The General Schedule is the most important document in most federal careers, and the one almost nobody reads. This guide walks through the structure, the numbers, the rules for advancing through it, and the traps that cost federal employees real money. Everything below reflects the official 2026 pay table published by the Office of Personnel Management, which took effect on January 11, 2026 with a 1.0 percent across-the-board base pay increase. Locality rates were frozen at 2025 levels for this pay year.
There are two variables that determine what you earn before your paycheck is calculated: your grade and your step. Grade reflects the job's complexity and level of responsibility. Step reflects how long you have held that grade. On top of whatever those two variables produce, a locality adjustment is layered — and above everything sits a statutory ceiling that caps total pay for the highest-graded federal employees. This article walks through each of those in order.
Annual Salary = Base Pay (from GS grade + step) × (1 + Locality Adjustment) — capped at Executive Schedule Level IV, which is $197,200 in 2026. That is the entire federal white-collar compensation system in one line. Everything else in this article is commentary on those two variables and the ceiling that sits over them.
Section I The GS grid — grades, steps, and base pay
The federal General Schedule is not a pay scale in the conventional sense. It is a grid. Every full-time GS employee sits at an intersection of two variables: a grade that reflects the complexity and responsibility of the work, and a step that reflects how long the employee has held that grade. Grades run from GS-1 to GS-15. Each grade has ten steps. That produces a 15-by-10 table with 150 distinct base pay values, before any locality adjustment is applied.
The grid is published annually by the Office of Personnel Management and takes effect on the first pay period of the calendar year. Two employees with the same grade and step earn the same base pay, regardless of agency or job series. A GS-12 Step 5 engineer at the Department of Defense and a GS-12 Step 5 analyst at the Department of Labor have identical base salaries. What changes their actual paychecks is not the job — it is where they live.
Section II Grade — what determines it
Your grade is a function of the position, not you as a person. When an agency creates or fills a job, its HR staff classify the position using OPM's position classification standards and assign it a grade based on three factors: the complexity of the work, the level of responsibility, and the qualifications required to perform it. A GS-12 position attracts a GS-12 salary. If you move into that position, you become a GS-12. If you later take a different job classified at GS-13, your grade changes with the position.
General educational expectations — not rigid rules — look like this:
| Typical Entry Point | Education / Experience | Tier |
|---|---|---|
| GS-2 | High school diploma | Entry |
| GS-5 | Bachelor's degree | Entry |
| GS-7 | Bachelor's + superior academic achievement, or 1 year graduate study | Entry |
| GS-9 | Master's degree, or 2 years graduate study | Mid-Career |
| GS-11 | Ph.D., or Master's + experience, or experience-only ladder | Mid-Career |
| GS-12 to GS-13 | Substantive technical expertise, often 5+ years specialized experience | Senior |
| GS-14 to GS-15 | Recognized expert, supervisor, or program manager | Top Tier |
Most professional federal career ladders move in grade jumps — GS-7, GS-9, GS-11, GS-12, GS-13 — rather than step-by-step. This is because promotions to higher grades come with substantial pay increases, while step increases are smaller. A move from GS-11 Step 10 to GS-12 Step 1 increases base pay by a smaller amount than the step increases accumulated to reach Step 10, but the opportunity to eventually reach GS-12 Step 10 is worth far more over a career.
Section III Step — how you advance
Step is time-based, not merit-based in most circumstances. Within any grade, you advance through ten steps on a fixed schedule of waiting periods. The system is called the Within-Grade Increase, or WIGI. Absent a performance problem or a promotion to a higher grade, you will climb through the steps at a predictable pace.
| Step Transition | Waiting Period | Cumulative Time at Grade |
|---|---|---|
| Step 1 → 2 | 52 weeks (1 year) | 1 year |
| Step 2 → 3 | 52 weeks (1 year) | 2 years |
| Step 3 → 4 | 52 weeks (1 year) | 3 years |
| Step 4 → 5 | 104 weeks (2 years) | 5 years |
| Step 5 → 6 | 104 weeks (2 years) | 7 years |
| Step 6 → 7 | 104 weeks (2 years) | 9 years |
| Step 7 → 8 | 156 weeks (3 years) | 12 years |
| Step 8 → 9 | 156 weeks (3 years) | 15 years |
| Step 9 → 10 | 156 weeks (3 years) | 18 years |
If you start at GS-12 Step 1 and never change grade or leave the job, you reach GS-12 Step 10 in exactly eighteen years. Each step increase is roughly three percent of base pay. That is how federal careers build compensation even without promotion.
