The BRS Pension Is $600 a Month Smaller. The TSP Match Closes All but $108.

A soldier who retires at 20 years under Legacy High-3 with a $6,000 High-3 average collects $3,000 a month for life. The same soldier under the Blended Retirement System collects $2,400. That is $600 a month, $7,200 a year, and it is the number most BRS soldiers hear first.

What the two systems actually pay

Legacy multiplies 2.5% per year of service by your High-3, the average of your highest 36 months of basic pay. At 20 years that is 50%, so $3,000 on a $6,000 High-3. BRS uses 2.0% per year, which is 40% at 20 years, so $2,400. Both pensions are paid for life and adjusted for inflation, and both are figured on base pay only, not BAH or BAS.

On paper, BRS looks like the worse deal. That reading skips the other half of the system.

The match is the other half of the pension

BRS gives you money inside your TSP. The government contributes 1% automatically and matches your own contributions up to another 4%, so a soldier putting in 5% gets 5% from the government. Legacy has no match at all.

Run both soldiers for 20 years with a 5% contribution and the planner's default settings. The Legacy soldier ends with a projected TSP balance of $147,584. The BRS soldier ends with $295,168, exactly double, because the government put in the same 5% you did. At a 4% withdrawal rate that is $492 a month for Legacy and $984 a month for BRS.

Now put the pieces together. The pension gap is $600 a month in Legacy's favor. The TSP gap is $492 a month in BRS's favor. The difference left over is $108 a month. Add a 50% VA rating at $1,133 a month, tax-free, and the planner shows $4,625 a month net for Legacy against $4,517 for BRS, with full concurrent receipt of retired pay and VA compensation at 50% or higher.

The 20-year cliff

The pension only starts at 20 years. A soldier who leaves at 19 years and 11 months gets no pension under either system. The difference is what walks out the door with you. Under BRS you keep a TSP that includes the government's money once you are vested. Under Legacy you keep only what you saved yourself. That is why the planner has a years-of-service setting, so you can see the cliff in dollars before you decide to stay or go.

How I run the numbers

I enlisted in January 2026 at 38, which puts me under BRS. A match you skip is a raise you refused. I have put my own money into S&P 500 index funds for years, never sold, and held through 2018, 2020 and 2022. Twenty years of a steady contribution does the work. Nothing about it needs to be clever.

I built the Military Retirement Planner to run this exact comparison with your real numbers. You enter your pay grade, years of service, High-3, TSP contribution, VA rating and state of legal residence. It compares BRS against Legacy side by side and lets you download the whole model as an Excel workbook with live formulas.

What the planner will not tell you

It is an educational estimate. I am an active-duty soldier, not a licensed financial advisor, a tax professional, or a representative of DoD, DFAS, or the VA. Real retired pay depends on your exact High-3, creditable service, retirement type, Survivor Benefit Plan elections, federal income tax and any CRSC entitlement. None of that is modeled, and the state tax figures use a single approximate rate rather than real brackets. Verify your numbers with DFAS, the VA and TSP.gov before you decide anything.

If you are weighing what to do with your leave balance on the way out, the rest of my free calculators are on the tools page.

The pension gets the attention, but the match is where BRS soldiers win or lose. Contribute the full 5%, keep it going for twenty years, and the $600 gap shrinks to $108. Boring on purpose, relentless by design.