Hatch Act Rules: On-Duty Limits, Off-Duty Activity, and Penalties

The Hatch Act rules for federal employees allow you to vote, donate money, and campaign for candidates on your own time, but bar you from doing partisan political activity while on duty, using your official position to sway an election, soliciting political contributions, or running for partisan office. The specifics depend on your job classification, and a defined group of employees in sensitive agencies face tighter limits even off the clock.

Who the Rules Cover

The Act applies to every civilian employee in the federal executive branch, including workers at the U.S. Postal Service. Coverage reaches full-time, part-time, and employees on leave of any kind (annual, sick, or unpaid), and it covers employees on furlough. Workers who serve on an occasional or irregular basis are bound by the restrictions only while they are actively performing government business.¹

The President and Vice President are exempt.¹ Presidential appointees confirmed by the Senate sit at the loose end of the rules: they may engage in political activity while on duty or on government property, so long as they don’t use government funds or resources to do it.²

State, District of Columbia, and local government employees are also covered when their positions are connected to programs financed in whole or in part by federal loans or grants.³ That reach can catch people who don’t think of themselves as federal workers, such as a local police officer in a department that takes homeland security funding or a caseworker administering a federally funded benefit.

What You Can Never Do

Four prohibitions apply around the clock, regardless of your classification or where you are:

Use your official authority, title, or influence to interfere with or affect the outcome of an election.⁴
Solicit, accept, or receive political contributions for a party, candidate, or partisan group. This one is absolute — off duty, on personal accounts, from anyone.⁴
Run as a candidate in a partisan election (one where any candidate represents a political party).⁴
Coerce anyone who has business before your agency into engaging in — or avoiding — political activity.⁴

What You Can’t Do at Work

On top of the always-on prohibitions, most federal employees are barred from any partisan political activity while on duty, in a federal building, wearing an official uniform or insignia, or using a government vehicle. The rule holds even when you are on your personal phone using a personal email account or personal social media.⁵

That means no distributing campaign material at work, no partisan buttons or T-shirts on the job, and no posting or forwarding political messages while on the clock.⁶ Displaying campaign merchandise in your office isn’t allowed either.

What You Can Do Off Duty

The Act is not a gag order. Most federal employees keep broad political rights on personal time, away from federal property, and off government equipment. Permitted activities include:

Registering to vote, voting, and helping with voter registration drives.²
Volunteering on campaigns, writing speeches, circulating nominating petitions, attending rallies, and handing out campaign literature.²
Donating your own money to candidates, parties, or political organizations.²
Holding office in a political club or party, attending conventions, and serving as a delegate.²
Personal expression: a bumper sticker on your car, following candidates on social media, expressing political opinions in private conversations or on a personal blog.²

You may also run for office in a genuinely nonpartisan election, provided the position doesn’t conflict with your government duties.²

Social Media in Detail

The workplace rules apply on social media the same way they apply everywhere else, but a few points are easy to miss.

Liking, following, or friending a partisan candidate’s page counts as political activity. That is fine on personal time; it is not fine during work hours or from inside a federal building. Posting under an alias does not create a loophole; the restrictions attach to you, not to your handle. You can list your official title in your profile, but you can’t invoke that title in posts meant to help or hurt a candidate.⁷

The fundraising ban is especially strict online. Sharing, liking, or retweeting a post that solicits political donations is treated the same as asking for money yourself, and the prohibition applies at all times — on or off duty.⁵

Further Restricted Employees

A subset of the federal workforce lives under tighter rules that apply even off duty. This “further restricted” group includes career members of the Senior Executive Service, administrative law judges, and employees at agencies where political neutrality is treated as central to the mission — the FBI, the Criminal Division and National Security Division at the Department of Justice, and criminal investigators at the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, among others.⁸

If you fall in this group, you may not take an active part in partisan political management or campaigns at any time. No volunteering on a partisan campaign, no managing campaign events, no holding office in a political party, no distributing party-printed campaign material, and no working as a poll watcher for a candidate or party.⁸

