Government Civilian Pay Scale: GS Grades, Locality, and Caps

The government civilian pay scale, formally known as the General Schedule, sets salaries for roughly 1.5 million white-collar federal employees across 15 grades and 10 steps within each grade. In 2026, base pay runs from $22,584 at GS-1, step 1 to $164,301 at GS-15, step 10.¹ Those base numbers are only the starting point. A locality adjustment tied to where you work, step increases you earn over time, and premium pay for certain schedules all layer on top, and the real paycheck is usually well above what the base table shows.

The 15 Grades and What They Pay

Each grade on the General Schedule corresponds to a level of job difficulty and responsibility. Agencies classify positions based on the work involved, not the person filling them.² The ladder breaks down roughly like this:

GS-1 through GS-4 cover entry-level clerical and administrative support roles, with 2026 base pay ranging from $22,584 to about $33,000 depending on step.
GS-5 through GS-12 make up the broad middle tier of technical, professional, and mid-level management positions. A GS-7, step 1 earns $38,318 in base pay; a GS-12, step 10 reaches $88,605.
GS-13 through GS-15 hold senior technical specialists, program managers, and supervisors. A GS-13, step 1 starts at $89,939, and the ceiling at GS-15, step 10 is $164,301.

The grade structure itself is set in statute at 5 U.S.C. § 5332.³

Steps and Within-Grade Increases

The 10 steps inside each grade let your pay grow without a promotion. Advancing a step requires both a waiting period and a satisfactory performance rating.⁴ The waits get longer as you climb:

52 weeks between steps 1 and 4
104 weeks between steps 4 and 7
156 weeks between steps 7 and 10

Working from step 1 to step 10 within a single grade takes about 18 years of continuous service at acceptable performance. The dollar value of each step varies by grade but is real money. At GS-12, each step adds roughly $2,600 to $2,700 in annual base pay, and going from step 1 to step 10 adds more than $23,000.¹

Employees who earn the highest available performance rating and show sustained high-quality work may receive a quality step increase (QSI), which moves them up a step outside the normal schedule. A QSI resets the clock for the next regular within-grade increase, so you cannot chain them.⁵ For anyone stuck in the three-year waiting period between steps 7 and 10, it is a meaningful accelerator.

Locality Pay: Where the Real Money Is

The GS base table is a floor. Federal law requires locality-based comparability payments to close the gap between federal and private-sector wages in each region.⁶ The President’s Pay Agent — the Secretary of Labor and the directors of OPM and OMB — recommends adjustments each year using Bureau of Labor Statistics survey data.⁷

In 2026 there are 58 locality pay areas. Adjustments run from about 17% in lower-cost regions to over 46% in the San Jose-San Francisco-Oakland area, the highest in the country. Anyone working outside a designated high-cost zone gets the “Rest of United States” rate, currently 17.06%.⁸

What that does to a paycheck: a GS-12, step 1 has $65,091 in base pay. Under the Rest of U.S. rate, that becomes about $76,191. In the Washington-Baltimore area, roughly $85,073. In the San Francisco area, roughly $95,242. Exact locality-adjusted salaries for every area are published on OPM’s 2026 pay tables.⁹

How Your Starting Grade and Step Are Set

Your entry point on the scale depends on education and experience. OPM’s qualification standards translate credentials into grade levels roughly as follows:²

High school diploma qualifies you at GS-2
Bachelor’s degree qualifies you at GS-5
One year of graduate study or superior academic achievement qualifies you at GS-7
Master’s degree qualifies you at GS-9
Doctoral degree qualifies you at GS-11

Relevant professional experience can substitute for education at most levels, and some specialized positions carry their own qualification standards.¹⁰

Most new hires start at step 1, but agencies have authority to bring you in at a higher step — up to step 10 — if you have superior qualifications or the agency has a special need for your skills.¹¹ The agency can consider the quality of your experience, notable accomplishments, or a competing private-sector offer. This authority exists, but the agency will not volunteer it. Make the case before your start date, because a superior qualifications determination cannot be applied retroactively.

Promotions and the Two-Step Rule

Moving from one GS grade to a higher one does not drop you back to step 1 of the new grade. Federal rules use the two-step promotion rule: your new pay must be at least two step increases of your old grade above your current rate.¹² Every promotion produces a meaningful raise, even when the bottom of the new grade sits close to where you already were.

If a promotion also involves moving to a different locality area, the agency first converts your pay to the new location’s rates, then applies the two-step rule. The order of operations can change which step you land on.

