He retired in 1798, after forty-three years of service to the Austrian Empire. Some sources claim he was destitute at the time of his retirement because the Emperor revoked his pension, though this conclusion is most likely a misunderstanding of his multiple pensions. In 1771, Maria Theresia honored von Kempelen with an annual pension of 1,000 ducats for his exemplary work, but after her death, her son Joseph II made drastic cuts to the benefits granted to the court's civil servants, and von Kempelen's supplementary pension was revoked in 1781. Upon his retirement, von Kempelen was granted a pension equal to his final salary of 5,000 Gulden, and in 1802, he sought to recover the income from his smaller annual pension by submitting a petition to Francis II, requesting compensation in the amount of 20,000 Gulden accrued in expenses in service to the crown, but was ultimately denied.