Uniformed services · TSP fund performance
The BRS match adds $2,500 a year
A military TSP account under the Blended Retirement System gets up to 5% of basic pay from the service, made of an automatic 1% that starts after 60 days and matching worth 4% once you contribute 5% yourself. The automatic 1% takes 2 years in uniform to vest, and civilian federal service does not count toward it.
Rules and fund costs verified on 10 September 2026 against tsp.gov Share prices through 9 September 2026
Maximum service money
5%of basic pay, at a 5% member contribution
Wait for the automatic 1%
60 daysof service, for BRS members only
Vesting on the automatic 1%
2 yearsin the uniformed services, civilian time excluded
G Fund after CPI
0.43%a year, May 2003 to July 2026
Service contributions
The BRS match stops at $2,500 a year
Service money at each member contribution rate, on an assumed $50,000 of annual basic pay. The pay figure is the assumption and the rest is the published formula: 1% automatic, then the first 3% matched dollar for dollar and the next 2% at fifty cents.
The match is calculated on the first 5% of pay you contribute in every pay period, which is the detail that turns a deployment into a planning problem. Contributions that stop in October because you hit an annual limit take the match with them for November and December, and the money does not come back the following January. The TSP publishes a worked example of that trap for catch-up contributions, and the mechanism is identical whichever limit you reach first.
The match runs on basic pay alone. You can contribute anywhere from 1% to 100% of incentive pay, special pay or bonus pay, as long as you are also contributing at least 1% of basic pay, and none of that extra is matched. Housing and subsistence allowances cannot be contributed at all.
Wondering what a custodian would actually charge you? 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.
Combat zone tax exclusion
Combat pay puts untaxed money in a taxable account
Contributions made from pay covered by the combat zone tax exclusion are themselves tax-exempt, which leaves a traditional TSP balance carrying two kinds of money that are taxed differently on the way out.
The contributions
Come out untaxed, because you were never taxed on the pay they came from. That holds whether they sit in the traditional balance or the Roth one.
The earnings
Are taxable when the contribution was designated traditional, and tax-free when it was designated Roth and the withdrawal is qualified. Two decades of growth on a deployment year sits on the wrong side of that line for a lot of people.
The proportion
Travels with every withdrawal. The TSP applies the same percentage of tax-exempt money to whatever you take out as your traditional balance carries, so you cannot draw the untaxed portion first and leave the rest.
The limits work differently during a deployment as well. The annual elective deferral limit does not apply to traditional contributions made from combat zone pay, so a member can contribute far more in a deployment year than in an ordinary one, and the annual additions limit becomes the binding constraint instead. Any catch-up contribution funded from tax-exempt combat zone pay has to be designated Roth, and a BRS member who reaches the annual additions limit can keep making catch-up contributions without any of them being matched.
Leaving the service
What a TSP rollover keeps, and what it does not
A separated member with $200 or more can leave the balance in the TSP indefinitely, which makes the rollover a choice rather than a deadline. Five things change if you take it, and the last one is specific to anyone who deployed.
| What | In a rollover | Why it matters |
|---|---|---|
| Tax deferral | Preserved | A direct rollover of the traditional balance to a traditional IRA is not taxed this year and nothing is withheld. |
| Vested service money | Preserved | After 2 years in uniform the automatic 1% is yours and moves with everything else. |
| The expense ratio | Lost | The TSP's own booklet says the receiving plan's rules determine your investment options, fees and rights to payment. |
| The G Fund | Lost | Nothing outside the plan holds Treasury securities issued specially to it and redeemable at par. |
| Tax-exempt basis | Only if accepted | The TSP tells separating members to ask whether the receiving account will accept tax-exempt contributions at all. Not every one will. |
That last row is the one to take seriously, because it is the only item on the list that can turn a tax-free withdrawal into a taxable one. A custodian who cannot account for tax-exempt basis separately will treat the whole traditional balance as pre-tax when you eventually draw on it, and the money you earned in a combat zone gets taxed on the way out for the first time. Get the answer in writing before the paperwork starts.
The mechanics of the rollover itself are the same as any other plan, so they are covered once rather than three times. The gold IRA rollover guide works through the direct and indirect routes, the 60-day deadline and the withholding trap in detail.
Method
How these figures were measured
Two kinds of number appear on this page, and they are held to different standards.
The match figures are arithmetic on the published formula, applied to a stated $50,000 of annual basic pay. Change the pay figure and every dollar amount scales with it, while the percentages and the position of the cliff do not move. The vesting period, the 60-day wait and the combat zone rules come from the Summary of the Thrift Savings Plan and the plan's tax booklet rather than from a secondary source.
The fund returns and expense ratios are the same figures the TSP fund performance tracker computes, from the daily share price file covering 31 May 2003 to 9 September 2026. The real return joins a month-end resample of that file to the Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U series and runs to July 2026, which is as far as CPI goes.
