Federal employees and retirees will have five weeks this fall to change their health coverage for 2027. The Office of Personnel Management says its yearly Open Season runs from November 9 through December 14, 2026.
In the Federal Employees Health Benefits program, known as FEHB, the choice this year is among 118 plan options from 45 participating carriers, OPM announced on September 30.
What the Open Season dates mean
Open Season ends at 11:59 p.m. Eastern Time on Monday, December 14, 2026, for the dental, vision and flexible spending programs, the agency’s Open Season page says. For FEHB and the Postal Service program, the cutoff is the same date at 11:59 p.m. according to the location of the enrollee’s electronic enrollment system.
Eligible employees and annuitants can enroll in, change or cancel FEHB, PSHB and FEDVIP coverage during that window. Annuitants are retired federal workers and others who receive a federal annuity.
The Open Season page also lists separate pages for active employees, for federal retirees and other annuitants, for Tribal employees, for the uniformed services and for Postal Service annuitants. Retirees who also have Medicare can find OPM’s pages on which insurance pays first on the same site.
Who has to do something, and who does not?
Coverage does not lapse for people who do nothing. In OPM’s words, “FEHB, PSHB, and FEDVIP coverage will continue into 2027 if enrollees make no changes.” That means a retiree who is happy with a plan and its price can let the window pass, while a retiree whose premium or coverage no longer fits has until December 14 to change it.
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The flexible spending account is the exception. Participants in the FSAFEDS program “must make a new election each year,” and the release lists only eligible employees for that program, not annuitants. This year eligible employees can also choose a Visa card that pays for qualified health care, pharmacy, dental and vision costs at the point of sale, with HealthEquity administering the program.
Anyone who wants to switch plans, drop a plan or change from one enrollment type to another needs to act before December 14. Because every plan sets its own price for 2027, a retiree on a fixed income gains the most from comparing the new premium for the current plan with the premiums of the others.
The 2026 Open Season is named for the year it is held. The coverage it sets is for the 2027 plan year, and OPM’s plan information page is organized around that 2027 plan year.
How many plans are on the table
The 118 FEHB plan options are not the whole menu. The Postal Service Health Benefits program, called PSHB, has its own premium tables and offers 65 plan options from 17 carriers for 2027. Postal employees and annuitants choose from that list, not the FEHB list.
The separate dental and vision program, FEDVIP, has 11 dental carriers with 21 plan options and 5 vision carriers with 10 plan options. Each of the three programs has its own enrollment, its own premiums and, in the case of FEDVIP, its own comparison tool.
What 2027 premiums look like
OPM says it was able to reduce the average rate of premium increases for the second year in a row. The agency does not give a percentage in its announcement, and an average does not tell any one household what a particular plan will charge. Each plan has its own price, and OPM posts the 2027 FEHB premiums on its website.
The Open Season page adds a detail that catches some enrollees. The enrollee share of premiums for the Self Plus One type will be higher than for Self and Family. Enrollees can choose either enrollment type to cover one eligible family member, so the two types are worth pricing side by side.
The dental and vision costs are separate again. OPM lists them on its FEDVIP premium page, which is where a household adding or changing a dental or vision plan can see what each one costs.
Where to compare plans before the window closes
OPM’s FEHB plan comparison tool lets enrollees line plans up against one another. The agency’s Associate Director for Healthcare and Insurance, Matthew Kiley, said in the announcement that Open Season is the time to look past the current plan and make sure the coverage still works for the enrollee and the family.
For a retiree, the practical test is the one number that matters most: what the plan will cost out of pocket across a full year, premiums and the expected visits and prescriptions together. A plan with a lower monthly premium is not always the cheaper plan once the year is added up.
Dental and vision plans have their own FEDVIP comparison tool, so a household that wants to compare those costs has a second page to use. A retiree who looks at only the medical plan can miss that the dental or vision choice carries its own premium and its own deadline of December 14.
The same Open Season page tells enrollees who prefer to compare on paper that the plan data is posted as public use files, along with a Federal Benefits Open Season highlights document for the 2027 plan year.
Does the 2027 premium fit a retiree’s budget?
Choosing a federal health plan is one line in a retiree’s budget, and on a fixed income a higher premium has to be paid for by something else. Many households never learn that several programs exist to take pressure off health, food, heating and property-tax costs, because those programs have to be applied for.
The Benefits Checklist is built for that second job. It scans 11 benefit programs retirees most often miss, including Medicare Savings Programs, Extra Help with prescriptions, SNAP and heating help, and it lays out the 2026 income limits for each one so a household can see where it stands.
See the 11-program checklist with the 2026 income limits for retirees pricing 2027 costs →
More Financial Reading
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- 15 Places to Find Your Share of the $4.25 Billion States Give Back
- The New $6,000 Senior Deduction and 14 More Tax Moves for Retirees
This article was produced with AI assistance and edited for accuracy against the sources linked above.
