Getting out in under 90 days: what you can do

With less than 90 days left, VA's fast-track claim program is closed. Nearly everything else is still open, and many of the deadlines that matter don't start until the day you separate.

With fewer than 90 days left, a year-long checklist won't fit. Whether your separation is involuntary, medical or simply approaching faster than planned, contact the Transition Assistance Program now. When a separation isn't expected until 365 or fewer days out, the law says pre-separation counseling starts as soon as possible. DoD's name for an unexpected separation with 90 days or fewer left is a "short notice separation."

One thing has closed. Benefits Delivery at Discharge, VA's fast track for disability claims, stops 90 days before you separate. Day 89 is too late, and there are no waivers. Nearly everything else is still open, and several clocks that matter most don't start until your separation date. They include 120 days of free SGLI, a 180-day limit to apply for one-time VA dental care, and one year for a VA claim to potentially take effect the day after discharge.

Who to call this week, and what TAP still requires

Start with your installation's Transition Assistance Program (TAP) office. You can find it through Military OneSource's Military Installations directory or by calling Military OneSource at 800-342-9647. TAP applies to you if you've served at least 180 days of continuous active duty.

In the Army, Soldiers notified of a separation must contact the TAP center immediately. If you're more than about 50 miles from one, call the TAP Virtual Center, open 24 hours a day, at 1-800-325-4715. The Army also gives short-notice transitions priority for TAP services.

Your first two appointments are individualized initial counseling and pre-separation counseling. Both are mandatory, and both come before any other TAP course. At initial counseling, your counselor sets your tier. DoD's own example of Tier 3, the most help, is someone leaving the military unexpectedly, or without any plans for after. Tier 3 members must attend a two-day track, such as the Labor Department's Employment Workshop, where the required product is a draft résumé.

Five core courses are required at every tier. Three of them have a required product: a gap analysis in the Military Occupational Code Crosswalk, a spending plan in Financial Planning for Transition, and a VA.gov account in VA Benefits and Services.

TAP ends with Capstone. Normally it happens no later than 90 days before you leave. For an unanticipated separation, it happens as soon as possible. TAP staff review your DD eForm 2648, and then your commander, or someone the commander names, signs it to confirm that you met the standards or received a warm handover.

A warm handover is a confirmed, person-to-person introduction to VA, the Labor Department, Military OneSource or a local organization where you plan to live. It's required if Capstone finds you aren't ready, and your commander must then confirm it happens before your DD-214 is issued. You can ask for one even if you meet every standard. In the Army, the DD-214 also waits until you finish installation clearing.

Your VA claim now that BDD is closed

BDD takes claims only between 180 and 90 days before you separate, and VA's goal under it is a decision within 30 days after separation.

What you lose is the fast track, not the right to file. VA's answer for anyone with less than 90 days left is a standard disability claim, which you can still file before you're discharged. VA processes it after you separate. If a military provider has referred you into the Integrated Disability Evaluation System, the medical separation process, you're on a different track: if you're found medically unfit for duty, IDES gives you a proposed VA rating before you leave.

The date that matters most comes after you leave. If VA receives your claim within one year after your discharge, the effective date of your award can be as early as the day after discharge, if you were entitled then. If it arrives later and no intent to file came first, the effective date is the date VA receives the claim, or the date you became entitled, whichever is later. Plan to have VA receive your claim before the one-year date. Payments generally start on the first day of the month after the effective date.

VA also has an intent to file, which it says "sets a potential start date" for your benefits. After you submit one, you have one year to file a complete claim. If you do, VA treats the claim as filed on the date it received your intent to file. VA's claims manual says the day-after-discharge date can still hold if VA receives the intent to file within one year of separation and the completed claim within one year of the intent to file. An intent to file isn't a claim. You can submit it online, by phone, or by mailing VA Form 21-0966.

For how these rules apply to your own claim, an accredited veterans service organization (VSO) representative can help you file. VA says their help on VA claims is always free.

Your separation exam and your records

TRICARE says to schedule your separation exam, the Separation History and Physical Examination, between 90 and 180 days before your end date, and before terminal leave starts. Military OneSource calls the final medical and dental exam mandatory and puts it no later than 90 days before you separate.

With fewer than 90 days left, those target dates have passed, but the exam is still required. DoD's policy says you must complete it before you separate, and that it normally happens immediately before your separation date. Ask your command and your installation's clinic this week when you'll get it. If you're in one of the TAMP groups described below, the law also requires a mental health assessment then.

