Live tracker · Federal retirement
The five Thrift Savings Plan funds, what they returned and what they cost
The 5 TSP funds are the entire investment menu of the Thrift Savings Plan, and on 9 September 2026 they closed between $20.1992 for the G Fund and $123.1339 for the C Fund. They have returned 3.07% to 11.39% a year since 31 May 2003 at 0.034% to 0.051% in annual charges, which is cheaper than anything a rollover can move them into. This page updates daily from the plan's own price file.
Share prices verified on 10 September 2026 against the plan's own file 5,812 trading days since 31 May 2003
Best 10-year return
15.50%C Fund, annualised to 9 September 2026
G Fund after CPI
0.43%a year, May 2003 to July 2026
Cheapest fund
0.034%G Fund total expense ratio, 2025
Deepest fall on record
-60.9%I Fund, October 2007 to March 2009
The record
All five TSP funds started at $10.00 in 2003
The TSP restated all five funds to $10.0000 on 31 May 2003 when it moved to a daily share price, which makes the raw prices a like-for-like comparison with no indexing needed. The vertical scale is logarithmic, so equal distances are equal percentage moves.
Month-end closes are used for the chart because a line drawn from 5,812 daily points renders the same shape at roughly twenty times the page weight. Every return, volatility and drawdown figure below is computed on the daily file rather than on this resample.
Weighing a move out of the plan? The match tool asks six questions about your account and shows the custodians that take a TSP, with their fee schedules, before anyone phones you. Start the match tool.
Annualised returns
The C Fund returned 11.39% a year since 2003
Compound annual growth rates computed from the share price file, measured back from the last trading day in it rather than from today, so a page built on a Sunday does not report a window two days longer than it says.
| Fund | Price | 1 year | 5 years | 10 years | Since 2003 | Volatility | Expenses |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| G Fund | $20.1992 | 4.48% | 3.93% | 2.95% | 3.07% | 0.3% | 0.034% |
| F Fund | $20.7745 | 0.48% | -0.32% | 1.51% | 3.19% | 4.3% | 0.035% |
| C Fund | $123.1339 | 18.62% | 12.76% | 15.50% | 11.39% | 18.7% | 0.035% |
| S Fund | $115.2095 | 16.09% | 6.12% | 11.77% | 11.07% | 22.2% | 0.051% |
| I Fund | $66.3260 | 28.68% | 10.71% | 10.44% | 8.47% | 19.0% | 0.048% |
Source: Thrift Savings Plan fund price history. Volatility is annualised from daily log returns. Past performance does not predict future results
Since 2003 the five funds rank C, S, I, F, G, with C first at 11.39% and S second at 11.07%. That is what a 23-year run containing two long bull markets in US shares and one crash tends to produce. The F Fund is the row worth a second look. It has returned -0.32% a year over five years and still sits 2.3% below the price it reached in August 2020. A bond fund losing money over half a decade surprises people who were told bonds are the safe half. The mechanism is rate risk rather than credit risk, because the Federal Reserve raised rates faster in 2022 than it had in forty years, and that drops the market value of every bond already issued.
Underlying assets
What each TSP fund actually holds
Four of the five track a published index, so the holdings are a matter of record rather than a manager's judgment. The fifth is the one that does not exist outside this plan.
Government Securities Investment Fund
Holds short-term US Treasury securities issued specially to the TSP. It tracks no index, because nothing outside the plan holds what it holds.
Fixed Income Index Investment Fund
Holds US government, mortgage-backed, corporate and foreign bonds issued in the US. It tracks the Bloomberg US Aggregate Bond Index.
Common Stock Index Investment Fund
Holds the 500 large and mid-sized US companies in the S&P 500. It tracks the S&P 500.
Small Cap Stock Index Investment Fund
Holds every US listed company outside the S&P 500. It tracks the Dow Jones US Completion Total Stock Market Index.
International Stock Index Investment Fund
Holds developed and emerging market shares outside the US, China and Hong Kong. It tracks the MSCI ACWI IMI ex USA ex China ex Hong Kong Index.
