For current share prices for all the funds, see “Current Prices”.

TSP administrators re-baselined fund/share prices in 2003, so the prices represented below date from time. Monthly changes in fund/share prices from January 1988 onward are available here for the individual funds, and monthly boxplots for fund variability are available here.

*Note: some older browsers such as IE are unable to display interactive charts and graphs.

The charts below represent the returns of each fund based on monthly investments of the maximum yearly TSP deferral limits*, from the date of each fund’s inception to the current year. Figures are approximate and will differ depending on actual investment dates and actual amounts invested. Remember: past fund performance does not predict future returns, but the below is a good illustration of what investors can do when investing through thick and thin over the long-term!

New! beta Check how you would’ve done in the G, F, and/or C Funds for any timeframe from 1988 here.

Scroll over the chart to see approximate returns of investing the equivalent of the maximum deferral limit* on a monthly basis from 1988 through 2023 - a total of approximately $480,000.

S, I Funds

The S and I Funds were inaugurated in 2001, thus the following charts are based on returns from 2001 to the present:

Scroll over the chart to see approximate returns of investing the equivalent of the maximum deferral limit* on a monthly basis from 2001 through 2023, or approximately $360,000.

Check out this post to see similar returns for the L Funds!

Do you need to max out contributions to build wealth? No! See this article for returns over a 40-year period after investing even a bare minimum: “What Does $1,000 a Year Matter?”.

*The deferral amounts used in the examples above can be reached either as a combination of individual and matching contributions (for civilian and military BRS participants), or solely from individual contributions (for uniformed service members who do not receive a government match). Thus a civilian FERS worker making $120,000 would reach the $22,500 deferral rate for 2023 used in the examples above by contributing $16,500 and receiving $6,000 in 5% government matching contributions, for $22,500 in total contributions for the year. Civilian government workers who receive matching contributions can defer up to the maximum deferral rate - $22,500 in 2023, plus catch-up deferrals for those over 50 - and still receive a match of 5% of their regular salary.

For a complete discussion of the methodology used and calculations, see this page.

Below, you will find individual bar charts for the G, F, and C Funds, since their inception. I then provide a chart of all three together, to see the relative changes over time.

Scroll over the charts to see information on specific months.

And here they are together on the same graph. Note that funds can be toggled on and off in the legend, and there is a range slider to help adjust the view:

What is notable is the volatility of C Fund monthly changes in value compared to the G Fund and, to a lesser extent, the F Fund. Yet, despite the huge drops in the early 2000s and again in 2008-2009 - or better said, because of huge drops during those timeframes - investors enjoyed significant returns in later years as seen in “TSP Fund Returns”.

There is signficant volatility in the stock funds versus the bond funds, but significant return by investing steadily in them over the very-long term.

And here is a bar chart representing the monthly changes in value of the S and I Funds since their inception in 2001 to present, also with a range slider:

Lastly, here is a bar chart representing the monthly changes in value of the L Funds (Income-2040) since their inception in August 2005 to present, also with a range slider. (See this post on the over-all returns of the L Funds if investing since their inception.)

In that year, they consisted of the L Income Fund, the L 2020 Fund, the L 2030 Fund, and the L 2040 Fund. The L 2050 Fund was added later, and that is too new to include below.

L Income, L 2020, L 2030, & L 2040 Funds

Scroll over the chart to see approximate returns of investing the equivalent of the maximum deferral limit* on a monthly basis from 2005 through 2023 - a total of approximately $306,000.

The funds consist of a different mix of the TSP stock and bond funds. The L Income is the most conservative, with the least amount of stock fund holdings compared to bond fund holdings. It has almost 75% of total holdings invested in the G Fund, another 6% in the F Fund, and the remainder is invested in the C, S, and I stock funds. (The stock holdings will gradually increase in the coming years, however.)

The funds’ holdings of stock funds compared to bond funds gradually decrease over the years, so that the fund holdings are more conservative - and less prone to major swings in value - as one nears retirement.

