If you change, lose, or quit your job

Your membership in PERS is portable, so once you become an Oregon PERS member, you remain a member if you later leave one participating employer to work for another participating employer in a qualifying position. If you are an active Tier One or Tier Two member, you retain your PERS membership for service unless you terminate your membership by withdrawing your account or your account goes into loss of membership. If you are an active OPSRP member, you retain your PERS membership for service unless you withdraw or your account goes into loss of membership.

If you leave covered employment without being vested, and you are a Tier One/Tier Two member, your contributions will remain in the PERS Trust Fund for five years if you do not withdraw your account. At that point, you should contact PERS to apply for a withdrawal, as your account will stop earning interest.

If you leave covered employment without being vested and do not return to covered employment within five years, you lose PERS membership. You re-establish membership in the Oregon Public Employees Retirement Plan (OPSRP) after serving another six-month waiting period in a qualifying position. If you were previously an OPSRP member, were not vested, and did not return to covered employment within five years, you lost all previous retirement credit toward your pension.

Learn more about whether you can withdraw your Individual Account Program (IAP) on PERS' Withdrawal information page. Note that Senate Bill 1049 (2019) changed withdrawal rules for OPSRP members.

Vesting means you cannot lose your benefit rights, even if you stop working in a qualifying position. Under the IAP, your account will continue to have earnings or losses, even if you leave PERS-participating employment.

You will need to notify PERS in writing of any information changes by completing a Information Change Request form.

Please send your form or written request to:
PERS Membership
P.O. Box 23700
Tigard, OR 97281-3700

If you lost membership in the Oregon Public Service Retirement Plan (OPSRP) at the end of 2020, you will have your membership and retirement credit restored if you perform at least 600 hours of qualifying employment in 2021.

The Oregon Legislature passed House Bill (HB) 2875 during the 2021 regular session, and the bill went into effect in September 25, 2021. Your OPSRP membership will be reinstated and your retirement credit will be restored if:

• You were an OPSRP pension program member.
• You are not vested in the OPSRP pension program.
• 2020 was the fifth consecutive year performing fewer than 600 hours of service.
• You lost membership in the OPSRP pension program effective December 31, 2020.
• You did not withdraw your IAP account.
• You perform at least 600 hours of service with one or more PERS-participating employers in the calendar year 2021.

There is no requirement to show a connection to the COVID-19 pandemic. Your membership in the OPSRP pension program will be reinstated automatically if you meet the requirements in HB 2875.

However, your membership will not be reinstated if you lost membership in 2020 and do not perform at least 600 hours of service in calendar year 2021. Your LOM date will remain as December 31, 2020. You will need to serve a new six-month waiting period to re-establish OPSRP membership if you return to employment with a PERS participating employer.