From a federal law standpoint..once you earn 35 points, you can stop...the last 15 will be gratis and should be credited after your anniversary.

But if you're cutting it down to the wire, I would do a couple things before you burn any bridges...

1) Audit your points history and make darn sure you have 20 good years.

2) Make sure those last 35 points are 100% irrefutable...if it were me I'd want paid drills with LES's, not non-pay points. Don't want any after-the-fact confusion about whether any points were legit.

3) The navy will audit your years/points shortly after you hit 20 and send you a Notice of Eligibility with a summary...unless you actually committed fraud, that NOE is irreversible even if they discover later that somebody screwed up your points count. I'd be inclined to wait until you get the NOE (they should not even allow you to officially retire without it).


The risk you run by not showing up is unsat attendence...that could be grounds for the navy to ADSEP you. If that was processed prior to your anniversary you might lose the retirement (I suspect they'd just let you retire, but legally they don't have to if you stop coming to work).

If you get into an unsat situation and then find out later that the audit didn't go well (such as they disallowed some of your past points and took away a good year that you needed), they might not let you come back to drill status for another year.