The eleven Lifecycle funds are left off this page on purpose. Each one is a fixed blend of these same five, and the TSP says as much itself when it explains that the L Funds carry no separate expenses of their own. Their share prices also begin on six different dates between 2005 and 2025. A common-window return table across all sixteen funds is therefore not a thing that can honestly be built.
Expenses
$100,000 in a TSP fund costs $34 to $51 a year
Total expense ratios for 2025, read off tsp.gov on 10 September 2026. The plan reports them as a net administrative charge plus an investment management charge, and it publishes both halves rather than only the total.
A hundred thousand dollars in the C Fund costs $35 a year to hold. That figure makes almost every other retirement account a federal employee will be offered look expensive by comparison. Part of the reason is unusual and worth knowing. The TSP pays its administrative costs first out of the agency contributions that FERS and BRS participants forfeit when they leave before vesting, so what remains to be charged to everyone else is smaller than the plan's gross costs. The plan states on its own site that its expenses are lower than 99% of investment options. The figures above are the ones behind that claim.
One number is worth holding onto before reading any further. A self-directed IRA holding bullion carries a custodian annual fee and a depository storage fee, and neither of those scales down with your balance the way an expense ratio does. That comparison is picked up at the bottom of this page, after the fund data rather than before it.
What we found in the data
Two of the five funds return almost nothing after inflation
Between May 2003 and July 2026 the G Fund compounded at 0.43% a year after CPI and the F Fund at 0.57%, against nominal returns of 3.06% and 3.20%. Ten thousand dollars left in the G Fund across those 278 months became $20,091 on the statement while buying about $11,041 of what ten thousand dollars bought at the start, because consumer prices rose 1.82 times over the same period. The year-by-year record behind that figure is on the G Fund tracker.
That is the honest version of a fund whose selling point is that it cannot fall. It held its nominal value on every one of the 5,812 trading days on record, rising on 4,789 of them and sitting flat on the other 1,022. Over 23 years it bought its holders about 10% more goods than they started with, and it finished behind consumer prices in 7 of 22 calendar years along the way, most recently 2022.
Nominal, a year
3.06%After CPI, a year
0.43%Both figures cover the same 278 months, because the CPI series publishes on a lag and a paired figure can only run as far as its shorter side. The fund's own record runs a further September 2026, and the daily table above uses all of it.
The record
The I Fund fell 60.9% at its worst
Peak-to-trough on daily closes rather than month-ends, because a month-end series misses the bottom and quoting the shallower number understates the thing a reader came here to check.
| Fund | Fall | From | To | Back to the old price |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| G Fund | None | n/a | n/a | Never fell |
| F Fund | -18.0% | 6 August 2020 | 24 October 2022 | Not yet |
| C Fund | -55.2% | 9 October 2007 | 9 March 2009 | 26 March 2012 |
| S Fund | -57.4% | 10 October 2007 | 9 March 2009 | 22 December 2010 |
| I Fund | -60.9% | 31 October 2007 | 9 March 2009 | 8 May 2014 |
The I Fund fell 60.9% between 31 October 2007 and 9 March 2009, and it did not get back to the old price until 8 May 2014, which is 6.5 years spent below water. Anyone who retired into that window and needed to sell shares did so at the price on the day rather than at the average on the statement they had been reading for a decade. The gap between a long-run average and one particular morning is the part of a return table that a return table cannot show you.
Method
How these figures were measured
Every number above is computed from the share price file rather than copied from a returns table, which means the page and the data cannot drift apart between refreshes.
Share prices come from the fund price history the TSP publishes as a CSV. It covers 5,812 trading days from 31 May 2003 to 9 September 2026. Annualised returns are compound growth rates between two share prices, measured back from the last row in the file. A horizon whose start date lands more than ten days from a trading day is reported as unavailable rather than stretched to fit. Volatility is the standard deviation of daily log returns scaled by the square root of 252.
