Your LES is issued every two weeks by your payroll provider — most commonly DFAS, NFC, Interior Business Center, or GSA payroll services — and accessed through myPay, the Employee Personal Page, Employee Express, or your agency's HR portal. It is legally your record of what you earned, what was withheld, and what benefits accrued during a given pay period. It is also your running audit trail for retirement service credit, leave accrual, and TSP contributions. Most federal employees never audit it. Most federal employees have at least one quiet error in their LES history.
This guide walks through every block on the LES in the order it appears: header, earnings, deductions, leave, TSP and retirement, and the remarks section where one-off information shows up. It also covers what to check every pay period and what to do when something looks wrong.
- What an LES is and why it matters
- Header block — identity, grade, pay rate
- Earnings block — every pay code
- Deductions block — taxes and benefits
- Leave block — annual, sick, and other
- TSP and retirement block
- The remarks section — where surprises hide
- What to check every pay period
- Frequently asked questions
The LES carries more weight than a typical private-sector pay stub because it is your official evidence of creditable service, leave accrual, and retirement contributions. The system does not flag errors for you. You find them by reading. HR fixes them only when you ask. A single-pay-period error on leave tier or FERS category, left uncorrected, can cost thousands of dollars across a career — and the longer it persists, the harder it is to reverse.
Section I What an LES is and why it matters
The Leave and Earnings Statement is the federal equivalent of a pay stub, with three added jobs that make it more important than any stub a private-sector employer would issue. First, it is your running evidence of creditable service for retirement — each pay period on the LES is a pay period that counts toward your FERS or CSRS annuity. Second, it is your audit trail for leave accrual, which becomes real money at separation or retirement through lump-sum annual leave payments and converted sick leave service credit. Third, it shows TSP contributions and agency matching in real time — where quiet errors can cost thousands of dollars in lost investment growth if they persist uncorrected.
Federal employees should read the LES at least once a month and review it in detail at every major life event: promotion, reassignment, salary adjustment, FEHB Open Season, family change, and during retirement planning in the years leading up to separation. The LES system does not flag errors. You find them by reading them.
Keep every LES for at least six years — longer if you anticipate a retirement claim, a back pay dispute, or any service computation issue. Electronic PDFs are sufficient. Most myPay and EPP portals retain only 12 to 24 months on demand, so download and archive locally. This matters most for the final few years before retirement, where your High-3 computation requires verified earnings data.
Section II Header block — identity, grade, pay rate
The top portion of every LES identifies you as an employee and locks in the pay structure applied for the period. The header fields are where the most consequential data lives — grade, step, locality, service computation date — and where mis-classifications silently produce wrong pay for months at a time.
| Field | What It Shows |
|---|---|
| Pay Period Ending | Last day of the two-week period this LES covers. Federal pay is paid in arrears — an LES dated April 25 covers work performed through April 18. |
| Pay Plan / Grade / Step | Your classification and rank at this snapshot (e.g., GS-13-05). Any mid-period change should generate a separate LES for the old and new rates. |
| Annual Salary | Your locality-adjusted annual rate. This is the number you quote in mortgage applications. Confirm it matches grade + step + locality math from your GS table and locality area. |
| Hourly Rate | Annual salary ÷ 2,087. Used for overtime and some leave calculations. |
| Locality Area | Your duty-station-derived locality code (e.g., DCB for Washington-Baltimore, RUS for Rest of U.S.). If this is wrong, the entire salary figure above is wrong. |
| Service Computation Date (SCD) | The date used to compute leave accrual tier and retirement eligibility. If you have military buyback pending, this may not yet reflect bought-back service. |
| FLSA Category | Exempt or non-exempt. Controls overtime eligibility. |
The SCD is particularly worth watching. For most employees it matches their original federal entry-on-duty date, but it can diverge if you have prior civilian service that counts, military service that has been bought back, or any break in service. The SCD shown on your LES is the operational SCD your agency uses for leave accrual purposes — it is not always the same as your Retirement SCD, which is tracked separately and is the one that determines FERS eligibility and annuity computation. If either SCD is off by a year, the downstream cost across a career is substantial.
Section III Earnings block — every pay code
The earnings block lists every positive payment made during the pay period, broken out by type. Each line shows a code, hours or units, a rate, and an amount. Common codes across DFAS, NFC, and IBC payroll systems:
| Code | Description | Category |
|---|---|---|
| REG | Regular basic pay for hours worked | Earnings |
| LOCAL | Locality pay supplement (sometimes bundled into REG, depending on payroll provider) | Earnings |
| ANN | Annual leave used during the pay period | Leave Pay |
| SCK | Sick leave used during the pay period | Leave Pay |
| HOL | Federal holiday pay | Leave Pay |
| OT | Overtime pay (non-exempt employees only) | Premium |
| NDP | Night differential pay | Premium |
| SUN | Sunday premium pay | Premium |
| HAZ | Hazard pay differential | Premium |
| AWARD | Performance or special-act cash award | One-Time |
| RETRO | Retroactive pay adjustment (e.g., delayed step increase or reclassification) | Adjustment |
For a typical salaried employee working a standard two-week pay period with no leave, the earnings block will show 80 hours of REG, and 8 hours of HOL if a federal holiday fell within the period. When your earnings block shows anything unexpected — or shows less than 80 hours without an explanation — investigate before the next pay period closes. Errors caught within a few pay periods are easy to correct; errors that persist across months generate complicated retroactive adjustments and tax reporting consequences.