Readers can see the recent allocations among the L Funds here.

The charts represent the returns of each L fund based on monthly investments that total the maximum yearly TSP deferral limits*, from the date of each fund’s inception to the current year. Figures are approximate and will differ depending on actual investment dates and actual amounts invested. Remember: past fund performance does not predict future returns, but the below is a good illustration of what investors can do when investing through thick and thin over the very long-term!

New! beta Check how you would’ve done in the G, F, and/or C Funds for any timeframe from 1988 here.

L 2050 Fund

The L 2050 Fund, began accepting contributions in February 2011. It keeps a majority of investors’ contributions in stock funds, with over 80% invested in the C, S, and I stock funds, and just under 20% invested in the G and F bond funds.

Scroll over the chart to see approximate returns of investing the equivalent of the maximum deferral limit* on a monthly basis from 2011 through 2023 - a total of approximately $218,000.

Maintaining steady contributions over the long term matters. For information on returns over a 40-year period when investing even small amounts, see “What Does $1,000 a Year Matter?”.

*The deferral amounts used in the examples above can be reached either as a combination of individual and matching contributions (for civilian and military BRS participants), or solely from individual contributions (for uniformed service members who do not receive a government match). Thus a civilian FERS worker making $120,000 would reach the $22,500 deferral rate for 2023 used in the examples above by contributing $16,500 and receiving $6,000 in 5% government matching contributions, for $22,500 in total contributions for the year. Civilian government workers who receive matching contributions can defer up to the maximum deferral rate - $22,500 in 2023, plus catch-up deferrals for those over 50 - and still receive a match of 5% of their regular salary.

For a complete discussion of the methodology used and calculations, see this page.

TL;DR: investing in the stock index funds through the downturns is how real wealth is made!

Photo by Micheile Henderson on Unsplash

Those who contributed enough from pay that, together with the government match, was the equivalent of the maximum deferral limit each year in the C Fund are now millionaires. Compare the investing outcomes among the three original funds:

Scroll over the chart to see approximate returns of investing the equivalent of the maximum deferral limit on a monthly basis in that fund, with C Fund investors having past the $1 million mark in 2014. For current total returns for all the funds since their inception and methodology, see this page; to do your own calculations for TSP funds, see this calculator.

In 1988, the deferral limit was just over $7,300, and by 2000 that limit had grown to $10,500. By 2023, the deferral limit had increased to $22,500. (See this chart for past TSP deferral limits.)

Those who contributed the maximum deferral limit from their pay each year and collected the government match are in even better shape (for example, contributing closer to the maximum $22,500 plus the government match of 5% of salary).

Check out “TSP Investing Strategies: Building Wealth While Working for Uncle Sam” for more buy-and-hold, long-term strategies, such as the “Thrift Van Winkle” strategy, strategies to reduce volatility, the “Purchase and PCS” real estate strategy (with six in total), and 529 strategies, among others.

And for those who contributed the maximum deferral limit plus additional “catch-up” contributions (which reached $7,500 in addition to the $22,500 deferral limit) allowed for those over 50, well, the’re doing really well.

(For those who had a little extra in the G or F Fund to use when the C Fund collapsed in 2002-3 and again in 2008-9, they’re probably doing the best of all! See TSP Investing Strategies for more on a basic way to implement this technique.)

Click to the TSP Stats page or the stock and bond funds link to see how the other funds have performed since their inception.

Check out this post to see similar returns for the L Funds, albeit for a shorter timeframe.

And even investing a bare minimum can produce incredible returns over time: “What Does $1,000 a Year Matter?”.

Good luck in your investing!

Or at least, some of them can.

The below are boxplots of each of the index-specific funds and the L funds. They represent monthly changes since their respective inceptions: the G, F, and C Funds in the late 1980s, the S and I Funds in 2001, and the L Funds in 2005. (I haven’t plotted the L 2050 Fund yet, sorry!)

