Ohio STRS Retirement Calculator

How STRS Ohio calculates your benefit

For anyone retiring now it's one flat rate: 2.2% for every year of service, times your final average salary. The final average salary is the average of your five highest years of Ohio public earnings.

Annual Benefit = 2.2% x Years of Service x Final Average Salary
Maximum: 100% of final average salary

A teacher with 32 years and a $70,000 average: 0.022 x 32 x $70,000 = $49,280 a year, $4,107 a month. The 100% cap only bites past about 45.5 years.

Older guides describe a higher rate for years past 30, unreduced retirement at 30 years, and reduced retirement at 55 with 25 years. Those are the rules for retirements before August 1, 2015. If a page still quotes them, it's out of date.

When you can retire

Ohio law lets the retirement board adjust eligibility when its actuary says the change won't hurt the fund, and the board has used that power several times. In March 2026 it extended the current rules five more years:

• Retiring June 1, 2025 through May 1, 2035: unreduced with 32 years at any age, or at 65 with 5 years. Reduced with 27 years at any age, or at 60 with 5 years.
• June 1, 2035 through May 1, 2037: 33 years unreduced, 28 years reduced. The age paths stay at 65 and 60.
• June 1, 2037 on: 34 years unreduced, 29 years reduced.

Once you've met the unreduced service requirement, you keep that eligibility even if you retire after the requirement goes up. The board has also said it wants 32 years to become the permanent standard.

A teacher who started at 23 hits 32 years at 55 and can leave with a full benefit. One who started at 35 won't get there before 65, so the age path decides it.

The early-retirement reduction

Retire under the reduced rules and the benefit is cut by a percentage STRS Ohio's actuary sets for each year you're short of unreduced eligibility. STRS Ohio publishes that table, but its site blocked our requests, so we couldn't verify the current percentages and the calculator doesn't guess. It shows the benefit before the cut and flags the result. Your online account's Service Retirement calculator gives the real number.

The COLA

Ohio law sets a 2% annual increase and lets the board change it, which it has. For fiscal 2027 the board approved 1.6%, paid to retirees whose benefits began on or before June 1, 2022. Its stated goal is a permanent 1%.

The first increase comes at the 5th anniversary of retirement. Each one is figured on your original base benefit, so they add up in a straight line instead of compounding. On a $4,000 monthly benefit, a 1.6% increase is $64 a month each year after the wait. The calculator projects 1.6% a year, which isn't guaranteed.

Buying service credit

STRS Ohio lets you buy credit for some other service, such as out-of-state public teaching, military service and leaves of absence. A purchase can move you across the 27- or 32-year line. Get the cost from STRS Ohio and compare it with what the extra years add.

STRS Ohio and Social Security

Ohio teachers covered by STRS Ohio don't pay Social Security on that job. If you earned Social Security elsewhere, the Windfall Elimination Provision and Government Pension Offset used to cut it. The Social Security Fairness Act, signed in January 2025, repealed both, so those benefits are no longer reduced for an STRS Ohio pension.