By DFAS Cleveland     April 2026

The online account management system, myPay, used by the Defense Finance and Accounting Service (DFAS), is the fastest and most secure way to manage your military pay account. Before you retire, there are a few steps you should take in myPay to make your transition a smooth one.

Prior to your retirement date, especially if you primarily access myPay with a Common Access Card (CAC) today, update your password, login ID, and security questions so that you can maintain access to myPay once a CAC is no longer an option for you.

In addition, you may not have access to your government email address after separation, so be sure to add a valid personal email address. You can do this right now, while you’re thinking about it. Keeping your email address up to date will ensure you are able to receive important information from DFAS, such as notifications when tax statements are made available on myPay, any changes that may impact your pay, and other Army correspondence, used to keep you, as a Retired Soldier, and your family current on policies and laws that may impact you.

If you’re on active duty, once you separate, your active-duty account will remain available on myPay for 13 months. During those 13 months, you can access your W-2information, but not your LESs; so be sure to download your LESs before you separate.

Another good reason to make sure you can log in without your CAC: now that myPay is more mobile-friendly, you can log in on a web browser from your connected device and download your LESs and W-2s for your files.

Access to myPay after retirement

If you are retiring immediately after separating, once DFAS has established your retired pay account, you will be able to access both your retired pay account and your military pay account from myPay using the same login ID and password.

For Soldiers in the Reserve or Guard who will be entering the Gray Area, myPay has a “Future Retiree” myPay account, which provides Gray Area Retirees a convenient way to keep their contact information updated with DFAS during the Gray Area period, so that they can receive important news from DFAS and from the Army.

After you begin receiving retired pay, you can obtain retired pay and tax statements in myPay. For your retired pay, you’ll receive a 1099-R instead of a W-2. The 1099-R is the tax document issued to report distributions from a retirement plan. You’ll also begin receiving a Retiree Account Statement (RAS) instead of an LES.