This is information about a regulation, not legal advice, and it cannot tell you what applies to your matter. The rule is days old, agencies are still building their first registers under it, and litigation over adjacent OPM rules is active. Verify everything here against your own specific notice and the current text of 5 CFR part 351 before you act on it. If you have received a notice, talk to your union representative or your own attorney — see retaining counsel.
I What changed on September 2
OPM published a final rule on August 3, 2026 at 91 FR 49178, rewriting subparts B through H of 5 CFR part 351 and amending parts 316, 330, 353, 359, 362, and 430. A correction followed on August 25 fixing clerical errors. Both took effect September 2, 2026. OPM received 721 unique comments during the 60-day period; unions, veterans' groups, and several agencies filed on opposite sides.
The governing statute, 5 U.S.C. 3502, tells OPM to give “due effect” to four retention factors: tenure of employment, military preference, length of service, and efficiency or performance ratings. It does not rank them. The old regulatory order was a policy choice, and OPM changed it.
| Element | Before September 2, 2026 | On and after |
|---|---|---|
| First factor | Tenure group I, II, or III | Performance credit, as a score |
| Tenure | Controlling — Group I always beat Group II | Two groups; subgroup is a tie-breaker |
| Veterans' preference | Subgroup AD / A / B inside a tenure group | +5 or +3 points added to the score |
| Performance | Converted to 12, 16, or 20 extra years of service | 7, 5, 3, or 0 points per rating |
| Length of service | Adjusted service computation date | Actual SCD, second tie-breaker |
| Assignment | Bump and retreat | Assignment rights, ~3 grades down |
| Appeals | MSPB | OPM, electronically |
The practical effect is easiest to see in a single comparison. Take two employees in the same competitive area and competitive level, one position abolished.
The same two people, two rulebooks
Employee A — non-veteran, former Group I, SCD 2015, ratings 4/5/4.
Employee B — 30% disabled veteran, former Group II, SCD 2024, ratings 5/5/5.
That reversal is the whole rule in one example. Tenure no longer functions as a ceiling that performance cannot break through, and preference no longer functions as a floor that guarantees a veteran outranks every non-veteran in the same group.
II Which rulebook governs you
This is the first question to answer, and people get it wrong by looking at the wrong date.
The date your agency issued your specific RIF notice under § 351.802 determines which version of part 351 applies. Not the date the RIF was announced. Not the date you separate. An agency that issued a notice before September 2 must process that RIF under the regulations in effect when the notice went out, even if separation lands months later.
Two wrinkles worth knowing. An amended notice that only moves your effective date later does not necessarily restart the retention calculation or convert an old-rule case into a new-rule case. And where successive notices exist, the question of which one is the controlling specific notice is a real question, not a formality. Ask your HR office to identify the controlling notice and to state which version of part 351 was used to build your register. Put that request in writing and keep the answer — the practice described in documenting everything applies with particular force here.
III Who competes — and who no longer does
The rule narrowed the definition of competing employee. Several groups are now outside RIF competition entirely:
- Employees serving an initial probationary period in the competitive service
- Excepted service employees serving a trial period
- Employees on temporary or time-limited appointments of one year or less
- Schedule C and Schedule G appointees
For these employees an agency may retain, furlough, separate, demote, or reassign without determining retention standing, without applying the order-of-release provisions, and without providing assignment rights. Agencies argued in comments that the old rule forced them to release probationary employees first and cost them early-career talent; OPM agreed.
An excluded employee released for a RIF reason — lack of work, shortage of funds, insufficient personnel ceiling, reorganization, or the exercise of reemployment or restoration rights — must still receive a modified written notice under § 351.801 stating the action, the reasons, the effective date, a link to part 351 and access to the agency's RIF records, reemployment rights information, and any appeal rights. The only case that escapes the notice requirement is the natural expiration of a temporary or time-limited appointment according to its own terms. If you are on a time-limited appointment and were cut early for a RIF reason, you were owed a notice.
