Citi Severance Package 2026: Project Bora Bora + 52-Wk Cap

Citi Severance: What Project Bora Bora Means If You Were Laid Off

CEO Jane Fraser announced Citigroup's 20,000-job restructuring in January 2024, framed as a $2.5 billion annual cost-reduction tied to the bank's "five-business" reorganization across Services, Markets, Banking, Wealth, and US Personal Banking. Inside Citi the program is known by its codename, Project Bora Bora, a name that has shown up repeatedly in Fortune's coverage of Fraser's remarks on the restructuring's progress. By the start of 2026, Citi had cut roughly 10,000 positions through named WARN filings and confirmed actions, with another wave hitting in the week of January 12, 2026 and additional MD-level cuts planned for March 2026 after bonus payments cleared.

For affected employees, Citi severance is governed by a formula most outside the bank never see, plus a tiered garden-leave schedule that is filed publicly on SEC contracts databases but is rarely discussed in plain English. The cash and the equity treatment combined are often worth materially more than the cash alone, and the difference comes down to specific clauses that are negotiable if you know to ask.

The Short Answer

Citi pays two weeks of base pay per full 12 months of service, capped at 52 weeks of base pay as a lump sum (Workforce.com, Glassdoor employee reports, Citi's official Mercer Leaving Citi guide). The cap is binding for any employee with more than 26 years of tenure, and was made structurally tighter in December 2008 when Citi eliminated its 10+ year tenure supplement. The average laid-off Citi employee in the Q1 2024 cohort received approximately $37,000 in severance, derived from the $258 million in repositioning costs Citi booked divided by the roughly 7,000 cuts in that wave (eFinancialCareers, Citi Q1 2024 10-Q).

Before the 52-week clock starts, there is a title-tiered garden leave at full pay and active benefits: 30 days for VP/SVP, 50 days for Director, 75 days for Managing Director, and 180 days for the Executive Management Team (per Citi's Employment Termination and Nonsolicitation Policy, filed on contracts databases and SEC EDGAR). Behind both of those is the Capital Accumulation Program (CAP) and Deferred Cash Award treatment: under involuntary termination other than for-cause, unvested deferred comp continues to vest on the original schedule. For revenue producers with 40-60% of bonuses deferred over four years, that continued-vesting clause is often the single biggest financial item in the entire separation.

What Project Bora Bora Actually Is

The name showed up in Fortune's January 2026 coverage and in subsequent Reuters reporting. The program targets 20,000 cuts (roughly 10% of Citi's global workforce at announcement) phased over 2024-2026, tied directly to the five-business reorganization Fraser announced after the bank posted a $1.8 billion Q4 2023 net loss, its worst quarter in more than 15 years.

In practice, the program has been paused at roughly 10,000 cuts of the original 20,000 target due to regulatory scrutiny. The OCC and Federal Reserve fined Citi $136 million in July 2024 for insufficient progress on data-management and risk/compliance staffing, which forced the bank to preserve headcount in those functions. Citi pivoted: instead of additional involuntary cuts, the bank tightened promotion freezes (roughly 8,000 expected promotions reduced to about 2,000 per Sherwood News reporting) and used tier demotions to drive voluntary departures.

The practical implication for anyone affected: 2024 cuts hit broadly and were tied to the official program. 2025-2026 cuts are more targeted: wealth-at-work MDs, data analytics teams, post-bonus MD-level reductions in markets and banking, NY/NJ WARN filings hitting specific divisions. If you were affected after Q4 2024, your separation context is structurally different from the early-2024 cohort.

The Cash Formula

The headline number is two weeks of base pay per full 12 months of service. There are three structural facts that change how this number actually plays out:

The cap is 52 weeks. Even a 30-year Citi veteran caps at 52 weeks of base pay. There is no tier supplement above 10 years of service; that supplement existed pre-2008 and was eliminated in December 2008 as part of the post-crisis restructuring.

