The federal probationary period is the one-year trial window that follows most new competitive service appointments, during which an agency evaluates whether to keep you as a permanent employee. As of April 2025, that period no longer ends passively: your agency must affirmatively certify within the final 30 days that keeping you serves the public interest, or you are automatically separated on the last day. During probation you can be terminated with far less process than a tenured employee, and your rights to appeal are narrow.
How Long Probation Lasts
The authority comes from 5 U.S.C. § 3321, and the implementing regulation sets the standard length at one year for competitive service employees. It cannot be extended.1Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 5 USC 3321 – Competitive Service; Probationary Period2eCFR. 5 CFR 315.802 – Length of Probationary Period; Crediting Service
The Department of Defense used to impose a two-year period under separate authority. That authority was repealed effective December 31, 2022, so anyone newly appointed to a permanent DoD competitive service position after that date serves the standard one year.3Defense Civilian Personnel Advisory Service. Repeal of the 2-Year Probationary Period
Excepted Service Trial Periods
Employees hired into the excepted service don’t technically serve “probation.” They serve a “trial period” that works similarly but runs longer for most people. Veterans’ preference eligible employees serve one year. Everyone else in the excepted service serves two.4eCFR. 5 CFR Part 11 – Probationary and Trial Periods (Rule XI) The two-year window catches people off guard when they assume the one-year competitive service standard applies universally.
Supervisory and Managerial Probation
The first time you are appointed or promoted into a supervisory or managerial role, you serve a separate probationary period focused on your leadership. Each agency head sets the length, applied uniformly across similar positions.5eCFR. 5 CFR Part 315 Subpart I – Probation on Initial Appointment to a Supervisory or Managerial Position – Section 315.905 It runs independently of your initial probation, so a tenured career employee can still be on supervisory probation.
If you fail this probation, the agency must place you in a non-supervisory position at the same grade and pay you held before the promotion, with written notice of the reassignment.6eCFR. 5 CFR 315.907 – Failure to Complete the Probationary Period You lose the supervisory role, not the federal job.
The 2025 Public Interest Certification Requirement
Before April 2025, completing probation was passive. You worked your year, and unless the agency took action to remove you, you became a permanent employee when the clock ran out. An executive order signed on April 24, 2025, rewrote Civil Service Rule XI to add an affirmative certification step.7The White House. Strengthening Probationary Periods in the Federal Service
Under the current framework, your service automatically terminates at the end of your probationary or trial period unless your agency certifies within the final 30 days that making your appointment permanent advances the public interest. If no certification is issued, you are separated before the end of your tour of duty on the last day of probation. The burden is on you to demonstrate why continued employment is warranted.
In deciding whether to certify, the agency can consider your performance and conduct, its operational needs, whether keeping you advances the agency’s organizational goals, and whether your continued employment serves the efficiency of the service. The order also directs agencies, “to the extent practicable,” to hold a meeting with each probationer at least 60 days before their period ends to discuss performance and whether certification is likely.
The practical shift is significant. An agency that wanted to remove a probationer previously had to take affirmative action before the clock expired. Now, inaction itself results in separation. If your supervisor or agency leadership simply does not act on the certification, you are out.
How Service Gets Credited
Calculating your exact end date is not always straightforward. Under 5 CFR § 315.802, prior federal service counts toward your current probationary period only if three conditions are all met: the earlier service was in the same agency, it was in the same line of work based on your actual duties, and there was no break in service longer than 30 calendar days.2eCFR. 5 CFR 315.802 – Length of Probationary Period; Crediting Service
Time in a pay status always counts. Unpaid absences while you remain on the agency’s rolls are credited up to 22 workdays. After that threshold, each additional workday of unpaid leave extends your probation by an equal amount. Take 32 workdays of leave without pay, and your probation stretches 10 days beyond the normal anniversary.
Two categories of unpaid absence get full credit with no 22-day cap: time off for a compensable work injury and time on military duty. Service members who leave a federal position for uniformed service are treated as though they never left when they return, so the entire absence counts toward probation, career tenure, and leave accrual.8eCFR. 5 CFR Part 353 – Restoration to Duty From Uniformed Service or Compensable Injury
Part-time employees with a regular schedule are on the same calendar-time calculation as full-time employees. Intermittent employees without a set schedule count each day or partial day in pay status as one day toward 260 paid days, but their period can never end in less than one calendar year.
Probation officially ends when you complete your scheduled tour of duty on the day before your appointment anniversary. If the anniversary falls on a Monday and your last workday is the preceding Friday, that Friday is your final day of probation, and any separation must happen before your tour ends that day.9U.S. Office of Personnel Management. Supplemental Guidance on Probationary or Trial Periods
How Termination Works During Probation
Removing a probationary employee is far simpler than removing someone with permanent status. The agency does not have to meet the evidentiary burden required under Chapter 75 adverse action procedures. There is no entitlement to a performance improvement plan; OPM guidance states explicitly that performance-based actions under 5 CFR Part 432 do not apply to probationary or trial period employees.10U.S. Office of Personnel Management. The Performance Improvement Period Some agencies offer informal coaching, but they are not required to.