One clarification that matters for supervisors: an employee with career tenure who is serving only a supervisory probationary period — meaning they would be returned to a non-supervisory position rather than removed — remains in the competition in the supervisory position. Someone serving an initial probationary period and a supervisory probationary period simultaneously is exempt. The distinction turns on what happens if the probation fails, which is the same line drawn in probationary period and probationary termination.
IV Three tenure groups became two
Groups I, II, and III are gone. In their place are two tenure groups, each with two subgroups:
| Tenure group | Who is in it | Subgroups |
|---|---|---|
| Competitive service tenure group | Competitive service employees not serving an initial probationary period or a temporary appointment of one year or less | I and II |
| Excepted service tenure group | Excepted service career appointees, excluding Schedule C and Schedule G, not serving a trial period or a temporary or time-limited appointment of one year or less | I and II |
Agencies maintain separate registers for the two groups, so competitive and excepted service employees do not compete against each other. Inside each register, your former Group I or Group II status carries over as your tenure subgroup, but it now operates only as the first tie-breaker rather than as a categorical rank.
This is the change that produces the most surprising outcomes. Under the old structure a Group II employee could never be retained over a Group I employee in the same competitive level, regardless of ratings. That ceiling is gone.
V Performance credit — the new first factor
Retention standing now begins with a number. Under § 351.503, an agency takes your three most recent ratings of record from the relevant four-year period and converts each to points:
| Rating of record | Summary level | Points | Prior rule equivalent |
|---|---|---|---|
| Outstanding | Level 5 | 7 | +20 years of service credit |
| Exceeds Fully Successful | Level 4 | 5 | +16 years |
| Fully Successful | Level 3 | 3 | +12 years |
| Minimally Satisfactory | Level 2 | 0 | No credit |
| Unacceptable | Level 1 | 0 | No credit |
Three Level 5 ratings produce 21 points, the ordinary maximum. Three Fully Successful ratings produce 9. The entire spread between a top performer and a solid one is 12 points, and — this is the number that governs everything downstream — the gap between any two adjacent rating levels is 2 points.
Why the old formula buried performance
The prior rule converted ratings into extra years of service, averaged and rounded, then subtracted them from your SCD to produce an adjusted date. Everyone was then ranked by that date.
Employee A — SCD 1996, ratings 3/3/3, +12 years → adjusted SCD 1984.
Employee B — SCD 2021, ratings 5/5/5, +20 years → adjusted SCD 2001.
OPM's stated reasoning was that the old method was opaque: it required translating ratings into artificial years, averaging, rounding, subtracting, and then presenting the result as a date, which made performance hard to see and hard to explain. A score is auditable in a way an adjusted date is not.
Retention standing is fixed as of the date you receive your specific RIF notice, so ratings issued afterward cannot change your score. Agencies may also set a cutoff date in advance after which no new rating of record is considered. Both provisions exist because commenters raised the obvious risk in a system where ratings now decide who stays.
There is a carve-out worth asking about. Where an agency's appraisal system does not meaningfully distinguish among higher levels of performance, the rule permits enhanced performance credit — but only if the agency specifies and documents the basis in advance, makes the information available before running the RIF, and applies the criteria consistently to every competing employee. If your agency used enhanced credit, that documentation should exist and you should ask for it. How your agency rates in the first place is covered in performance appraisal systems and the performance system.
OPM separately revised the performance appraisal rules at 5 CFR part 430, subpart B to allow a standardized distribution of some rating levels, on the theory that ratings had become compressed at the top. In late August 2026, a coalition of unions led by AFGE filed suit challenging that performance rule and a separate suitability rule under the Administrative Procedure Act. Those suits do not directly challenge the RIF retention formula, but the two are linked: if performance credit is now the primary retention factor, the integrity of the ratings feeding it is the whole ballgame. Check the current posture before relying on any of this.
