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join NYSLRS

Join NYSLRS

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Most State and municipal employees are required to join the New York State and Local Retirement System (NYSLRS) when they are hired. But for some employees, membership is optional, meaning you are not automatically enrolled. To join NYSLRS, you must submit a membership application to your employer, who will then enroll you in NYSLRS. It’s important to understand the valuable benefits of NYSLRS membership and why you should join as soon as possible.

join NYSLRS

Whose Membership is Optional or Mandatory

Membership is optional if:

  • You work less than 12 months per year, including 10-month school employees working full-time;
  • You work less than 30 hours per week or less than the number of hours for full-time employment, as established by your employer for your position;
  • You are in a temporary or provisional position (under Civil Service Law); or
  • Your annual compensation is less than New York State’s minimum wage multiplied by 2,000 hours.

Membership is mandatory if:

  • You are in a permanent, full-time, 12-month position of an employer who participates in NYSLRS; and
  • You are in a full- or part-time position covered by the Police and Fire Retirement System (PFRS), such as police officers and firefighters.

If you aren’t sure whether you’re a member, your employer should be able to let you know. Contact us if you have questions.

Benefits of Joining NYSLRS

NYSLRS is one of the largest retirement systems in the world, administering benefits for more than 1.2 million members, retirees and beneficiaries.

If you aren’t sure whether to join NYSLRS, here are the advantages:

  • Your NYSLRS pension is a defined benefit plan. When you retire, you will receive a monthly pension payment for the rest of your life. Once you reach retirement age, you can retire with as few as five years of service credit (part-time service is pro-rated).
  • You can request additional service credit for your public employment before joining NYSLRS or if you served in the U.S. Armed Forces and received an honorable discharge from active military duty.
  • You can transfer service if you are still a member of another public retirement system in New York State.
  • You can reinstate service if you withdrew your membership in NYSLRS or another public retirement system in New York State.
  • You can take a loan against your retirement contributions once you meet eligibility requirements.
  • NYSLRS retirement plans provide death and disability retirement benefits.

Nearly 3,000 employers participate in NYSLRS, allowing you to continue your membership if you take a job at another New York State public employer. And if you decide to leave public employment before you have ten years of service credit, you can withdraw your contributions plus interest or roll over your contributions into another retirement savings plan.

NYSLRS Membership Basics

Once you join and become a NYSLRS member:

Don’t Delay Joining

It’s important to join NYSLRS at the start of your employment. If you don’t join right away, you can purchase service credit for your public employment from before you became a member, but it will cost more—6% of your earnings plus interest rather than contributing a percentage based on your earnings. Also, while you can request previous service credit and pay for the cost at any time, you must earn two years of service credit as a NYSLRS member before your purchased service can be credited.

Get Credit for All Your Public Service

Because service credit is a major factor in calculating your pension benefit, it’s important to make sure you get credit for all your public service. Once you join NYSLRS, you should request any additional service as early in your career as possible.

  • NYSLRS will need time to request records from your previous employer or retirement system.
  • The sooner you purchase your credit, the less it will generally cost.
  • Requesting early gives you time to pay for additional service.

Your request will be reviewed to determine your eligibility. We will send you a letter with the amount of service credit you are eligible to receive if you choose to purchase it, the cost and payment options. There are certain situations where purchasing additional service credit will not increase your pension. For more information, read about whether should you purchase additional service credit.

Divorce and Your Other NYSLRS Benefits—Part 2

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divorce and your other nyslrs benefitsWe’ve written about how divorce may affect your pension. However, divorce can also impact your other retirement benefits.

If your ex-spouse will receive a share of your pension and other retirement benefits, NYSLRS must have an approved Domestic Relations Order (DRO) on file. A DRO is a court order specifying how benefits should be divided. It’s important to complete and file the DRO with NYSLRS well before your retirement date to avoid changes or delays in payments. Questions about the consequences of not filing a DRO on time should be addressed to an attorney.

Death Benefits and Your Beneficiaries

As of July 7, 2008, beneficiary designations for certain death benefits are automatically revoked when a divorce, annulment or judicial separation becomes final.

Ordinary Death Benefit

If you die in active service (before retiring), your beneficiaries may be entitled to an ordinary death benefit.

Accidental Death Benefit

If you die as a result of an on-the-job accident, an accidental death benefit may be payable to certain beneficiaries. The beneficiaries of this benefit are designated by law, and only those beneficiaries may receive this benefit—even if there is a DRO.