The formula is uniform across grades. Analysts, AVPs, VPs, SVPs, Directors, and Managing Directors all use the same 2-weeks-per-year calculation. What differs across grades is base salary, the garden-leave schedule (below), and the deferred-comp treatment (further below). There is no SEC-filed grade-tier table the way CVS Health publishes its own grade-tier severance plan.

Base pay only. The 52-week cap is calculated on base salary, not total compensation. For an MD whose total comp is $1.5M but whose base is $500K, the maximum cash severance is one year of base salary: $500K. The total-comp differential gets recovered (or not) through the CAP / Deferred Cash continued-vesting treatment, which is the next section.

The Q1 2024 wave provides the cleanest data point on what this formula actually pays in practice. Citi booked $258 million in repositioning costs across approximately 7,000 cuts, implying average severance of about $37,000 per laid-off employee, small relative to the $214,000 average total compensation that cohort had been earning. The gap signals that the 2-weeks-per-year cap was binding for the majority, not just outliers.

The Title-Tiered Garden Leave

This is one of the most distinctive elements of Citi's severance structure and is rarely discussed in mainstream coverage. Per Citi's filed Employment Termination and Nonsolicitation Policy (available on contracts databases and SEC EDGAR), affected employees receive a fully-paid notice period (garden leave) before the cash severance window begins. The schedule is title-tiered:

• VP / SVP: 30 days
• Director: 50 days
• Managing Director: 75 days
• Executive Management Team: 180 days

During garden leave, employees remain on full payroll with active benefits, but are off the job and prohibited from beginning competitive work. The schedule is a floor, not a ceiling. VP-and-above employees have negotiated extensions in published employee reports, effectively buying additional paid weeks before the 52-week severance clock starts. For an MD on $500K base, an additional 30 days of garden leave is roughly $42,000 of incremental compensation at active rates.

This tiered structure is unusual among major US banks. JPMorgan and Bank of America have garden-leave or notice provisions for specific revenue roles but do not publish the tiered schedule the way Citi does in its filed policy.

CAP and Deferred Cash: The Biggest Lever Most Citi Bankers Miss

Citi senior staff receive a meaningful portion of total compensation as deferred awards: restricted stock through the Capital Accumulation Program, and Deferred Cash Awards for the cash component of annual bonuses. For Managing Directors and Senior Vice Presidents in revenue roles, 40-60% of annual bonus is typically deferred over a four-year vesting schedule. (Recent joiners should also check their offer letter's sign-on terms; sign-on bonus repayment after a layoff covers how clawback clauses typically read against an involuntary exit.)

Under involuntary termination other than for gross misconduct, both CAP shares and Deferred Cash Awards continue to vest on the original schedule. This is filed in SEC Exhibit 10.04 (CAP Award Agreement) and SEC Exhibit 10.03 (Deferred Cash Award Agreement). For a Managing Director with 2-4 years of unvested deferred awards stacked from prior bonus cycles, the continued-vesting treatment can be worth six or seven figures, often substantially more than the cash severance itself.

Two clauses in the standard separation agreement are critical here:

The "not for cause" determination. Continued vesting only applies if termination is not for gross misconduct. Get the for-cause / not-for-cause determination in writing as part of the separation paperwork. This is not negotiable on legal grounds, but the documentation can be ambiguous, and ambiguity is risk to your deferred-comp pool.

The clawback scope. The standard agreement preserves Citi's right to claw back deferred comp under "material adverse outcome" language, typically tied to compliance failures or specific risk events. The exact trigger language is negotiable. Push to narrow it. A clawback waiver is rare, but tightening the trigger conditions (specific named events versus broad discretionary language) is achievable, particularly for MDs leaving in good standing.

Employees who meet the "Rule of 60" (age plus years of service equal or greater than 60) get retirement-style continued vesting that runs the full original schedule regardless of subsequent employment. This is a meaningful threshold for long-tenured Citi staff in their fifties.