WIGI is technically earned on the condition of "acceptable" performance, but unless a supervisor specifically denies the increase for a documented performance reason — which almost never happens — the step raise is effectively automatic. Performance-based denials are covered in the Workplace pillar.
If you get promoted between WIGI waiting periods, your waiting clock resets in the new grade. That is why some employees deliberately time out a final step increase before accepting a promotion — but only when the step increase plus the promotion math makes sense. See Competitive vs. Non-Competitive Promotions for the full calculation.
Section IV The 2026 base pay table
These are the official 2026 base rates published by OPM, reflecting the 1.0 percent across-the-board increase that took effect on January 11, 2026. These numbers are before any locality adjustment. Nobody receiving a paycheck inside the United States is actually paid at these base rates — every GS employee in the U.S. gets at least the Rest of U.S. locality adjustment on top. The base is the foundation from which every other calculation begins.
| Grade | Step 1 | Step 5 | Step 10 | WIGI Amount |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| GS-1 | $22,584 | $25,589 | $28,248 | Varies |
| GS-2 | $25,393 | $27,858 | $31,953 | Varies |
| GS-3 | $27,708 | $31,404 | $36,024 | $924 |
| GS-4 | $31,103 | $35,251 | $40,436 | $1,037 |
| GS-5 | $34,799 | $39,439 | $45,239 | $1,160 |
| GS-6 | $38,791 | $43,963 | $50,428 | $1,293 |
| GS-7 | $43,106 | $48,854 | $56,039 | $1,437 |
| GS-8 | $47,738 | $54,102 | $62,057 | $1,591 |
| GS-9 | $52,727 | $59,759 | $68,549 | $1,758 |
| GS-10 | $58,064 | $65,804 | $75,479 | $1,935 |
| GS-11 | $63,795 | $72,303 | $82,938 | $2,127 |
| GS-12 | $76,463 | $86,659 | $99,404 | $2,549 |
| GS-13 | $90,925 | $103,049 | $118,204 | $3,031 |
| GS-14 | $107,446 | $121,774 | $139,684 | $3,582 |
| GS-15 | $126,384 | $143,236 | $164,301 | $4,213 |
The final column shows the within-grade amount — how much each step adds at that grade. A GS-12 step increase adds $2,549 per year. A GS-15 step increase adds $4,213. At the high end of the grid, one step is worth more than an entire paycheck for someone starting at GS-1.
Section V Locality pay changes everything
No General Schedule employee working inside the United States actually receives base pay. Every domestic GS employee is covered by a locality pay area, and the locality percentage is added on top of base pay. In 2026, OPM recognizes 58 locality pay areas, from the catch-all Rest of U.S. at 17.06 percent to San Jose-San Francisco-Oakland, CA at 46.34 percent. Locality rates were frozen at 2025 levels for 2026; only the base pay rose by one percent.
Here is what that means for a GS-12 Step 5 ($86,659 base) across a few cities:
| Locality Area | 2026 Rate | GS-12 Step 5 Actual Salary |
|---|---|---|
| Rest of U.S. | 17.06% | $101,442 |
| Atlanta, GA | 24.14% | $107,577 |
| Dallas-Fort Worth, TX | 27.20% | $110,230 |
| Washington-Baltimore, DC | 33.94% | $116,074 |
| New York-Newark, NY | 37.12% | $118,829 |
| Los Angeles-Long Beach, CA | 36.92% | $118,656 |
| San Jose-San Francisco, CA | 46.34% | $126,815 |
Two GS-12 Step 5 employees, identical jobs on paper, can earn more than $25,000 apart depending on duty station. The full locality mechanic — how areas are defined, how rates are set, and how moving between localities affects pay — is covered in Locality Pay — The Full Picture.
To see what your own grade, step, and duty station produce at 2026 rates, use the GS Pay Calculator — it applies the full base + locality + cap logic automatically.
Section VI The pay cap most employees never hit
Federal pay is legally capped. No GS employee may earn more in locality-adjusted salary than the rate of Executive Schedule Level IV, which is $197,200 in 2026. This cap primarily bites at the intersection of high grades and high localities.
A GS-15 Step 10 in San Jose-San Francisco ($164,301 base × 1.4634) calculates to $240,438 — but actual salary is capped at $197,200. The difference of roughly $43,000 evaporates at the statutory ceiling. A GS-15 Step 10 in Washington-Baltimore ($164,301 × 1.3394) calculates to $220,064 — also capped. Even Rest of U.S. hits the cap at certain step combinations. This is why senior federal pay is said to compress: the actual earnings spread between a GS-14 Step 10 and a GS-15 Step 10 in high-locality areas is much smaller than the tables suggest.
