Shift workers experience poor sleep and dysregulated cardiac autonomic function during sleep. However, it is unknown if this dysregulation persists into retirement, potentially accelerating the age‐associated risk for adverse cardiovascular outcomes. Using sleep deprivation as a physiological challenge to cardiovascular autonomic function, we compared heart rate (HR) and high‐frequency heart rate variability (HF‐HRV) during baseline and recovery sleep following sleep deprivation between retired night shift and day workers. Participants were retired night shift (N = 33) and day workers (N = 37) equated on age (mean [standard deviation] = 68.0 [5.6] years), sex (47% female), race/ethnicity (86% White), and body mass index. Participants completed a 60‐h lab protocol including one night of baseline polysomnography‐monitored sleep, followed by 36 h of sleep deprivation and one night of recovery sleep. Continuously recorded HR was used to calculate HF‐HRV. Linear mixed models compared HR and HF‐HRV during non‐rapid eye movement (NREM) and REM sleep between groups during baseline and recovery nights. Groups did not differ on HR or HF‐HRV during NREM or REM sleep (ps >.05) and did not show differential responses to sleep deprivation. In the full sample, HR increased and HF‐HRV decreased from baseline to recovery during NREM (ps <.05) and REM (ps <.01). Both groups exhibited cardiovascular autonomic changes during recovery sleep following 36 h of sleep deprivation. Sleep deprivation appears to induce cardiovascular autonomic changes that persist into recovery sleep in older adults, regardless of shift work history. This study aimed to determine whether night shift work exerts a long‐term effect on cardiovascular autonomic function. In older adults, regardless of shift work status, autonomic activity shifted during the first night of recovery sleep despite increased sleep depth. Therefore, the first night of recovery sleep may not be as restorative for cardiovascular autonomic function as initially believed. Instead, older adults may require additional nights of sleep to return to their baseline cardiac autonomic function. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]