An abelian group has the FI-extending property if every fully invariant sub
group is essential in a direct summand. A mixed abelian group has the FI-ex
tending property if and only if it is a direct sum of a torsion and a torsi
on-free abelian group, both with the FI-extending property. A full characte
rization is obtained for the abelian groups with the FI-extending property
which are either torsion-free of finite rank or torsion.