VI Veterans' preference, converted to points
Preference did not disappear. It changed from a category to an addition. Under § 351.504:
| Subgroup | Who qualifies | Points added | Share of the 21-point scale |
|---|---|---|---|
| AD | Preference eligible with a compensable service-connected disability of 30% or more | +5 | 23.8% |
| A | Other preference eligibles | +3 | 14.3% |
| B | Non-preference eligibles | 0 | — |
Points are added to performance credit before tenure subgroup and service date are considered. Compare that to hiring, where preference is 5 or 10 points on a 100-point examining scale — 5% or 10%. In RIF retention the same preference is worth 14.3% or 23.8% of the scale, which OPM used to argue that preference is proportionally stronger here than in competitive examining.
The number that makes this concrete is the 2-point rating gap. A +3 preference outweighs a full rating level. A +5 preference outweighs two.
What the points actually buy
Non-preference employee — ratings 5/5/4 → 19 points, no addition → 19.
30%+ disabled preference eligible — ratings 4/4/4 → 15 points, +5 → 20.
The trade runs in the other direction too, and it is the part veterans' groups objected to hardest. A non-veteran with materially stronger ratings can now outrank a preference eligible — a non-veteran at 5/5/5 scores 21 against a veteran at 4/4/5 who scores 14 plus 3, or 17. Under the old subgroup structure that outcome was impossible within a tenure group. OPM's position is that 5 U.S.C. 3502(b) and (c) entitle preference eligibles to be retained “in preference to” other employees, which it reads as a meaningful preference rather than a categorical guarantee.
The statute grants RIF retention preference to preference eligibles whose performance has not been rated unacceptable. A Level 1 rating is therefore doubly costly: it contributes zero points on its own, and it bears on the statutory condition for the preference itself. Veterans navigating disability ratings and their interaction with federal employment will find the VA side covered on our sister site, Warrior Disability; the leave entitlement for disabled veterans is at disabled veteran leave.
VII The tie-breakers
Because scores are coarse — most employees will land on one of about seven possible totals — ties will be common. Far more common than they were under a system keyed to a specific date. The tie-breaking order is fixed:
- Augmented performance credit — the score, highest first
- Tenure subgroup — subgroup I ahead of subgroup II
- Actual service computation date — earliest first
Note that it is your actual SCD now, not an adjusted one. Nothing is subtracted. If your SCD is wrong on your records — a common problem where military service was bought back or where there were breaks in service — it now matters at a different point in the analysis than it used to. See military service buyback for how bought-back time affects service dates, and reading your SF-50 for where to verify it.
A register, resolved
Five employees, same competitive level, all in the competitive service tenure group. Two positions abolished.
2. Ratings 5/4/3, pref A → 15+3 = 18 — subgroup I, SCD 2013
3. Ratings 5/4/3, pref A → 15+3 = 18 — subgroup I, SCD 2020
4. Ratings 4/4/3, pref AD → 13+5 = 18 — subgroup II
5. Ratings 5/5/3, non-pref → 17 — subgroup I, SCD 2016
Employees 2, 3, and 4 all score 18. Subgroup separates them first, putting 2 and 3 ahead of 4; SCD separates 2 from 3. Employee 5 has subgroup I status and more service than employee 4, but ranks below because the score comes first. Employees 5 and 4 are released.
VIII Retention Standing Estimator
Enter what your notice says. The estimator applies the § 351.503 point values and the § 351.504 preference addition, then shows what the same inputs would have produced under the prior rule.
Estimate My RIF Retention Standing
Enter what your specific notice says. The estimator applies the § 351.503 point values and the § 351.504 preference addition, then shows what the same inputs would have produced under the prior rule.
Where your score falls
Common rating patterns for a non-preference employee, with your augmented total in gold. Because adjacent rating levels are only 2 points apart, preference points move you across more than one tier.
IX Assignment rights replace bump and retreat
Bump and retreat were the two mechanisms that let a released employee displace someone else — bumping into a position held by an employee in a lower tenure group or subgroup, retreating to a position previously held. Both concepts are gone, replaced with a single, narrower set of assignment rights.