Post-Retirement Death Benefit

If you die after retiring, you may be covered by a post-retirement death benefit, which provides a one-time, lump sum payment to your beneficiaries.

Your Beneficiaries

If you are divorced, it is especially important to review your beneficiary designations to ensure your benefits will be distributed according to your wishes and your divorce agreement.  

If your ex-spouse is awarded a portion of your death benefits, a DRO will specify how much your ex-spouse will receive and direct you to name your ex-spouse as a beneficiary. You should update your beneficiaries and choose additional beneficiaries for the remainder of any benefits. However, if you do not update your beneficiary designations or if your beneficiary designations conflict with the terms of the DRO, the DRO will take precedence.

Retirement Online is the fastest and most convenient way to view and update your beneficiaries.

For more information about death benefit beneficiaries, read our blog post—Your Death Benefit Beneficiaries. Or, if you are retired or planning to retire soon, read Can You Change Your Beneficiary After You Retire?

Loans

Eligible NYSLRS members may take out a NYLSRS loan against their retirement contributions. However, even if you are eligible, a DRO may be written to prohibit you from taking future loans.

If you retire with an outstanding loan balance, your pension will be reduced. The ex-spouse’s share of the pension will also be reduced unless the DRO specifically states the ex-spouse’s share should be calculated without reference to outstanding loans.

Contribution Refunds

Occasionally, NYSLRS may refund a member’s contributions because of a tier reinstatement, membership withdrawal or membership transfer. Some members are eligible to make voluntary contributions and withdraw them as excess contributions. Generally, if a DRO doesn’t mention a contribution refund, the member will receive the full amount.

For More Divorce Information

Visit our Divorce and Your Benefits page for more information, including how divorce can affect your service credit, disability benefits or annual cost-of-living adjustment.

Tier 6 Member Contribution Rate Changes

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Most NYSLRS members contribute a percentage of their earnings toward their retirement. For Tier 6 members (those who joined NYSLRS on or after April 1, 2012), your contribution rate is based on your earnings and is subject to change each year on April 1.

The minimum contribution rate is 3 percent, and the maximum is 6 percent.

Tier 6 contribution rates

How Your Tier 6 Contribution Rate is Calculated

If you are a new Tier 6 member, your contribution rate is based on a projected annualized wage provided by your employer. For new part-time employees, your employer calculates a projected annualized wage by using your part-time rate to determine what your annual wage would be if you worked full-time.

Once you have been a member for more than two full state fiscal years, your contribution rate is calculated using actual earnings reported to us by your employer(s) from two state fiscal years prior. So, contribution rates for April 1, 2025 through March 31, 2026 are based on what you actually earned in all public employment from April 1, 2023 through March 31, 2024.

Earnings include:

Overtime Pay Temporarily Excluded from Tier 6 Contribution Rates

A new law temporarily excludes overtime pay earned from April 1, 2022 through March 31, 2024 from the calculation of Tier 6 contribution rates. This may lower contribution rates for some Tier 6 members from April 1, 2024 through March 31, 2026.

For more information, read our blog post, Overtime Pay Temporarily Excluded from Tier 6 Contribution Rates.

Contribution rates are set at the beginning of each fiscal year on April 1. If your contribution rate changes, we notify your employer in March so they can update their payroll system to withhold the proper amount.

For more information, visit our Member Contributions webpage.

Understanding Your NYSLRS Pension

NYSLRS pensions are defined benefit plans, also known as traditional pension plans. When you retire, you will receive a monthly pension payment for the rest of your life. Your pension will be calculated using a preset formula based on your earnings and years of service—it will not be based on the individual contributions you paid into the system. Member contributions support the benefits earned by current and future retirees and are an important asset of the Common Retirement Fund, which holds and invests the money used to pay NYSLRS benefits.

Find your NYSLRS retirement plan publication for comprehensive information about your retirement benefits and how your pension will be calculated.

Overtime Pay Temporarily Excluded from Tier 6 Contribution Rates

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An April 2024 State law temporarily excluded overtime pay earned from April 1, 2022 through March 31, 2024 from the calculation of Tier 6 contribution rates, lowering rates for some members.

Overtime Pay Temporarily Excluded from Tier 6 Contribution Rates

How the Law Impacts Tier 6 Contribution Rates

As a Tier 6 member, the percentage you contribute to NYSLRS is set at the beginning of each State fiscal year on April 1. The minimum contribution rate is 3 percent, and the maximum is 6 percent.

