§ 1653.2 Qualifying retirement benefits court orders. ( a ) To be qualifying, and thus enforceable against the TSP, a retirement benefits court order must meet the following requirements: ( 1 ) The order must expressly relate to the Thrift Savings Plan account of a TSP participant. This means that: ( i ) The order must expressly refer to the “Thrift Savings Plan” or describe the TSP in such a way that it cannot be confused with other Federal Government retirement benefits or non-Federal retirement benefits;
( ii ) The order must be written in terms appropriate to a defined contribution plan rather than a defined benefit plan. For example, it should generally refer to the participant's TSP account or TSP account balance rather than a benefit formula or the participant's eventual benefits; and
( iii ) If the participant has a civilian TSP account and a uniformed services TSP account, the order must expressly identify the account to which it relates.
( 2 ) The order must either require the TSP to freeze the participant's account to preserve the *status quo* pending final resolution of the parties' rights to the participant's TSP account, or to make a payment from the participant's account to a permissible payee.
( 3 ) If the order requires a payment from the participant's account, the award must be for: ( i ) A specific dollar amount;
( ii ) A stated percentage of the account; or
( iii ) A survivor annuity as provided in 5 U.S.C. 8435(d).
( iv ) The following examples would qualify to require payment from the TSP, although ambiguous or conflicting language used elsewhere could cause the order to be rejected. ( A ) *Example 1.* ORDERED: [payee's name, Social Security number (SSN), and address] is awarded $____ from the [civilian or uniformed services] Thrift Savings Plan account of [participant's name, account number or SSN, and address].
( B ) *Example 2.* ORDERED: [payee's name, SSN, and address] is awarded ____ % of the [civilian and/or uniformed services] Thrift Savings Plan account[s] of [participant's name, account number or SSN, and address] as of [date]. Note 1 to paragraph (a)(3)(iv):
The following optional language can be used in conjunction with any of the above examples. FURTHER ORDERED: Earnings will be paid on the amount of the entitlement under this ORDER until payment is made.
( 4 ) A court order can require a payment only to a spouse, former spouse, child or dependent of a participant.
( b ) The following retirement benefits court orders are not qualifying and thus are not enforceable against the TSP: ( 1 ) An order relating to a TSP account that has been closed;
( 2 ) An order relating to a TSP account that contains only nonvested money;
( 3 ) An order requiring the return to the TSP of money that was properly paid pursuant to an earlier court order;
( 4 ) An order requiring the TSP to make a payment in the future, unless the present value of the payee's entitlement can be calculated, in which case the TSP will make the payment currently;
( 5 ) An order that does not specify the account to which the order applies, if the participant has both a civilian TSP account and a uniformed services TSP account;
( 6 ) An order that requires the TSP to calculate the payee's entitlement or earnings in a manner that is inconsistent with § 1653.4 of this part; and
( 7 ) An order that designates the TSP core fund, source of contributions, or balance (e.g., traditional, Roth, or tax-exempt) from which the payment or portions of the payment shall be made.
[68 FR 35510, June 13, 2003, as amended at 69 FR 29851, May 26, 2004; 71 FR 54893, Sept. 20, 2006; 72 FR 51354, Sept. 7, 2007; 76 FR 78095, Dec. 16, 2011; 77 FR 26428, May 4, 2012; 87 FR 31688, May 24, 2022] Editorial Note
Editorial Note: At 87 FR 31688, May 25, 2022, § 1653.2 was amended by revising paragraph (b)(1); however, the amendment could not be incorporated because no revised text for paragraph (b)(1) was provided.