A released competitive service employee may be assigned to a qualifying position held by an employee with lower retention standing in the same tenure group, generally within three grades below the released employee's position — or five grades for certain preference eligibles with a compensable service-connected disability of 30% or more.
The rule requires agencies to determine whether you have the capacity, adaptability, and skills for the position through job-related assessments based on job analysis, implementing the Chance to Compete Act of 2024. There is one exception: if you held the same or a substantially similar position within five years of the RIF and were rated Level 3 or higher for performing those duties, no new assessment is required. If you are inside that five-year window, say so early and in writing — it is the difference between qualifying on your record and qualifying on a test.
Two other exceptions sit above the order of release entirely. USERRA retention protections and restoration rights are a mandatory exception — where an entire competitive area is abolished, an employee entitled to USERRA protection must be assigned to a different position at the agency, and if an entire agency is abolished, OPM provides placement assistance elsewhere in the Executive Branch. The rule also preserves discretionary exceptions allowing agencies to retain employees for government obligations, parental leave, sick-leave circumstances, annual leave, and military spouses.
If you are released, the placement programs are the next stop: CTAP and ICTAP were conformed to the new framework, as was the Reemployment Priority List, with selection now emphasizing the same skills-based assessments. Whether an early-out offer beats taking your chances on the register is the question in VERA and VSIP.
X Competitive area and competitive level
Before any of the scoring happens, two boundaries determine who you are compared against. They matter more than the formula, because a competitive area drawn narrowly enough can decide the outcome before a single point is counted.
Your competitive area is the organizational and geographic boundary of the competition. Under the new rule it may be based on official organizational units or combinations of units, and agencies may define certain geographic locations as separate areas. An organizational unit must be clearly distinguished from other units in its operation, work function, staff, and supervisory oversight.
If a competitive area will have been in effect less than 90 days before a specific RIF notice, or has been materially modified, the agency must submit a description and a written explanation of the bona fide organizational basis for it, for OPM review. This provision was added in response to comments. If your competitive area was drawn or redrawn shortly before your notice, that explanation should exist, and asking whether it was submitted is a fair question.
One detail with real consequences for remote and telework employees: employees working at approved alternate locations remain assigned to their official organizational unit for competitive area purposes. Where you physically sit does not move you into a different competition. That interacts directly with telework agreements and the return-to-office posture covered in RTO 2026.
Your competitive level is the narrower grouping of positions similar enough in grade, series, and qualifications to be interchangeable. Two people in the same competitive area but different competitive levels never compete.
Where an agency abolishes all positions in a competitive area within 180 days, it may release employees without ranking them on a retention register and without applying assignment rights, using a simplified notice. Retention standing becomes irrelevant in that scenario, which is precisely why the bona fide basis for the area matters so much. USERRA rights remain a mandatory exception even here.
Two related changes round this out. Erosion of duties reclassifications no longer require RIF procedures, but agencies are now barred from undertaking one between the announcement and completion of a RIF if it would adversely affect an employee's retention standing. And transfer of function requirements were narrowed to transfers between agencies rather than within a single agency, with the test for whether an employee is tied to a transferring function now turning on whether they perform it at least half the time.
Separately, emergency shutdown furloughs caused by a lapse in appropriations are now excluded from the RIF furlough definition. OPM declined to finalize a proposal that would have given agencies broader flexibility to conduct unpaid furloughs of more than 30 days.
XI What your notice must tell you
The specific notice is not a courtesy letter. Under § 351.802(a)(2) it must state six things, and those six things are exactly the inputs to your score:
| Required on the notice | Why it matters | Check it against |
|---|---|---|
| Competitive area | Defines who you are compared against | Your organizational unit and duty location |
| Competitive level | Narrows the comparison to interchangeable positions | Your position description, series, and grade |
| Veterans' preference subgroup | Worth +5, +3, or 0 points | Your DD-214 and VA disability rating |
| Tenure group and subgroup | The first tie-breaker | Your SF-50 |
| Service date | The second tie-breaker | Your SCD, including any bought-back military time |
| Three most recent ratings of record | Nearly all of your score | Your own copies of each appraisal |
Subsection (a)(3) additionally requires a link to 5 CFR part 351 and information on how to reach the agency's RIF records.