Section IV Deductions block — taxes and benefits
The deductions block is where most employees never look, and where most quiet problems live. Deductions fall into two categories: mandatory (taxes and required retirement contributions) and voluntary (benefit premiums and elective contributions). Both appear in the same block on most payroll systems.
| Code | Description | Type |
|---|---|---|
| FITW | Federal income tax withheld (based on your W-4) | Mandatory Tax |
| FICA-OASDI | Social Security tax — 6.2% of wages up to the annual wage base | Mandatory Tax |
| FICA-HI | Medicare tax — 1.45% of all wages | Mandatory Tax |
| SITW | State income tax withheld | Mandatory Tax |
| FERS / FERS-RAE / FERS-FRAE | FERS employee contribution — 0.8%, 3.1%, or 4.4% depending on hire date | Retirement |
| TSP-C / TSP-R | Your traditional (C) or Roth (R) TSP contribution | Retirement |
| FEHB | Your share of Federal Employees Health Benefits premium | Benefit |
| FEGLI | Federal Employees' Group Life Insurance premium | Benefit |
| FEDVIP | Federal dental and vision premium (if elected) | Benefit |
| FSA | Flexible Spending Account contribution | Pre-Tax |
| TSP LOAN | TSP loan repayment (if you have an outstanding loan) | Loan |
The FERS category in your deductions is particularly worth verifying. Employees first hired before 2013 are FERS at 0.8 percent. Those first hired in 2013 are FERS-RAE (Revised Annuity Employees) at 3.1 percent. Those first hired in 2014 or later are FERS-FRAE (Further Revised Annuity Employees) at 4.4 percent. If you were misclassified at hire — which happens, especially for employees with breaks in service or prior federal employment — you may be paying more than you legally owe. The difference is typically several hundred dollars per pay period, compounding into thousands per year.
After every FEHB Open Season, the first LES of the new plan year is the one to read carefully. Verify that your new plan code appears and your premium matches what you elected. Errors during Open Season sometimes roll employees into the default self-only enrollment of their previous plan, or fail to implement plan changes entirely. The sooner you catch it, the easier it is to fix.
To estimate what your take-home pay should be — gross, all deductions, and net — before comparing it against your actual LES, use the Net Pay Estimator. It applies the full federal, FICA, FERS, TSP, and benefit deduction logic for any grade, step, and locality at 2026 rates.
Section V Leave block — annual, sick, and other
The leave block shows, for each leave category, your accrual this period, leave used this period, and ending balance. This is where your time becomes money.
| Category | What It Shows | Value at Separation |
|---|---|---|
| ANNUAL | Vacation / annual leave — 4, 6, or 8 hours accrued per pay period by SCD tier | Cash — paid out as lump sum |
| SICK | Sick leave — 4 hours accrued per pay period regardless of SCD tier | Service credit — converts to FERS time |
| RESTORED | Annual leave restored by agency action after forfeiture | Use-or-lose — specific windows |
| CREDIT | Credit hours earned under alternative work schedules | Flex balance |
| COMP | Compensatory time earned in lieu of overtime pay | Flex balance |
| MIL | Military leave — 15 days annual for reservists (5 U.S.C. 6323) | Statutory — resets annually |
| PPL | Paid Parental Leave balance — 12 weeks per qualifying event | Statutory — per-event entitlement |
Annual leave accrual tier is determined by your SCD for leave purposes:
- Under 3 years: 4 hours per pay period (104 hours / year)
- 3 to 15 years: 6 hours per pay period (~160 hours / year)
- 15+ years: 8 hours per pay period (208 hours / year)
If your leave accrual tier is wrong, it compounds. A SCD that is off by a year can cost a mid-career employee 52 hours of annual leave accrual annually, which at a typical GS-13 hourly rate is roughly $3,000 of lost leave value per year, plus whatever that leave would have converted to at separation.
Annual leave carries over year to year but is capped at 240 hours for most employees (360 hours for overseas assignments). Anything above the cap as of the final pay period of the leave year is forfeited — it simply disappears. Check your Pay Period 25 and 26 LES every December and plan late-year use or convert to TSP contributions through the lump-sum mechanism if available.
Section VI TSP and retirement block
The TSP portion of your LES shows three things: your employee contribution (traditional or Roth), the agency automatic 1 percent contribution, and the agency matching contribution of up to 4 percent on your first 5 percent of contributions. Together these can equal 5 percent of your pay in free agency money if you contribute at least 5 percent yourself.