Your FERS High-3 average salary — the figure used to compute your annuity — is based on the actual salary you received, including any cap limitations. If the cap reduces your real pay, it also reduces your future annuity. This is an argument for giving thought to duty station choice late in a career, not just during the working years. See the Warrior Retirement site for the full discussion.
Section VII Edge cases — special rates, law enforcement, overseas
Not every General Schedule employee is paid strictly off the grid described above. Several categories of employee are governed by modified rules that effectively override the standard GS table.
Special Rate Tables
OPM authorizes special rate tables for occupations and geographic areas where the standard GS rate cannot attract or retain qualified employees. These are common in engineering, IT, nursing, and certain scientific fields. An employee covered by a special rate table is paid the higher of (a) the special rate, or (b) the locality-adjusted GS rate — whichever yields more. Special rate eligibility is determined by your position, not something you apply for. More detail in Special Rate Schedules.
Law Enforcement Officers (LEOs)
Federal law enforcement officers at grades GS-3 through GS-10 are entitled to a separate, higher pay table under 5 U.S.C. 5305 and are additionally covered by law enforcement locality pay, which differs from standard locality rates for the same geographic area. For 2026, federal law enforcement received a 3.8 percent total pay increase rather than the general 1.0 percent — a function of specific statutory authorities rather than the general pay adjustment.
Overseas GS Employees
GS employees stationed in foreign areas outside the fifty states, the District of Columbia, and U.S. territories are not eligible for locality pay. They may receive post allowances and cost-of-living allowances, but these are separate from base salary and do not count toward FERS High-3 for retirement purposes. A Washington-based GS-14 who accepts a position in Frankfurt or Tokyo may see their FERS-creditable salary drop significantly, even if total compensation is comparable.
Section VIII What this means for your career
What to internalize about the grid
- Grade changes compound more than step changes. One grade jump unlocks an entire new range of step growth. Career ladder positions (GS-7 → 9 → 11 → 12) matter more than any individual step increase.
- Locality is a career variable, not just a lifestyle one. The same job in Washington, D.C. pays roughly 14 percent more than in Atlanta, and 29 percent more than in Rest of U.S. areas. Over a thirty-year career, that gap is measured in hundreds of thousands of dollars in earnings and tens of thousands per year in retirement annuity.
- The pay cap matters mostly at GS-15. Below GS-14 Step 8 or so, no one is hitting it. Above that, it shapes senior federal pay in ways most employees don't see until late in a career.
- Step 10 is not the goal. Reaching Step 10 means you stopped getting promoted. Most successful federal careers move between grades well before running out of steps. Step 10 is a marker of tenure, not achievement.
- Agencies cannot pay you above the grid. No agency has discretionary pay authority to exceed the published rates, no matter how valuable you are. Performance bonuses exist but are separate from salary and do not become part of your High-3.
Section IX Frequently asked questions
Your WIGI takes effect at the beginning of the first full pay period after you complete the required waiting period. Your agency's HR or payroll system should process it automatically.
If you notice a missed step increase, check your SF-50 Notification of Personnel Action and contact your HR office. See Reading Your Leave & Earnings Statement for verification steps.
No. When you are promoted, your new step is generally set using the "two-step" rule under 5 CFR 531.214: your pay is increased by two within-grade increases at your old grade, then placed at the lowest step of the new grade that equals or exceeds that figure. This usually lands you at Step 4 or 5 of the higher grade, not Step 1.
In some cases, yes. OPM's superior qualifications and special needs authority under 5 CFR 531.212 lets agencies set pay above Step 1 for newly-appointed employees who bring either superior qualifications or meet a specific agency need. Not every agency uses this authority, and approval typically requires an HR nomination.
Current federal employees moving laterally can use the "maximum payable rate rule" based on their previous federal salary. This is a separate authority that often produces higher pay than a straight step-1 appointment.
Federal hourly rate = annual salary ÷ 2,087. The number 2,087 is the statutory divisor representing average work hours per year — 2,080 scheduled hours adjusted for one extra hour to account for leap years over a 28-year cycle. Biweekly pay is annual ÷ 26. Your LES will show the exact per-pay-period figure applied to your grade and step.
Federal law enforcement officers at grades GS-3 through GS-10 are paid under a separate statutory authority (5 U.S.C. 5305) that ties their adjustments to different inputs than the general pay raise. For 2026, the combined effect produced a 3.8 percent increase for law enforcement versus 1.0 percent for the standard General Schedule. This is not a fairness question — it is a different law governing a different category of employee.
Run the numbers on your salary.
The GS Pay Calculator uses the 2026 pay table and every locality area to show your actual annual, biweekly, and hourly pay. No email required.