The inflation comparison resamples the daily file to calendar month-ends before joining it to the Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U series. That resample is deliberate. Joining a daily series to a monthly one on an exact date keeps only the coincidences and looks like a valid narrow window. The gold comparison works the same way against the LBMA afternoon auction price. Both stop at the last month their slower side covers, and both print that month next to the figure.
Sources
- Thrift Savings Plan, share price history, retrieved 10 September 2026
- Thrift Savings Plan, expenses and fees, 2025 ratios, retrieved 10 September 2026
- Thrift Savings Plan, individual funds, inception dates and indexes, retrieved 10 September 2026
- U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, CPI-U, through July 2026
- LBMA precious metal prices, through August 2026
The full daily series is available as CSV.
Limits
What this page does not show
Four things a reader could reasonably take from the table above that the data behind it cannot support.
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Not a record of fund inception
The file starts on 31 May 2003 with all five funds at exactly $10.0000, which is a restatement rather than a market close, and the date was a Saturday. The G Fund has actually run since April 1987 and the C Fund since January 1988, so nothing here is a since-inception figure.
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Not what you would have earned
These are the returns of a lump sum left alone for the whole window. A federal employee contributing every fortnight bought at every price along the way, which produces a different and usually better result through a fall and a worse one through a rise.
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Not a forecast of anything
The window covers 23 years containing one crash and two long bull markets in US shares, and it starts within a few years of a low in both equities and gold. Start it in 2000 or in 2008 and the ordering of these five funds changes.
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Not the whole cost of a rollover
The expense ratios here are what the TSP charges. What another account charges depends on that account, and the TSP notes in its own tax booklet that the receiving plan's rules determine your investment options, fees and rights to payment.
The Digest Perspective
Gold ran at 11.52% a year, the C Fund at 11.43%
· Gold IRA Digest Editorial Team
Gold compounded at 11.52% a year since May 2003 and the C Fund compounded at 11.43%, over exactly the same months. The gap between them is 0.09 points a year, which is not enough for either side of this argument to claim the record.
What that does not settle is which of those two numbers a person in their sixties should be planning around. The C Fund got there by falling 55.2% in 2008 and, taking until March 2012 to come back. Gold got there from $361.40 an ounce to $4,562.75, starting near the end of a twenty-year bear market that had left it below its 1980 price. Neither path is a plan.
The plan
Wants you to stay, and has earned the right to ask. It charges 0.034% to 0.051%, publishes both halves of that figure, and lets a separated participant with $200 or more leave the balance in place indefinitely.
The dealers
Want the rollover, and federal and military households are the list they buy. The commission sits in the premium over spot price on the coins rather than in the annual fee, which is why the fee is the number they will quote you.
You
Want the balance to still buy something in twenty years. The G Fund returned 0.43% a year after CPI over 23 of them, which is the arithmetic that starts this conversation for most people who go looking.
The strongest argument against us
You would be leaving the cheapest retirement account in the country, and for most readers that is where this ends. The C Fund charges $35 a year on $100,000. A self-directed IRA charges a custodian fee and a depository storage fee, commonly $300 a year together, and that is 9 times as much before anyone buys a coin.
Held for 20 years at the C Fund's own 11.39%, the charging difference alone costs $14,110 on $100,000. The structure is worse than the headline for anyone with less, because a flat fee does not scale down: the same $300 takes 4.0% of a $50,000 balance over that period against 0.2% of a $250,000 one. Add the premium over spot on the first purchase and the dealer's bid on the way out, and a rollover can be several percent behind before the metal has done anything at all. If none of that is outweighed by something specific in your own position, stay where you are.
Our view is that the TSP's costs are the best a federal household will ever be offered, and that the G Fund's 0.43% real return is still a poor answer to a twenty-year retirement. Both are true, and the second is why people write to us.
Which of them matters more depends on how much of your balance sits in the G Fund, how far you are from drawing on it, and how large the balance is, because that last one decides whether a flat fee is a rounding error or a real cost. Those are your numbers rather than ours.