Overtime, Night, and Sunday Pay

Federal overtime rules differ from what private-sector workers usually see. Employees paid at or below the GS-10, step 1 locality-adjusted rate receive time-and-a-half for each overtime hour. Those paid above that threshold receive the greater of their own hourly rate or time-and-a-half of the GS-10 minimum, which effectively caps the overtime premium for higher-paid employees.¹³ Some categories, including law enforcement officers and wildland firefighters, receive full time-and-a-half regardless of grade.

General Schedule employees who regularly work between 6 p.m. and 6 a.m. receive a 10% night pay differential on top of basic pay, including any locality adjustment.¹⁴ Employees whose regular tour of duty falls on Sunday earn a 25% premium for up to eight hours of non-overtime Sunday work.¹⁵ These differentials stack with locality pay but do not count as basic pay for retirement calculations.

Salary Caps

No matter how high your grade, step, and locality adjustment stack, federal law caps what you can actually be paid. Total locality-adjusted GS pay cannot exceed Executive Schedule Level IV, which in 2026 is $197,200.¹⁶ The cap mostly bites at GS-15 in the highest-locality areas like San Francisco and New York, where the locality percentage would otherwise push pay above the ceiling. A separate aggregate limitation under 5 U.S.C. § 5307 caps total annual compensation including overtime and bonuses, generally at the Level I Executive Schedule rate ($253,100 in 2026), with any excess deferred to a later period.¹⁷

Not Every Federal Employee Is on the GS Scale

The General Schedule covers most white-collar civilian positions but not all of them. Blue-collar, trade, and labor positions are paid under the Federal Wage System, where pay is set through local wage surveys and tracks prevailing private-sector rates for similar trade work in each geographic area.¹⁸ Top leadership positions sit in the Senior Executive Service, which uses performance-based pay instead of grades and steps, with 2026 salaries ranging from $151,661 to $228,000 for members under a certified performance appraisal system, or up to $209,600 without one.¹⁹

Within the GS system itself, OPM can authorize special rate tables that pay above the standard schedule for positions where agencies struggle to recruit or retain qualified people.²⁰ These are common for certain law enforcement, IT, medical, and engineering positions. In 2026, OPM approved special rates for law enforcement personnel to support border security and public safety hiring.²¹ If your position is covered by a special rate, that rate replaces the standard GS base for locality comparison purposes.

Annual Pay Adjustments

GS base pay is adjusted annually, usually effective in January. The 2026 adjustment was a 1.0% across-the-board increase, with no additional locality-specific increase.²² In some years, the annual adjustment includes a separate locality component that varies by area; in 2026, it did not. The President proposes the raise, and Congress can accept, modify, or override it. When neither acts, an automatic adjustment formula takes over, though Presidents have often used alternative pay plans that differ from the formula amount.

Adjustments apply uniformly across all 15 grades and 10 steps, so the entire base table shifts. Locality percentages are recalculated separately and may or may not change in a given year. The full set of 2026 pay tables, including every locality area, is published on OPM’s website.⁹

1
U.S. Office of Personnel Management. Salary Table 2026-GS
2
U.S. Office of Personnel Management. General Schedule – Section: General Schedule Classification and Pay
3
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 5 USC 5332 – The General Schedule
4
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 5 US Code 5335 – Periodic Step-Increases
5
U.S. Office of Personnel Management. What Is a Quality Step Increase (QSI) and How Does It Affect a Within-Grade Increase
6
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 5 USC 5304 – Locality-Based Comparability Payments
7
U.S. GAO. Federal Workforce – Current and Potential Alternatives for Locality Pay Methodology
8
U.S. Office of Personnel Management. Salary Table 2026-RUS
9
U.S. Office of Personnel Management. 2026 General Schedule (GS) Locality Pay Tables
10
USAJOBS Help Center. How Many Years of Experience Do I Need to Qualify for a Job
11
U.S. Office of Personnel Management. Superior Qualifications and Special Needs Pay-Setting Authority
12
U.S. Office of Personnel Management. Fact Sheet – Promotions
13
GovInfo. 5 USC 5542 – Overtime Rates of Pay
14
U.S. Office of Personnel Management. Fact Sheet – Night Pay for General Schedule Employees
15
U.S. Office of Personnel Management. Fact Sheet – Sunday Premium Pay
16
U.S. Office of Personnel Management. Salary Table No. 2026-EX
17
U.S. Office of Personnel Management. Fact Sheet – Aggregate Limitation on Pay
18
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 5 USC 5343 – Prevailing Rate Determinations, Wage Schedules, Night Differentials
19
U.S. Office of Personnel Management. Senior Executive Service Compensation – Section: Salary
20
U.S. Office of Personnel Management. Special Rates
21
Office of Personnel Management. 2026 Special Rates for Certain Law Enforcement Personnel
22
USDA National Finance Center. Supersede Annual Pay Raise 2026