Because the notice must disclose every input, you can reconstruct your score in about two minutes and compare it to what the agency concluded. This is genuinely new — under the adjusted-SCD model, checking the math meant reverse-engineering a date. Now it is addition. An error in any one of the six fields changes your position on the register, and the most common errors will be a wrong SCD, a missing rating, or a preference subgroup that does not reflect a disability rating the agency never recorded. The broader notice mechanics, including timelines, are in the RIF notice.
XII Appeals moved to OPM
A separate final rule published the same day, at 91 FR 49230, moves the direct part 351 RIF-compliance appeal from the Merit Systems Protection Board to OPM. It applies on the same trigger: a specific RIF notice issued on or after September 2, 2026.
- Filing is electronic, through the system OPM identifies
- The window is generally 30 calendar days after the effective date of the action, closing at 11:59 p.m. Eastern on the last day
- OPM applies a good-cause standard for untimely filings
- The OPM process is the sole procedure for the part 351 compliance issue — it may not be taken through a negotiated grievance procedure or grievance arbitration
- The rule requires production of the complete agency record and clarifies the appellant's burden
Statutory remedies outside part 351 are preserved — EEO complaints, whistleblower reprisal claims at OSC, and USERRA matters proceed on their own tracks. Section 351.902(b)(3) adds a limited tolling rule: if you timely filed such a collateral matter and the final decision on it materially affects your retention standing, order of release, or assignment rights, you may file a RIF appeal within 30 calendar days after that decision becomes final. OPM decides in its sole discretion whether a decision materially affects those rights.
Note the asymmetry this creates. The forum that has heard RIF appeals for decades now hears them only for notices issued before September 2, so for a period both systems run in parallel on different cases. If your notice predates the change, MSPB appeals still governs your route.
XIII The playbook
| Situation | What to do |
|---|---|
| RIF announced, no notice yet | Collect your last three appraisals now. Verify your SCD and preference subgroup on your SF-50 before standing is fixed. |
| Notice issued before Sept 2, 2026 | Old rules govern. Tenure group is still controlling and bump and retreat still exist. Appeal route is MSPB. |
| Notice issued on or after Sept 2, 2026 | Recompute your score from the six disclosed fields. Appeal route is OPM, 30 days. |
| Preference eligible | Confirm AD versus A. The difference is 2 points — a full rating level. |
| Disability rating not on file | Fix it immediately. An unrecorded 30% rating costs you 2 points and possibly your job. |
| Missing a rating of record | Ask which § 351.503 rule the agency applied and get the answer in writing. |
| Probationary or time-limited | You are outside the competition, but you are still owed a modified notice unless your appointment simply expired. |
| Competitive area redrawn recently | Ask whether the bona fide organizational basis was submitted to OPM under the 90-day provision. |
| Held a lower-graded position recently | If it was within five years at Level 3 or higher, you skip the skills assessment. Say so in writing. |
| Offered VERA or VSIP | Run the comparison before your standing is known, then again after. |
What to do this week
- Pull your three most recent ratings of record and store copies outside agency systems.
- Verify your SCD on your most recent SF-50, including any bought-back military service.
- Confirm your veterans' preference subgroup is recorded correctly — AD requires a compensable rating of 30% or more.
- Identify your competitive area and competitive level, and ask when the area was last defined or modified.
- Compute your own augmented score before any notice arrives, so you have a baseline.
- If you held a lower-graded position within the last five years at Level 3 or higher, document it now.
- If a notice arrives, check all six disclosed fields against your own records the same day.
- Calendar the 30-day appeal window from the effective date, not the notice date.
- Ask your union representative whether the appeal route affects your bargaining unit's grievance options.
- Keep a dated record of every conversation about your standing.