When you ask, mention any complete physical you've had in the past 12 months. VA's guidance on the Separation Health Assessment says a prior separation exam, an entry physical, a flight physical or a special duty physical from that period may satisfy it. The examining clinician decides. Under DoD's policy, an exam from up to 12 months out can count if it's validated within 30 days of your separation.

While you still have your CAC, two records tasks are easier:

• Request paper copies of your medical record and your family's. TRICARE says to do it before you separate, and that when you leave, DoD sends VA "some information."
• Set up a Login.gov or ID.me account. VA no longer accepts a DS Logon username for VA.gov.

Health coverage: TRICARE, TAMP and CHCBP

TRICARE puts its rule this way: "Generally, your TRICARE eligibility ends at 11:59 p.m. on your last duty day." What comes next depends on why you're leaving.

The Transitional Assistance Management Program, or TAMP, gives 180 days of health care benefits after regular TRICARE ends. TRICARE says the 180 days begin when you separate. TAMP covers only listed groups. The main ones are:

• Involuntary separation under honorable conditions. This includes some members receiving voluntary separation pay or a separation incentive who can't receive retired or retainer pay.
• Guard and Reserve members leaving more than 30 consecutive days of active duty for a contingency or a preplanned mission.
• A sole survivorship discharge.
• Leaving active duty and agreeing to join the Selected Reserve.

A routine voluntary separation, such as the end of an enlistment, isn't on the list unless you join the Selected Reserve. For enlisted members, being denied reenlistment counts as involuntary. Your service decides whether you qualify and records it in DEERS, and you can view it in milConnect, so check now. If your separation is medical and you aren't retiring, check with your personnel office.

During TAMP, you and your family can use TRICARE Prime or TRICARE Select, among other plans. Dental is thinner: military dental clinics see TAMP members only when space is available.

If you don't get TAMP, or when it ends, the bridge is the Continued Health Care Benefit Program (CHCBP). It charges premiums and gives the same coverage as TRICARE Select, including prescriptions, for up to 18 months after release from active duty. You have 60 days after losing TRICARE to enroll, through Humana Military at 800-444-5445, on DD Form 2837.

If you're retiring, including a medical retirement, you have 90 days after your retirement date to enroll in a TRICARE plan, and you can ask for retroactive enrollment up to 12 months from that date.

VA health care is separate, and VA tells members to look into applying once they have separation or retirement orders. If you enlisted after September 7, 1980, or entered active duty after October 16, 1981, you generally need 24 continuous months of service or the full period you were called up for. That minimum may not apply if you were discharged for a disability caused or made worse by your service, for a hardship, or as an "early out." Combat veterans discharged after September 11, 2001, get 10 years of enhanced eligibility from discharge, and VA says to apply right away. You can apply online, by phone at 877-222-8387, or on VA Form 10-10EZ.

Selling back leave or taking terminal leave

Selling leave is your election. The Army lists three choices: sell up to 60 days and take the rest as terminal leave, sell some and take the rest, or sell none and take it all as terminal leave.

Sold leave is figured at your basic pay rate as of your discharge date. For most active-duty members, the law caps sold leave at 60 days across a whole career. Every day you've sold since February 9, 1976, counts, including days sold at a reenlistment. A one-time payment for Special Leave Accrual counts too. Leave payments are taxable, tax is normally withheld, and the money can be used to pay debts you owe the government.

Terminal leave is ordinary, chargeable leave. DoD's leave instruction says it should be granted if you want it, but you must have your separation orders and finish all administrative processing before you go. Your separation date falls at the end of the leave. In the Army, your unit commander approves it. On a short clock, every week you spend clearing is a week you can't take as terminal leave.

If the Army is separating you involuntarily under honorable conditions, or you're medically retiring, you can request administrative absence or excess leave, but not both. Eligible Soldiers may get up to 20 days in the continental US, or 30 when returning there from overseas; separate overseas-domicile exceptions apply. You can take it in trips before you leave or in one block with terminal leave, and commanders can deny or limit it.

Two more rules matter most for involuntary separations. A discharge under other than honorable conditions forfeits all accrued leave. And full involuntary separation pay is 10% of 12 months' basic pay for each year of service, so 8 years works out to 9.6 months of basic pay. It generally requires at least 6 but fewer than 20 years of service, an honorable characterization, and an agreement to serve 3 years in the Ready Reserve. If you later receive VA disability compensation, recoupment rules may apply. Ask finance and an accredited VA representative how your particular separation payment is treated.

The clocks that start when you separate

Most clocks below count from your separation date. DoD's leave instruction puts that date at the end of your terminal leave, so those clocks start when your leave ends, not when you clear post. The VA dental clock is the exception: VA doesn't say which date it counts from.

