5 U.S.C. § 8301
Section 8301 · Uniform retirement date
Amended 1 time on record
Applied in 18 court decisions — leading case Cooper v. United States (1973)
Most recently applied in 370 N.J. Super. 486 - Panetta v. Panetta (July 2004)
How often courts cite this section
Court decisions citing this, by year.Markers show enactment, consequential amendments, and circuit splits over this section — watch for a citation surge after a change or a disagreement. The dip in the last several years is a data-coverage gap, not a real trend — our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so recent citations are undercounted.
(a) Except as otherwise specifically provided by this title or other statute, retirement authorized by statute is effective on the first day of the month following the month in which retirement would otherwise be effective.
(b) Notwithstanding subsection (a) of this section, the rate of active or retired pay or allowance is computed as of the date retirement would have occurred but for subsection (a) of this section.
Editorial notes U.S. Code · Office of the Law Revision Counsel
In subsection (a), the words “Except as otherwise specifically provided by this title or other statute” are added because of the statutes carried into subchapter III of chapter 83. The words “of Federal personnel of whatever class, civil, military, naval, judicial, legislative, or otherwise, and for whatever cause retired” are omitted as unnecessary. The words “and said first day of the month for retirements made after July 1, 1930, shall be for all purposes in lieu of such date for retirement as was on April 23, 1930, authorized” are omitted as executed.
Standard changes are made to conform with the definitions applicable and the style of this title as outlined in the preface to the report.