Every pay period, verify:
- Your elected contribution percentage matches what you set in myPay or EPP
- If you elected a Traditional/Roth mix, both allocations appear correctly
- The agency automatic 1 percent contribution is present
- The agency matching is 4 percent when you contribute at least 5 percent; proportionally less if you contribute less
The most common TSP LES error is an agency match failure, which typically happens around personnel actions — promotion, reassignment, break in service, or administrative action — and often persists for multiple pay periods before anyone catches it. Missed agency matching is never automatically recovered. You must raise it with HR and payroll, supply your affected LES records, and request a corrective action. Catching it within one or two pay periods makes resolution straightforward; catching it months later can require a formal TSP correction request.
Section VII The remarks section — where surprises hide
The remarks block at the bottom of the LES is used by payroll systems to communicate one-off information: pending actions, notifications of future changes, corrections to prior periods, and reminders. It often looks like boilerplate, but real information regularly appears here:
- Notices that a WIGI (step increase) has been processed or is pending
- Notices of FEHB, FEGLI, or TSP election windows
- Reminders of expiring cash awards or leave use-or-lose balances
- Notices that retroactive pay adjustments have been made
- Communications about garnishments, child support withholdings, or other court-ordered actions
- Notifications of premium changes taking effect the following pay period
When a remark appears that you did not expect, read it. When the same remark appears for multiple pay periods without resolution, something in your file is stuck and needs HR attention.
Section VIII What to check every pay period
You do not need to audit the entire LES every two weeks. A five-minute scan covers the essentials and catches the majority of problems early.
Run this check every pay period
- Net pay matches roughly what you expect — larger-than-expected variation signals that something changed.
- Regular hours show 80 hours for a full-time employee with no leave used — less than 80 without explanation is worth investigating with your timekeeper.
- Grade and step unchanged from last period (unless you just had a WIGI or promotion).
- Locality code unchanged from last period (unless you just changed duty station).
- TSP employee contribution + agency automatic + agency matching all present at the expected amounts.
- Leave balances moving in the expected direction — annual accruing, sick accruing at 4 hours per pay period.
- Voluntary deductions (FEHB, FEGLI, FEDVIP, FSA) match your current elections.
- Remarks section — any new entry worth reading.
Once a quarter, do a longer check: year-to-date earnings against your expected annual rate, year-to-date TSP contributions against the IRS elective deferral limit, and year-to-date leave usage against your remaining balance with the 240-hour year-end cap in mind. At retirement planning time — typically the final three years of service — verify every LES line item against your Official Personnel File and any pending service computation actions before you submit your retirement paperwork.
Section IX Frequently asked questions
Your access point depends on your payroll provider. DFAS-serviced employees use myPay. NFC-serviced employees (USDA, HHS, and many smaller agencies) use the Employee Personal Page (EPP). Interior Business Center customers use Employee Express. GSA payroll customers use their agency-specific portal.
If you are unsure which system applies to you, your agency HR office can confirm — and once you know, bookmark the URL. You will be visiting it regularly.
Most payroll portals retain between 12 and 24 months of LES history available on demand. Records older than that are typically archived and retrievable only through a formal request to the payroll provider, which can take weeks or months to fulfill.
This is why you should download and save every LES yourself, especially in the years leading up to retirement. Retirement processing sometimes requires verification of earnings from periods well beyond the portal's on-demand retention window.
Report the error in writing to your timekeeper, HR, and payroll contact. Keep the LES showing the error and your original correspondence — email is ideal for the paper trail. Small errors such as a missing hour of leave are typically corrected on the following pay period.
Larger errors such as incorrect grade, wrong locality, a missed step increase, or FERS category misclassification can take multiple pay periods to correct and may generate retroactive pay adjustments. The earlier you catch it, the faster and cleaner the fix.
Pre-tax deductions reduce your taxable wages below your gross pay. Traditional TSP contributions, FEHB premiums, FSA contributions, and HSA contributions are all pre-tax for federal income tax purposes. Your taxable wages for federal income tax can be 10 to 20 percent lower than your gross.
Use the "Federal Taxable Wages YTD" field rather than gross YTD when estimating your federal tax. Mortgage and loan applications typically want gross; tax planning wants taxable.
Yes. Military deposit payments appear as a deduction code (often "MIL DEP" or similar depending on your payroll provider). The LES shows the current pay period deduction and the year-to-date total.
It does not show the remaining balance owed on the deposit. For that you need the original deposit application and receipts issued by your agency HR or payroll. The Warrior Retirement site covers the full buyback process including how to track your remaining balance.
Estimate what your LES should show.
The Net Pay Estimator applies federal, FICA, FERS, TSP, and benefit deductions to your grade, step, and locality at 2026 rates — so you can compare against your actual LES line by line.