Free SGLI covers you for 120 days after you leave, or up to 2 years under a disability extension if you're totally disabled. Within those 120 days, you can also convert it to a permanent individual policy, such as whole life, without proof of good health. You must apply for Veterans' Group Life Insurance (VGLI) within 1 calendar year and 120 days. If you apply within 240 days, you won't need to prove you're in good health.

You apply through the Office of Servicemembers' Group Life Insurance (OSGLI). For VGLI to start on day 121 with no gap, OSGLI must receive your application and first premium within 120 days. Apply later and you have no SGLI or VGLI coverage from day 121 until VGLI starts; another policy may cover you. VA says eligible veterans covered under VGLI don't need to pay premiums from November 1, 2026, through January 31, 2027. Our SGLI to VGLI guide covers costs.

VA's one-time dental care has a 180-day limit that runs "after such discharge or release." VA's pages don't say whether that means your last duty day or the separation date on your DD-214, so apply well before day 180 from the date you enter. It generally requires at least 90 days of active duty and a discharge that wasn't dishonorable. And it applies only if your DD-214 doesn't certify a complete dental exam and all needed treatment in the 90 days before discharge.

Unemployment compensation for ex-service members, called UCX, depends on qualifying military service and the state’s eligibility rules. Your character of service, whether you completed your first full term and any early-separation reason matter. Take your DD-214 to the state workforce agency and ask it to determine eligibility.

You file for UCX in the state where you are when you file, not your home of record. State law sets the amount and the number of weeks. The state must accept your military records as final, including the narrative reason for your separation. If the state denies you over that reason, the appeal goes to your branch. The Labor Department says to contact your state workforce agency as soon as possible after discharge.

Military OneSource stays open to you and your family until 365 days after an honorable discharge or retirement, including free financial counseling at 800-342-9647. If you're in crisis, call the Veterans Crisis Line at 988 and press 1, or text 838255.

The Post-9/11 GI Bill isn't on a clock: it doesn't expire if your service ended on or after January 1, 2013. Transferring it to family is different. You must request and receive approval for the transfer while still serving on active duty or in the Selected Reserve, generally with at least 6 years of service and an agreement to serve 4 more, though Purple Heart recipients don't need to meet a service requirement.

If you're already out

A VA claim received within a year of discharge can take effect as early as the day after discharge, if entitlement existed then. VGLI, VA dental and UCX run on the clocks above, and CHCBP's 60 days run from the day you lost TRICARE.

Installation TAP offices give transitioning members and their spouses personal help for up to 180 days after separation or retirement. Army veterans with at least 180 days of active service can also attend TAP on a space-available basis for life, and TAP courses are online at tapevents.mil/courses.

If you need records you didn't download, milConnect takes requests from Army veterans discharged after October 1, 2002, and Air Force veterans discharged after October 1, 2004. It also covers the Marine Corps after January 1, 1999, and the Navy after January 1, 1995. Everyone else uses the National Archives' eVetRecs, which requires ID.me, or Standard Form 180.

One example, start to finish

Example (fictional) Alicia Moreno is a 27-year-old Army sergeant on her second enlistment. On October 20, 2026, her command tells her she's being involuntarily separated under honorable conditions. Her separation date is January 15, 2027, 87 days away. She's married, her husband is covered on her TRICARE, and she has 30 days of leave and has never sold any.

That week she calls her installation's TAP center. Her counselor places her in Tier 3, so she has a two-day track to attend on top of the five core courses. She asks her unit and the clinic to schedule her separation exam, requests paper copies of her medical records, and files a standard VA claim for a knee injury in November.

Her separation is involuntary under honorable conditions, so she's in a TAMP group, and she confirms in milConnect that the Army recorded it. TAMP will cover her and her husband for 180 days after she separates. She elects to sell 15 days of leave and take 15 as terminal leave once she clears. The 15 sold days are paid at basic pay and are taxable, and they leave her 45 days under the career cap.

On January 16, she contacts the workforce agency in the state she has moved to about UCX. She finished her first enlistment, so the early-separation limits don't apply to her, and the state decides the rest. Had she not filed her claim in November, VA receiving it before January 15, 2028, could still have meant an effective date of January 16, 2027, if she was entitled then.

This is general information, not legal, financial or claims advice for your situation. Your first stop is your installation's Transition Assistance Program office, and Military OneSource (800-342-9647) can point you to it. For help with a VA claim, VA points you to an accredited veterans service organization representative, whose help on VA claims is free. Military OneSource also offers free financial counseling to you and your family until 365 days after an honorable discharge or retirement.