The 2024-2026 Layoff Cycle

The cumulative footprint across two years includes:

• January 2024: 20,000-cut Project Bora Bora announced; restructuring tied to the five-business reorganization
• February 2024: 286 NYC WARN filings across Citibank N.A., Global Markets, and Technology
• Q1 2024: ~7,000 first-wave cuts; $258M in repositioning costs (eFinancialCareers analysis)
• March 2024: London investment-banking headcount cuts amid the third year of deal drought (Bloomberg)
• April 2024: US TMT investment-banking coverage cut at senior and junior levels (Bloomberg)
• March-June 2024: NY WARN of 429 across Citibank, Global Markets, Technology
• April 2024: 187 multi-city NJ WARN
• Full year 2024: Headcount fell from 240,000 to 229,000; 2024 severance accrual reached approximately $700M
• January 2025: Wealth-at-Work MDs and data analytics team cut; Citi reserved $600M for 2025 severance, double its typical $300M
• December 2025: 67 Jersey City layoffs per Sept 2025 NJ DOL WARN notice
• January 2026: ~1,000 cuts week of January 12; Fraser stated Project Bora Bora more than 80% complete (Fortune)
• January 2026: 267 NY WARN (effective April 14-18 2026) across Citibank, Global Markets, Technology
• March 2026: Additional MD-level cuts planned post-bonus across markets, banking, and wealth (Reuters)

Citi's WARN Tracker entry shows 39 separate filings since 1993; the bank uses formal WARN process more consistently than most US peers.

Negotiation Angles for Citi Employees

Four angles work in practice based on published employee reports and the publicly filed policy text:

Extend the garden leave clock. The tiered schedule (30/50/75/180 days) is a floor. VP+ employees can negotiate longer notice periods, effectively buying additional fully-paid weeks at active benefits before the 52-week severance window starts. The clean ask is "extend my notice period by N days", which is much easier to get than additional cash severance, which runs into the formula cap.

Document CAP / Deferred Cash treatment explicitly. Get the "not for cause" determination and the vesting-schedule continuation in writing. For revenue producers, this is the single highest-value negotiation item. The deferred awards stack is often invisible in HR conversations focused on the cash severance.

Narrow the clawback scope. Standard agreement language gives Citi broad clawback discretion. Pushing to specify the trigger conditions (named events rather than general "material adverse outcome" language) is achievable and meaningful.

Reduce the non-solicit window. One-year non-solicits are standard for "covered employees." Negotiating to six months is a common ask that often lands. Note: state law matters. California essentially voids non-competes regardless of contract, and Texas heavily limits enforcement; New York non-solicits are broadly enforceable.

The federal Age Discrimination in Employment Act gives employees age 40 and over a 21-day consideration period (45 days for group layoffs) plus a 7-day revocation window. Use the full statutory time to weigh the offer.

For peer-bank context, see our JPMorgan Chase severance breakdown. For broader finance-industry severance norms, the finance industry guide covers the structural differences across major US banks.

The Bottom Line

Citi severance in 2026 is largely formulaic on the cash side (2 weeks per year of service capped at 52 weeks), but the structural value of the package comes from three other elements: the title-tiered garden leave, the CAP / Deferred Cash continued-vesting treatment, and the negotiable clawback and non-solicit scope. Project Bora Bora is more than 80% complete according to the bank's own statements, which means the 2026 cohorts are the tail end of the program rather than its peak. Use the garden leave window, and the ADEA consideration period if you're 40 or older, to weigh the offer, document the deferred-comp treatment, and decide whether to push back on the clawback and non-solicit language before signing.

This article is a guide, not legal advice. Deferred-compensation treatment, clawback enforceability, and bank-specific separation-agreement language are fact-specific. If you have material unvested CAP or Deferred Cash awards, or if your separation context involves any regulatory or compliance dispute, consult a qualified employment attorney before signing.

Use the SeveranceCalc estimator to model what 2 weeks per year of your specific base salary actually pays for your tenure.