Retirement Goodbye Letter

When you are about to retire, it's best to make a written announcement and keep a few week's or months' notices. At least 2 weeks would be the absolute minimum in many countries. It’s important to formalize your departure by notifying your employer in writing with a formal retirement letter.

The letter should include the details of your departure, such as the date you are resigning/retiring, which will be the last day you work. You may be able to negotiate about the exact retirement date since it might be mutually beneficial to change the date for you and your employer.

If you can help during the transition that will follow your resignation, mention this as well.

Make use of our retirement leave letter template to help to come to a perfect personalized version. The objective of writing this letter is to announce your retirement date to your boss or HR manager and to request a meeting to discuss the handover and other formalities.  

Whether the letter is formal, or not, we advise putting the reason for the leave in the first paragraph of the letter's body. In the paragraphs following, you can use examples to support your main argument. In the final paragraph, you need to summarize the purpose of your letter and suggest a suitable course of action to follow. Do not indent the paragraphs. But instead, leave an empty line between each paragraph. Close the letter without indentation, leaving three or four lines for your signature between the closing and your typed name and title.