Sources
- Thrift Savings Plan, contribution types, retrieved 10 September 2026
- Summary of the Thrift Savings Plan, vesting and combat zone contributions, retrieved 10 September 2026
- Tax Rules about TSP Payments, tax-exempt balances and rollovers, retrieved 10 September 2026
- Thrift Savings Plan, contribution limits, combat zone and catch-up rules, retrieved 10 September 2026
- Thrift Savings Plan, expenses and fees, 2025 ratios, retrieved 10 September 2026
Limits
What this page does not show
Four things this page is not in a position to tell you, stated here rather than buried in a disclaimer.
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Not your pay
The $50,000 above is an assumption chosen to make the arithmetic readable. Basic pay varies by grade and years in service, and only the current pay tables can tell you your own figure.
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Not the BRS pension
The Blended Retirement System pairs the TSP with a reduced defined-benefit annuity and a continuation pay option. Nothing here touches either, and a rollover decision that ignores them is looking at one part of three.
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Not legacy retirement
Members who stayed under the legacy High-3 system get no service contributions to the TSP at all. The match figures above apply to BRS participants, and the fund data applies to everyone.
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Not a gold IRA fee schedule
Very few custodians publish one, so any comparison here is a range rather than a computed figure. The gold IRA fees page holds what we have been able to verify in writing.
The Digest Perspective
Combat pay is the question nobody asks
· Gold IRA Digest Editorial Team
The TSP's own tax booklet tells separating members to check whether the receiving account will accept tax-exempt contributions, and in every gold IRA sales call we have listened to, nobody raised it.
What that does not settle is whether a member who deployed should stay put. The G Fund returned 0.43% a year after CPI across 23 years and finished behind consumer prices in 7 of 22 calendar years, which is thin for someone leaving at twenty years with three decades of drawdown ahead. The tax question is a reason to move carefully rather than a reason not to move.
The plan
Tracks your tax-exempt basis and charges 0.034% to 0.051% to do it. It will hold a separated member's balance indefinitely above $200 and has no reason to hurry you.
The dealers
Buy military separation lists, and the pitch usually opens on service rather than on arithmetic. The commission is in the premium over spot price on the coins, so the annual fee is the number that gets quoted and the premium is the one that gets skipped.
The custodian
Has to be able to account for tax-exempt basis separately, and nobody in the chain is obliged to volunteer whether it can. Ask in writing, keep the answer, and treat a vague one as a no.
The strongest argument against us
You would be leaving the cheapest retirement account in the country, and for most members 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 together, which is 9 times as much before a coin is bought.
That gap compounds, and it lands hardest exactly where military balances tend to sit. A flat fee does not scale down, so over 20 years at the C Fund's own 11.39% it takes 4.0% of a $50,000 balance against 1.6% of a $100,000 one, which is $17,126 out of the smaller account. Add the premium over spot going in and the dealer's bid coming out and a rollover starts several percent behind. Someone separating at twenty with a modest balance is the reader this argument most often ends for, and it should.
Our view is that any service member with combat zone contributions should get a written answer on tax-exempt basis before signing anything, and that the answer is worth more attention than the fee schedule the pitch will lead with.
Whether a rollover makes sense at all depends on your balance, your vesting, and whether any of it came from a deployment. We cannot see any of that, and the checker below is the fastest way to work out which rules apply to you.
Six questions, about 2 minutes, no phone number
Common questions
Military TSP questions
- How much does the service put into a BRS TSP account?
- Up to 5% of basic pay, made of 1% automatic that starts after 60 days of service, plus matching on the first 5% you contribute: the first 3% dollar for dollar and the next 2% at fifty cents. On $50,000 of basic pay a 5% contribution of $2,500 brings $2,500 of service money. Nothing above the fifth percent is matched.
- Do combat zone contributions get taxed on withdrawal?
- No, the contributions themselves do not. Traditional contributions made from pay covered by the combat zone tax exclusion come out untaxed, though the earnings on them are taxable. The TSP also notes that any withdrawal carries the same proportion of tax-exempt money as your traditional balance does, so you cannot choose to take the untaxed part first.
- Will a gold IRA accept my tax-exempt balance?
- Ask before you start, because the TSP does not answer that question and the receiving account might not accept it. Its own tax booklet tells separating members to find out whether the IRA or plan accepts rollovers, what minimum it will take, and whether it will accept tax-exempt contributions and Roth money. A custodian that cannot track tax-exempt basis separately turns a tax-free withdrawal into a taxable one.
- Does maxing out early cost me matching?
- Yes, it can. Matching is calculated on the first 5% of pay you contribute in each pay period, so contributions that stop in October because you hit a limit take the match with them for November and December. The TSP publishes a worked example of exactly this trap for catch-up contributions, and the mechanism is the same one whichever limit you reach first.
- How long until the service 1% is mine?
- 2 years in the uniformed services, and civilian federal service does not count toward it. On $50,000 of basic pay that is about $1,000 of contributions at stake before earnings, checked against tsp.gov on 10 September 2026. You are always vested in your own contributions and in the service matching from the pay period each one arrives in.
Gold IRA Digest is an independent publisher and is not affiliated with the Thrift Savings Plan, the Federal Retirement Thrift Investment Board, the Department of Defense or any branch of the uniformed services. This page is information rather than investment or tax advice. Plan rules change, so check anything here against tsp.gov before acting on it, and take the combat zone tax question to an adviser who can see your whole return.