You should designate a person or persons, your estate, or a trust to receive your TSP account after your death. To designate a beneficiary or beneficiaries, log in to My Account. For us to honor it, your beneficiary designation must be on file with us at the time of your death. We cannot honor a will or any other document.
By law, we must pay your properly designated beneficiary(ies) under all circ*mstances. For example, if you designate your spouse as a beneficiary, a beneficiary participant account will be set up for that spouse after your death, even if you are separated. If you divorce (and even remarry) but do not make a new beneficiary designation, your TSP account will be paid to the individual designated on your record, even if this person has given up all rights to your TSP account. Consequently, if your life situation changes, you may want to make a new beneficiary designation that changes your current one.
See the TSP booklet Death Benefits (145kb) for more information.
Statutory order of precedence
If you die with a balance in your TSP account and did not designate beneficiaries for that account, the account will be distributed according to the following order of precedence required by law:
- To your spouse
- If none, to your child or children equally, with the share due any deceased child divided equally among that child’s descendants
- If none, to your parents equally or to your surviving parent
- If none, to the appointed executor or administrator of your estate
- If none, to your next of kin who is entitled to your estate under the laws of the state in which you resided at the time of your death
As used here, “child” means either a biological child or a child adopted by the participant. It does not include your stepchild unless you have adopted the child. Nor does it include your biological child if that child has been adopted by someone other than your spouse.
“Parents” does not include stepparents who have not adopted you.