On social media, you can’t share, retweet, or link to content from partisan candidates, political parties, or campaign sites, even from a personal account on personal time. You can still express political opinions in your own words — writing a post supporting a candidate is allowed — and you can follow or “like” candidate and party pages while off duty.⁹

Rules for State and Local Employees

If you are a state, D.C., or local government employee whose position is connected to a federally funded program, you fall under a separate section of the Act (5 U.S.C. §§ 1501–1508). The restrictions are narrower. You may not use official authority to influence an election, coerce colleagues into political contributions, or misuse federal funds or office equipment to support a personal candidacy.³

On candidacy, the 2012 Hatch Act Modernization Act loosened the rules: most state and local employees may now run for partisan office unless their salary is entirely funded by federal loans or grants. Governors, mayors, and certain other elected officials are exempt from the candidacy restrictions altogether, and teachers and administrators at educational institutions supported by state or local funding are also excluded.³

Enforcement works differently at this level. If the Merit Systems Protection Board finds a violation warrants dismissal and the employing agency doesn’t remove the worker, the agency can be required to forfeit federal assistance equal to two years of that employee’s salary.³

Penalties for a Violation

The Office of Special Counsel is the only agency authorized to bring Hatch Act cases. It investigates complaints, issues advisory opinions on whether specific activities are allowed, and decides whether to pursue discipline.¹⁰ Anyone can file a written complaint with the OSC.

When the OSC finds a violation, it can negotiate a settlement or file a formal complaint for disciplinary action with the Merit Systems Protection Board. Penalties range across removal from federal service, reduction in grade, suspension, reprimand, debarment from federal employment for up to five years, and a civil penalty of up to $1,000 (subject to periodic adjustment).¹ When the OSC prosecutes a case before the MSPB, it can seek penalties running from a 30-day unpaid suspension up to removal.¹⁰

Recent settlements show how the OSC handles rank-and-file cases. In enforcement actions highlighted in February 2026, a federal employee who spent an Election Day mental health evaluation repeatedly expressing support for a presidential candidate to a patient received a 21-day unpaid suspension. Another employee who used official email, video conferencing, and personal social media to send up to ten prohibited political messages a day over at least 31 workdays received a 30-day unpaid suspension after the OSC filed with the MSPB. A federal supervisor who ran for and won a partisan elected office while soliciting campaign contributions received a 10-day unpaid suspension and resigned from the elected seat.¹¹

Complaint volume has climbed sharply. In fiscal 2025, the OSC received 694 new Hatch Act complaints and resolved 711, up from 458 received and 391 resolved the previous fiscal year. In December 2025, the OSC also announced it would resume filing complaints against former federal employees for violations committed during their government service, after an MSPB administrative law judge ruled the board retains jurisdiction over such cases.¹² Leaving federal service before a case is filed no longer takes you off the hook.

If you are unsure whether a specific activity is allowed, the OSC issues advisory opinions on request, and most agencies have designated ethics officials who can walk through your situation before you act.

1
U.S. Office of Special Counsel. Federal Employees and the Hatch Act
2
U.S. Department of Labor. Political Activities Guidance
3
U.S. Office of Special Counsel. State and Local Employees and the Hatch Act
4
U.S. Office of Special Counsel. Hatch Act FAQ
5
U.S. Department of the Interior. Political Activity
6
Defense Logistics Agency. Hatch Act
7
Department of Defense Standards of Conduct Office. Hatch Act and Social Media
8
U.S. Department of Justice. Political Activities
9
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Personal Social Media and the Hatch Act – Further Restricted Employees
10
Council of the Inspectors General on Integrity and Efficiency. The Role of OSC
11
U.S. Office of Special Counsel. OSC Highlights Recent Hatch Act Enforcement Actions
12
Government Executive. Office of Special Counsel Resumes Hatch Act Enforcement Against Former Feds