Notice how little the G Fund fluctuates compared to the other funds. This is a literal representation of how steady it is. It doesn’t lose value - it is in fact the only TSP fund that has not declined in any given month since its inception as you can see below - but it doesn’t gain that much over time either.

Compare that to the S and I Funds - in some months, they’ve lost as much as 20%!

Scroll over each of the boxplots, and you can see additional statistical information about the monthly returns of each of the funds: the median return (on a percentage basis, monthly), the upper Q3 and lower Q1 quartile ranges of returns (again, percentage change monthly), the upper and lower ranges, and outliers.

It is interesting to see that, despite or perhaps because of the variability of the funds, steady investing over time can yield some impressive results.

(Update: I’ve added a post with returns broken out by month here.)

I hope you enjoy these as much as I do!

*Note: some older browsers such as IE are unable to display interactive charts and graphs.

Here are the current and historical annuity rates offered via tsp.gov.

While annuity rates had begun to improve since reaching an early nadir of 1.375% in September 2016, they began to drop again in early 2019. Following the COVID shutdowns starting in early 2020, they bottomed in July 2020 to a new low of 1.209%, and only slowly began to recover again in 2021. They have steadily increased in 2022 as interest rates have climbed in general.

The elective deferral limits for 2024 increased by a modest $500 from 2023, from $22,500 to $23,000.

Most TSP participants will receive a government/agency match of their contributions, up to 5% of their salary.

The TSP catch-up contribution limit remains $7,500 for 2024.

For those interested in investing in a Roth IRA, the limit increased from $6,500 to $7,000. Catch-up contributions for those over 50 remain capped at $1,000 for 2024.

More information can be found at irs.gov here.

Take a look at “TSP Fund Returns” and “TSP Calculators” to see how higher contributions over time can help to build wealth over the long-run… and order a copy of TSP Investing Strategies for even more wealth-building techniques and strategies!

Photo by Morgan Housel on Unsplash

As you can see from the chart below, BRS participation in Roth TSP accounts grew extraordinarily as well - just over half of the BRS participants have elected to invest in Roth TSP accounts, according to these figures. (Traditional and Roth TSP accounts held almost exactly the same amounts during this time, too.)

Here’s the break-out of the total monthly participation rates since January 2018:

Interested in seeing what BRS participants have saved so far? See the last section of this post!

As you can see in the charts below, average monthly balances fluctuated a bit at the end of 2018 and into early 2019, dipping from the mid-$140,000s to $132k and $141k for FERS and CSRS participants respectively. (Place your mouse over the bars to see the actual figures.) The dip was a bit more pronounced for FERS than for CSRS participants, which was probably due to FERS accounts being more heavily invested in the stock funds and later-maturing L Funds rather than the bond funds.

Balances dipped again during the Coronavirus crash. But by the end of the summer in 2020, balances had recovered their pre-pandemic highs. They have continued to grow through 2021 into 2022, when markets turned jittery again.

While posted FRTIB figures are unfortunately somewhat dated as of this writing, the figures (and general market trends since then) tend to indicate a steady, upwards rise in balances, as demonstrated in the monthly returns.

Here’s the break-out of the average month-over-month account balances since January 2018.

An interesting trend in BRS average account balances appears in the bottom chart: average account balances for both regular and Roth accounts actually trended downward from the beginning of 2018, only recovering by spring 2021.

This is probably due to two factors. Some longer-serving military participants probably elected to transition to BRS when it first accepted enrollees. They probably had relatively larger amounts that, when transferred to the new BRS accounts, skewed the averages higher at the outset.

But the explosive growth in BRS participation since January 2018 - from essentially zero to close to about one million now - means that the newer participants, with very low account holdings (and don’t worry, it will grow!), have most likely pushed the averages down steadily since then.

Just remember: We all start at $0 in the TSP, even TSP millionaires!