Changes to USS retirement factors
Posted on Wednesday 20 May 2026
These are:
- Commutation factors: Used to calculate how much additional lump sum is bought for each £1 of pension given up. The new factors means that, where members give up some of their pension for more lump sum, they will get less additional lump sum if they retire on or after 1 October 2026 than they would if they retired before 1 October 2026.
- Reverse commutation factors: Used to calculate how much additional pension is bought for each £1 of lump sum given up. The new factors means that, where members give up some or all of their lump sum for more pension, they will get more additional pension if they retire on or after 1 October 2026 than they would if they retired before 1 October 2026.
There will be no change to early or late retirement factors.
Colleagues considering retirement in the coming months and who will be affected by the changes may wish to consider choosing an appropriate date of retirement to reduce the impact of their changes on their retirement outcomes.
The Benefit Calculator will not be updated with the new factors until 1 October 2026. So if you are using the Benefit Calculator to produce figures for retirements on or after 1 October 2026 now, it will not produce all of the correct figures. Figures provided by the Benefit Calculator for retirement dates before 1 October 2026 will be unaffected. Relevant member retirement estimates, where retirement is expected to start after 1 October 2026, will use the updated factors where required. Use this form if you'd like to request an estimate of your retirement benefits from USS. Please note that USS will not provide estimates where the intended date of retirement is more than 12 months in advance and will only provide members with two estimates per year.
The current factors, effective 1 April 2025, continue to be valid until 30 September 2026. For more information, visit factors used by USS.