A historic wave of departures at the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and deep cutbacks at the Office of Personnel Management are swamping the spy agency’s retirement system, leaving former spies with months-long waits to get their first pension check, according to former intelligence officials and internal agency messages, The Washington Post reports.

The CIA has acknowledged the problem, stating that its pension department is currently processing an “unprecedented number” of retirement applications. The agency urged former employees to be patient and said it was trying to speed up the processing of documents.

Some employees leaving the CIA are being informed that their first full pension payment could be nine months or even longer after they leave.

According to The Washington Post, the scale of the current CIA employee exodus is difficult to compare with any period in the agency's recent history. The exact numbers are confidential, but former officials estimate that hundreds, and possibly more than 1,000 people, could have left the agency since the start of US President Donald Trump's second term in office.

The CIA's workforce was estimated to be about 22,000 in early 2025.

The mass layoffs have become part of the Trump administration's policy of reducing the federal apparatus. In May 2025, the White House informed Congress of plans to reduce the CIA's staff by about 1,200 employees over several years, mainly due to natural attrition and reduced recruitment.

Some of the CIA employees took advantage of the administration's proposed deferred dismissal program, while others decided to leave on their own.

At the same time, the cuts at the CI affected also those specialists who were directly involved in the processing of pension payments, which further aggravated the situation.

Before leaving, CIA employees can take a special internal Horizons seminar, which is dedicated to the transition to life after working in intelligence. However, now program participants are informed that the first full pension payment will have to wait up to nine months.

The processing of the pension package is initially carried out within the CIA itself and can take several months. The situation is complicated by the specificity of the work of spies: some of them served undercover, used other identities, previously worked in the military or other special services, sometimes have spouses who also worked in the CIA.

After the internal review is completed, the documents are transferred to the US Office of Personnel Management, which is responsible for the final processing of federal pensions. Until the procedure is completed, retirees receive interim payments, which usually amount to 60–80 percent of their future pension.

Moreover, there is no provision for compensation in the form of interest in case of late payments.

For the CIA, the consequences can be especially serious. Former employees warn that long delays in payments can create additional risks for counterintelligence: financially vulnerable former spies who possess a large amount of classified information could theoretically become targets for foreign special services.

Former spies pose a huge risk for counterintelligence, said one former CIA employee.