Important facts about leave sell backs:

• IMA members can request a leave sell back for unused leave within 6 years of the close out of a long tour order.
• Any leave outside of this 6-year claim period cannot be sold back to the member due to the Barring Act.
• The lifetime cap for sell backs is 60-days, but there is an exception.
• Leave sold back for long tours over 30 days and under 365 days are not counted towards the IMA member’s 60-day lifetime cap.
• Any leave sold back for long tour orders over 365 days will count towards the 60-day lifetime cap.
• HQ RIO/RPO can only process one leave sell back per pay period. Technicians must verify that an LES has populated for the current sell back before they can process another sell back.
• If the leave sell back request is for leave that occurred 5 years prior, but within the 6-year claim period, a CMS case will need to be created to sell back the leave. This will push processing time back as DFAS has up to 30 days to respond to CMS cases.
• If the IMA member chooses to carry forward some of their leave to a new order and sell back the rest of their leave, the carryover must be completed before the sell back can be processed.
• Leave sell back processing is 30 to 45 days. This is an estimation and may change due to a high-volume leave cases.

• If you receive an email from the AFR AFIPPS Data Cleanse Team, you are required to provide all the required documentation as listed below.
• If at the time of your orders your Reserve Pay Office was NOT HQ RIO RPO, you will need to provide a copy of each AF Form 988 Part III for leave taken during that order. HQ RIO RPO does not have access to this documentation. 

• Section II – LEAVE SETTLEMENT ON END OF ORDER
  • Provide projected end date of your active-duty tour – XX/XX/XXXX
  • Provide order number(s) of your active-duty tour – XXXXXX – Block 32 of AF Form 938
• Complete Block A, B, or C
  • Block A - Number of days to be sold back ONLY
  • Block B – Number of days to be carried forward ONLY
  • Block C – Number of days to be sold back and number of days to be carried forward.

• STATEMENT OF TOUR OF DUTY
  • Complete Blocks 36a through 39
    • Blocks 38 – Must be a digital or wet signature – digital signatures must be after the LAST day of the active-duty tour - .pdf signatures will not be accepted
    • Block 39 – Must be dated after the LAST day of the active-duty tour

• CERTIFICATION
  • Complete Blocks 40 through 44
    • Block 40 must include time and date member reported for duty and time and date member was released from duty
    • Blocks 41 and 42 – Must include the certifying official’s name and DSN
    • Blocks 43 - Must be a digital or wet signature – digital signatures must be after the LAST day of the active-duty tour - .pdf signatures will not be accepted
    • Block 44 - Must be dated after the LAST day of the active-duty tour
• All pages of the AF Form 938 and all modifications
• If the sell back request is for back-to-back orders, ALL AF Form 938s and modifications must be submitted and completed as noted above.

• All AF Form 988 Part Is and Part IIIs should have been submitted before the end of the order.
  • If any AF Form 988 Part Is or Part IIIs are missing, IMA members are required to submit them with their sell back request.
  • If during a review of the IMA member’s leave requests it is discovered documentation is missing, the IMA member will be required to submit it before HQ RIO will move forward with the request.

• Missing documentation
• Missing signatures
• AF Form 938s not fully completed
• IMA member crossed out and initialed the close out dates on their AF Form 938
• AF Form 938s not signed and dated after the last day of the active-duty tour

• Example of complete Sellback package