Termination for Performance or Conduct
When the agency ends your employment based on how you performed during probation, it must give you written notice stating the reasons for separation and the effective date. The notice must, at minimum, state the agency’s conclusions about what was inadequate in your performance or conduct.11eCFR. 5 CFR 315.804 – Termination of Probationers for Unsatisfactory Performance or Conduct The reasons need not be as detailed as a Chapter 75 removal notice, but they must give you a clear picture of why you are being let go. The effective date must fall before probation ends.
Termination for Pre-Appointment Reasons
A more protective set of procedures applies when the reasons for termination relate partly or entirely to conditions that existed before your hire date, such as misrepresented qualifications, an undisclosed prior conviction, or disqualifying information from a background investigation. Under 5 CFR § 315.805, you are entitled to advance written notice that spells out the reasons “specifically and in detail,” a reasonable period to file a written response with supporting evidence, and a written decision delivered before the action takes effect.12eCFR. 5 CFR 315.805 – Termination of Probationers for Conditions Arising Before Appointment
The agency must actually consider your response before deciding. The final notice must explain the reasons, inform you of your MSPB appeal right, and state the filing deadline.
Appeal Rights After Termination
Your options to challenge a probationary termination are narrower than a tenured employee’s, but they are not empty.
Limited Grounds for MSPB Appeals
A probationer generally cannot appeal the merits of a termination to the Merit Systems Protection Board. You cannot argue that the agency’s performance assessment was wrong or that you deserved more time. The MSPB will only hear your case on narrow grounds:13eCFR. 5 CFR 315.806 – Appeal Rights to the Merit Systems Protection Board
- Partisan political reasons or marital status. You can appeal if you allege the termination was motivated by your political affiliation or marital status.
- Improper procedure for pre-appointment reasons. If the agency terminated you under 5 CFR § 315.805, you can appeal on the ground that it did not follow the required procedures.
- Discrimination combined with another ground. A discrimination claim based on race, sex, religion, national origin, age, disability, or other protected categories reaches the MSPB only if you also raise one of the two grounds above. A standalone discrimination claim by a probationer cannot go to the MSPB.
File within 30 calendar days of the effective date of your termination or within 30 calendar days of receiving the agency’s written decision, whichever is later. If the 30th day falls on a weekend or federal holiday, the deadline extends to the next business day.14U.S. Merit Systems Protection Board. Appellant Questions and Answers
EEO Complaints
Probationary status does not reduce your rights under federal anti-discrimination law. If you believe your termination was motivated by race, color, religion, sex, national origin, age, disability, or genetic information, you can file an Equal Employment Opportunity complaint with your agency’s EEO office. This path is independent of the MSPB process and does not require you to bundle it with a political affiliation or procedural claim. For many probationers who suspect discriminatory motives, the EEO complaint is the more practical avenue.
Whistleblower Protections
Probationers have the same whistleblower rights as permanent employees. If you disclosed fraud, waste, abuse of authority, or a danger to public safety, and you believe your termination was retaliation, you can file a prohibited personnel practice complaint with the Office of Special Counsel. If the OSC investigation does not resolve the matter, you may then file an Individual Right of Action appeal with the MSPB, but the OSC complaint has to come first.
USERRA Protections
Probation does not diminish your rights under the Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act. USERRA applies in full to employees in probationary and trial period positions.15eCFR. 20 CFR 1002.41 – Rights Under USERRA for Probationary Employees If you leave for military duty and return, you are entitled to reemployment with full credit for the time you were away. An agency that refuses to reemploy you or terminates you because of your military obligations faces the same legal exposure it would with a permanent employee.
What Happens After Probation
Finishing probation does not immediately make you a fully tenured career employee. In most cases you move into “career-conditional” status. You have full adverse action protections at that point, but your reinstatement rights are limited if you later leave federal service.
Career-conditional employees must accumulate at least three years of substantially continuous creditable service to convert to full career tenure, and the conversion happens automatically at the three-year mark.16eCFR. 5 CFR 315.201 – Service Requirement for Career Tenure The difference matters most if you separate: career employees can be reinstated to the competitive service at any time, while a career-conditional employee who is not a veterans’ preference eligible generally has only three years from separation to seek reinstatement.17eCFR. 5 CFR Part 315 – Career and Career-Conditional Employment
Transferring to another agency while still career-conditional does not restart the clock. Your status and time carry with you.