Locality pay can add anywhere from 17% to 46% on top of your GS base salary — a difference of tens of thousands of dollars per year for the same grade and step. The location where you work is one of the highest-leverage compensation variables in federal service, and most employees never run the comparison before accepting an assignment.
Locality is determined by where you physically report for duty — your official duty station, not your home address. The same GS-13, Step 5 earns $136,274 in Rest of U.S. and $149,499 in Washington DC. That $13,225 gap also compounds into your FERS pension through your high-3 average.
Section I Locality Pay Comparison Tool
Select your grade and step to rank all 19 verified OPM 2025 locality pay areas by your annual salary. The gold bar marks the highest-paying location. Capped rows are flagged where the EX-IV ceiling applies.
Compare All Localities for My Grade & Step
Showing GS-12, Step 5 across all 19 locality pay areas — ranked highest to lowest
| # | Locality Area | Rate | Annual Pay | Biweekly | Hourly | vs. Rest of US |
|---|
Section II All 2025 OPM Locality Pay Rates
Every rate below is sourced directly from official OPM 2025 salary table PDFs. Sorted highest to lowest. For the complete list of all 54+ localities, visit OPM.gov.
| # | Locality Area | State(s) | 2025 Rate | Visual |
|---|
In San Francisco, New York, Los Angeles, and Houston, GS-15 employees at higher steps hit the $195,200 EX-IV ceiling. Additional step increases in those markets produce no additional pay. Senior GS-15 employees in top-tier localities should pursue SES appointment or SL/ST conversion rather than waiting for payroll-inert step increases.
Section III Dollar Impact by Grade — Step 5
The table below shows the annual pay difference between Rest of U.S. (17.06%), Washington DC (33.94%), and San Francisco (46.34%) at Step 5 for key career grades. All figures are 2025 OPM official rates.
| Grade | Base Pay (Step 5) | Rest of US (17.06%) | DC (33.94%) | SF (46.34%) | SF vs. Rest of US |
|---|
Locality pay multiplies into your FERS pension
- Your FERS annuity = 1.1% × years of service × your high-3 average salary (if retiring at 62+ with 20 years).
- A GS-13 employee whose high-3 is $195,000 (SF cap) vs. $149,900 (Rest of US) earns roughly $4,950 more per year in pension — for every 10 years of retirement, that is $49,500 more in cumulative payments.
- Over a 25-year retirement, the locality differential in the pension alone can exceed $100,000 — before any COLA adjustments.
- This makes location in the final three years before retirement one of the most powerful levers available to a federal employee planning their exit.
Section IV Strategic Considerations
Locality pay is not just a paycheck variable — it is a career architecture decision. Here is how to think about it strategically at different stages of a federal career.
The remote work locality arbitrage
Some agencies allow employees in high-locality duty stations to work remotely from lower cost-of-living areas while retaining their high locality pay designation. This is agency-discretionary and position-specific — but where permitted, it is one of the most powerful total compensation strategies in the federal workforce. A GS-13 Step 5 in the DC locality earning $149,499 living in rural Virginia spends far less than a colleague earning the same amount in DC proper. Confirm remote work and duty station policies with your HR office before making any location decisions based on this.
The final-three-years strategy
Your FERS pension is based on your high-3 average — the highest three consecutive years of basic pay in your career. If you can secure a position in a higher-locality area in the three years before retirement, even at the same grade and step, your lifetime pension increases permanently. A move from Rest of U.S. to DC locality at GS-13 Step 10 in your final three years adds roughly $2,700 per year to your pension — for life.
Section V Frequently Asked Questions
The Federal Salary Council and the President's Pay Agent commission Bureau of Labor Statistics surveys comparing federal pay to local private-sector wages in each area. The resulting "pay gap" percentage drives the locality rate. The Federal Salary Council consistently reports that most localities are underpaying relative to full comparability — meaning OPM's published rates are typically lower than what strict pay parity would require.
Your locality pay changes effective on the first day of the first full pay period after your official duty station changes. If you move from Washington DC to Rest of U.S., your pay drops at the start of the next full pay period — even if the transfer is voluntary. This is why transfers out of high-locality areas should be planned carefully, especially in the years approaching retirement.
This tool covers 19 of the most commonly applicable OPM 2025 locality areas, verified against individual OPM salary table PDFs. OPM defines 54+ total localities for 2025, including smaller metro areas such as Fresno, Reno, Rochester, Spokane, Corpus Christi, Burlington, Harrisburg, and many others. If your area is not listed, use Rest of U.S. as a conservative baseline, or check the official OPM locality tables at OPM.gov for your specific county.
OPM publishes county-by-county locality area definitions annually. The 2025 definitions are available at OPM.gov under Pay & Leave › Salaries & Wages › 2025 Locality Pay Area Definitions. Most large metropolitan statistical areas are covered by named localities. Employees working outside any defined locality boundary default to Rest of U.S. Your agency HR office can confirm your official duty station locality designation — and it is worth checking, as misclassifications do occur.
No. Locality pay does not apply to foreign overseas positions. Those employees receive separate allowances under the Department of State Standardized Regulations (DSSR), including post allowances, foreign transfer allowances, and living quarters allowances. Alaska and Hawaii are domestic non-foreign areas with their own locality pay tables separate from the 48 contiguous states.