Updated August 2, 2026. Quick answer: a separated TSP participant has four ways to take money out, and they can be used together: a partial distribution, a total distribution, an annuity purchase, and installments. Three of them carry a minimum — $1,000 for a partial distribution, $3,500 for an annuity purchase, $25 for an installment payment — and none of them can be reversed once processed.
The four options
| Option | What it is | Minimum |
|---|---|---|
| Partial distribution | A specified amount, leaving the rest invested | $1,000 |
| Total distribution | The whole balance at once | — |
| Annuity purchase | Buys a life annuity from the TSP’s provider | $3,500 (traditional and Roth counted separately) |
| Installments | Monthly, quarterly or annual payments — either a fixed dollar amount or an amount computed from IRS life-expectancy tables | $25 |
The TSP states plainly that these are not exclusive: “You have four options for taking money from your TSP account as a separated participant”, and they may be used alone or in combination. A common shape is installments for the monthly need plus the occasional partial distribution for a one-off.
The one that recalculates itself
If you choose life-expectancy installments rather than a fixed dollar amount, the payment is recomputed each January. That is a feature if you want the payment to track your age and balance, and a problem if you were budgeting on a fixed number. Choosing the fixed-dollar version keeps the amount stable and puts the longevity risk back on you. Neither is the right answer in general; they fail in opposite directions.
What the TSP charges for any of this: nothing
The TSP publishes exactly three fee-bearing transactions — loans, the mutual fund window, and court-ordered payments. Withdrawals, installments and annuity purchases are not among them, and on the annuity it says so outright: “You won’t have to pay any commissions when you buy an annuity through the TSP.” The cost of taking money out of the TSP is the tax, not a charge.
Before you press the button
The irreversibility is the part worth sitting with. In the TSP’s words: “Withdrawals and distributions cannot be reversed once they’ve been processed, so think carefully before you make a move.”
Two questions decide most of it, and neither is on this page. Whether the penalty applies depends on the year you separated — the separation-year test, not your age today. And which account to draw from first is a tax question, not a TSP question: the withdrawal-order calculator works it in the right order.
Withdrawal options, minimums and the irreversibility statement from tsp.gov (Withdrawals in retirement). Read August 2026. General information, not tax advice.
If a divorce is in play, the division comes before the withdrawal — how a divorce order divides the account first.
One item on this menu behaves unlike the others: the annuity cannot be changed or terminated once it is purchased, and for a married FERS participant it is the default the regulation starts from.
What the money is invested in while it waits is defined by statute rather than by a fund company — what each TSP fund is required to hold.