Six questions, about 2 minutes, no phone number
Federal and military readers each have their own page: TSP rollover for FERS and Military TSP.
Everything above this block is computed from the publisher's own file. Everything inside it is opinion, dated so you can see how old it is. One G Fund share bought 0.02767 of an ounce of gold in May 2003 and 0.00442 in August 2026, a fall of 84.0%, while the C Fund's shares gave up 1.9% of their gold-buying power over the same period.
Common questions
TSP fund questions
- Which TSP fund has returned the most?
- The C Fund, at 11.39% a year since the share price series began on 31 May 2003, ahead of the S Fund at 11.07%. Over the last ten years the C Fund has run at 15.50% a year while the G Fund has run at 2.95%. The full order since 2003 is C at 11.39%, S at 11.07%, I at 8.47%, F at 3.19%, G at 3.07%.
- Can the G Fund lose money?
- No, the G Fund has never closed below its previous trading day. That is zero falls in 5,812 days on record, because it holds Treasury securities issued specially to the plan and redeemable at par. In real terms the answer changes. It compounded at 0.43% a year after CPI between May 2003 and July 2026.
- What do the TSP funds cost?
- Between 0.034% and 0.051% a year, which is $34 to $51 on a $100,000 balance, checked on 10 September 2026. The plan splits that into a net administrative charge and an investment management charge. The administrative half is partly paid for by the agency contributions that federal employees forfeit when they leave before vesting.
- Should I roll my TSP into a gold IRA?
- Neither yes nor no without knowing what you would give up. A gold IRA custodian charges an annual fee, and the depository charges a storage fee on top, and the two together usually run several hundred dollars regardless of balance. Against the 0.035% the C Fund charges, a $50,000 rollover moves from roughly $18 a year to a figure commonly forty to sixty times that. Whether the metal earns that back is the real question. This site publishes what gold has done rather than promising what it will do.
- Does a TSP rollover trigger tax?
- Not if it is a direct rollover, where the TSP sends the money straight to the receiving custodian. An indirect rollover pays you first, withholding applies, and you have 60 days to redeposit the full original amount out of your own pocket. The IRS purity rules for a self-directed IRA apply once the money lands, so the metal has to meet the 408(m) fineness standard and sit at an approved depository rather than at home.
Gold IRA Digest is an independent publisher and is not affiliated with the Thrift Savings Plan, the Federal Retirement Thrift Investment Board or any federal agency. This page is information rather than investment advice, and nothing on it is a recommendation to move money out of the TSP or into any metal. Past performance does not predict future results. Some links on this site earn us a commission, which never changes what we publish.
Each fund in full
The five TSP funds, one page each
Each page carries that fund's own record: its full price history, every calendar year, its deepest fall and how long it took to recover, and what it returned after inflation.
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C Fund
11.39%a year since 2003, 0.035% a year in charges
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S Fund
11.07%a year since 2003, 0.051% a year in charges
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I Fund
8.47%a year since 2003, 0.048% a year in charges
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F Fund
3.19%a year since 2003, 0.035% a year in charges
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G Fund
3.07%a year since 2003, 0.034% a year in charges
Every fund in every calendar year, with the winner of each, is on TSP returns since 2003.
The rules and the record
What governs the account, and what happens when you leave it
The funds are one half of the plan. These pages cover the rules that decide what you can take out, when, and at what cost, each one traced to the statute or the plan's own pages.
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TSP rollover options at separation
Leave it, take it, annuitise it or move it
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Thrift Savings Plan withdrawal rules
Every age threshold, including the age 50 carve-out
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Vesting, Roth, and your spouse's legal rights
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Limits, the rate, and the quarterly default clock
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What $50,000 actually costs to take out early
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Why the federal case differs from the usual advice
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The pension, the TSP and Social Security
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What BRS traded away for the TSP match
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Continuation pay and the lump sum election
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The fiduciary standard, and who manages the money