Frequently asked questions
For any specific RIF notice issued on or after September 2, 2026, an agency first places you on either the competitive service or the excepted service retention register. Within that register it ranks you by performance credit, calculated from your three most recent ratings of record in the relevant four-year period, with 7 points for a Level 5 rating, 5 points for Level 4, 3 points for Level 3, and 0 points for Level 1 or Level 2. It then adds veterans' preference points: 5 for a preference eligible with a compensable service-connected disability of 30 percent or more, and 3 for other preference eligibles. Ties are broken by tenure subgroup first and then by actual service computation date, earliest first.
The controlling date is the date the agency issued your specific RIF notice under 5 CFR 351.802, not your separation date. A notice issued on or after September 2, 2026 uses the new framework. A notice issued before that date is processed under the regulations that were in effect when it was issued, even if your separation happens months later. An amended notice that only moves the effective date later does not automatically convert an older notice into a new-rule case, so ask your HR office to identify the controlling specific notice and the version of part 351 used to build your register.
It changed form rather than disappearing. Preference used to operate as a categorical subgroup inside a tenure group, which meant a veteran could never outrank a non-veteran in a higher tenure group no matter how well the veteran performed. Now it is 5 or 3 points added directly to performance credit on a 21-point scale, which lets a high-performing veteran outrank a longer-tenured non-veteran. The trade is that a non-veteran with materially stronger ratings can now outrank a preference eligible, which was not possible within a subgroup before. Because one rating level is worth 2 points, a 3-point preference outweighs a full rating level and a 5-point preference outweighs two.
The rule replaced bump and retreat with a single concept called assignment rights. A released competitive service employee may be assigned to a qualifying position held by an employee with lower retention standing in the same tenure group, generally within three grades below the released employee's position, or five grades for certain preference eligibles with a compensable service-connected disability of 30 percent or more. Qualification is now established through job-related skills assessments based on job analysis, unless you held the same or a substantially similar position within five years of the RIF and were rated at Level 3 or higher for performing those duties.
Several groups are no longer competing employees for RIF purposes. Employees serving an initial probationary period, excepted service employees serving a trial period, employees on temporary or time-limited appointments of one year or less, and Schedule C and Schedule G appointees are outside the competition. An agency may retain, furlough, separate, demote, or reassign them without building a retention register or applying assignment rights. They are not without protection: if the action is taken for a RIF reason rather than the natural expiration of a time-limited appointment, the agency must still provide a modified written notice stating the action, the reasons, the effective date, reemployment rights information, and any appeal rights.
A specific notice must state your competitive area, your competitive level, your veterans' preference subgroup, your tenure group and subgroup, your service date, and your three most recent ratings of record from the last four years. It must also include a link to 5 CFR part 351 and information on how to reach the agency's RIF records. Those six data points are the inputs to your score, so the notice is what lets you check the agency's arithmetic. If any of them is missing or wrong, that is the first thing to raise.
For a specific RIF notice issued on or after September 2, 2026, a separate final rule moves the direct part 351 RIF-compliance appeal from the Merit Systems Protection Board to OPM. Filing is electronic through the system OPM identifies, and the window is generally 30 calendar days after the effective date of the action, closing at 11:59 p.m. Eastern on the last day. OPM's process is the sole route for that compliance issue, which means it cannot be taken through a negotiated grievance procedure or grievance arbitration. Collateral remedies such as EEO complaints and OSC matters are preserved, and there is a limited tolling provision for employees whose collateral matter is resolved in a way that materially affects their retention standing.
Retention standing is fixed as of the date you receive the specific RIF notice, so ratings issued after that date do not change your score. Agencies may also set a cutoff date in advance after which no new rating of record will be considered. Separately, agencies whose appraisal systems do not meaningfully distinguish among higher levels of performance may use an enhanced performance credit method, but only if they specify and document the basis in advance, make the information available before running the RIF, and apply it consistently to every competing employee. If your agency used enhanced credit, ask to see that documentation.