For most members, your rate is calculated based on what you earned two State fiscal years prior, including regular pay, holiday pay, longevity pay—and normally, overtime pay. However, the April 2024 law temporarily excluded overtime pay from the calculation of contribution rates, lowering rates for some members.

If you made mandatory contributions
toward your retirement and earned overtime
pay during the following state fiscal year:		Then, the law may impact your contribution rate for the following state fiscal year:
April 1, 2022–March 31, 2023April 1, 2024–March 31, 2025
April 1, 2023–March 31, 2024April 1, 2025–March 31, 2026

The law does not impact your contribution rate if:

  • You already pay the minimum rate of 3 percent;
  • You did not earn overtime from April 1, 2022 to March 31, 2024; or
  • You joined NYSLRS on or after April 1, 2022.*

*As a new NYSLRS member, your rate is based on a projected annualized wage provided by your employer, rather than your actual earnings. For more information about how your contribution rate is calculated, read our blog post, How Your Tier 6 Contribution Rate Can Change, or visit our Member Contributions page.

Contribution Rate Changes and Refunds for Overpayments

We reviewed earnings information from employers, removed overtime pay earned from April 1, 2022 through March 31, 2023, and recalculated contribution rates.

If your contribution rate for the previous State fiscal year (April 1, 2024–March 31, 2025) was lowered, we notified your employer and sent you a letter with information about your new rate and possible refund.

If you overpaid member contributions and are due a refund, we sent you another letter notifying you of the amount.

  • If you are employed by the State, your refund was processed automatically through State Payroll and included in either your 10/29/2025 or 11/05/2025 NYS paycheck.
  • If you work for a local employer (city, town, village, county, school, etc.), we credited the amount to your employer, and they will issue your refund to you, which can take up to 8 weeks from the date of the letter you received.

(Note: If you are not due a refund, you will not receive another letter from NYSLRS.)

We also excluded overtime pay from earnings for April 1, 2023 through March 31, 2024 when we calculated contribution rates for the current State fiscal year (April 1, 2025–March 31, 2026). In March, we notified your employer and directed them to use this rate beginning April 1. Therefore, we will not need to recalculate rates or issue refunds again, and there is no action required on your part. 

NYSLRS – One Tier at a Time: ERS Tier 5

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When you joined the New York State and Local Retirement System (NYSLRS), you were assigned a tier based on the date of your membership. This post looks at Tier 5 members of the Employees’ Retirement System (ERS).

Your tier determines such things as your eligibility for benefits, the calculation of those benefits, death benefit coverage and whether you need to contribute toward your benefits.

ERS has six tiers. Anyone who joined from January 1, 2010 through March 31, 2012 is in Tier 5. There were 33,619 ERS Tier 5 members as of March 31, 2022, representing 5.2 percent of ERS membership.

Most ERS Tier 5 members (unless they are in special retirement plans) retire under the Article 15 retirement plan. Check out the graphic below for the basic retirement information for Tier 5 members in this plan.

ERS Tier 5

Membership Milestones

As of April 9, 2022, Tier 5 members only need five years of service credit to become vested. If you are a vested member in the Article 15 retirement plan, you are eligible for a lifetime pension benefit as early as age 55. However, if you retire before the full retirement age of 62, your benefit will be reduced.*

If you retire with less than 20 years, the benefit is 1.66 percent of your final average earnings (FAE) for each year of service. If you retire with 20 to 30 years, the benefit is 2 percent of your FAE for each year of service. For each year of service beyond 30 years, you will receive 1.5 percent of your FAE. For example, with 35 years of service, you can retire at 62 with 67.5 percent of your FAE.

Where to Find More ERS Tier 5 Information

For more information about ERS Tier 5 membership, find your NYSLRS retirement plan publication. It’s a comprehensive description of the benefits provided by your specific plan.

You can check your service credit total and estimate your pension using Retirement Online. Most members can use our online pension calculator to create an estimate based on the salary and service information NYSLRS has on file for them. You can enter different retirement dates to see how your choices would affect your potential benefit.

Members may not be able to use the Retirement Online calculator in certain circumstances, for example, if they have recently transferred a membership to NYSLRS. These members can contact us to request an estimate or use the “Quick Calculator” on our website. The Quick Calculator generates estimates based on information you provide.

For information about other tiers, our series NYSLRS – One Tier at a Time gives you a quick look at the benefits for other tiers in both ERS and the Police and Fire Retirement System.

*Uniformed court officers or peace officers employed by the Unified Court System that have at least 30 years of credit may retire with a full benefit as early as age 55.