to this page.
Only CalPERS can tell you what you will actually receive. This page cannot see your record. It does not know your formula, your tier, your membership date, your reportable compensation, your caps, or a single day of your service credit. Aduna Capital is not affiliated with CalPERS and has no ability to obtain, verify or influence your benefit. Run your real estimate in myCalPERS, which uses your actual payroll and service data, or request a written estimate from CalPERS directly. If the number here differs from the number CalPERS gives you, CalPERS is right and this page is wrong.
This is an estimate, not advice. The output above is arithmetic performed on the numbers you entered, under the assumptions printed on this page. It is not a recommendation, not a projection you should rely on, and not a substitute for a conversation with your CPA or a qualified adviser about your own situation.
Common questions
Common questions
Why won't the tool just look up my benefit factor?
Because it cannot know which chart applies to you. The factor depends on your employer's contract, your membership date, your classification and your PEPRA status, and reading the wrong chart produces a number that looks authoritative and is simply false. Asking you for the factor keeps the error where you can see it. Your formula is printed on your Annual Member Statement.
Is this the number I will actually receive each month?
No. It is your inputs multiplied together, before any survivor option reduction, before tax withholding, before health premium deductions, and before any cap that may apply to your formula. Your official estimate comes from myCalPERS or from CalPERS in writing.
What is final compensation, exactly?
The highest average annual pensionable pay over a defined consecutive period — 12 months or 36 months, depending on your employer's contract and your membership date, with PEPRA members using 36. Which pay items count as pensionable is itself a rules question, and it is one where guessing is expensive. Take the figure from CalPERS.
Does Aduna Capital work for CalPERS?
No. We are an independent fee-only fiduciary investment adviser in Norwalk, California, with no affiliation with, endorsement from, or sponsorship by CalPERS or any pension system. We help members plan around the benefit; we have no role in administering it.
Have your CalPERS estimate in hand?
Bring it. We will put the pension, your 457(b) or 403(b), Social Security if you have it, and your savings on one page — and model the survivor election before you file, while it is still a choice.