The Senior Executive Service pay scale is a single open band rather than a grid of grades and steps. In 2025, base pay for an SES member runs from $150,160 at the floor to $225,700 at the top, though the ceiling drops to $207,500 if the employing agency’s performance appraisal system has not been certified by the Office of Personnel Management.1Federal Register. January 2025 Pay Schedules Where an executive sits inside that band is a decision, not a formula.
The 2025 Pay Range
As of the January 2025 pay schedules:
- Minimum: $150,160, set at 120 percent of GS-15, Step 1
- Maximum at a certified agency: $225,700, equal to Executive Schedule Level II
- Maximum at a non-certified agency: $207,500, equal to Executive Schedule Level III
The statutory floor is tied by law to 120 percent of the base rate for GS-15, Step 1.2Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 5 USC 5376 – Pay for Certain Senior-Level Positions The ceiling is tied to the Executive Schedule, with the applicable level depending on whether the agency has been certified.3Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 5 USC 5382 – Establishment of Rates of Pay for the Senior Executive Service The Executive Schedule rates that anchor those ceilings are set by statute and adjusted periodically.4U.S. Office of Personnel Management. Salary Table No. 2025-EX
One Band, No Steps, No Locality Pay
Agencies place executives anywhere inside the band based on the scope of the role, the individual’s qualifications, or market competition for the expertise involved. There are no within-grade increases and no automatic longevity bumps. If your salary goes up, it is because someone decided your results or responsibilities justified an adjustment.
SES members are also excluded from locality-based comparability payments. Federal law carves SES positions out of the locality pay system, so a senior executive in Washington, D.C. or San Francisco gets no locality adjustment on top of base pay, even though a GS-15 sitting down the hall does.5Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 5 USC 5304 – Locality-Based Comparability Payments A narrow exception applies to SES members stationed in non-foreign areas outside the 48 contiguous states and D.C. who were already receiving a cost-of-living allowance before the Non-Foreign Area Retirement Equity Assurance Act of 2009 took effect. Everyone else sees the band and nothing more.
Why the Ceiling Has Two Numbers
The $18,200 gap between the certified and non-certified ceilings exists because Congress tied the higher cap to a functioning performance appraisal system. To reach the Level II ceiling, an agency’s system must be certified by OPM with the concurrence of the Office of Management and Budget as making meaningful distinctions based on relative performance.6eCFR. 5 CFR 430.403 – System Certification
Full certification lasts two years and requires a score of at least 90 points on OPM’s assessment tool. Partial certification lasts one year and requires at least 80 points. An agency with no certification is capped at Level III, and its top performers cannot be paid what peers earn at certified agencies for the same work.
How Executives Move Within the Band
Pay adjustments come out of a formal performance review. Each agency must establish one or more Performance Review Boards to evaluate executives and recommend pay actions to agency leadership.7eCFR. 5 CFR 430.311 – Performance Review Boards (PRBs) When a board reviews a career appointee, more than half of its members must themselves be career SES appointees. The board issues a written recommendation covering the annual summary rating, any pay adjustment, and any performance award.
Bonuses on Top of Base Pay
Career SES members can also receive annual performance awards as lump-sum cash bonuses. The award for any individual executive must fall between 5 percent and 20 percent of base pay, which at the current range works out to roughly $7,500 to $45,100.8U.S. Office of Personnel Management. Compensation An agency-wide constraint sits on top of that: total performance award spending across all career appointees cannot exceed 10 percent of the aggregate basic pay those executives earned in the prior fiscal year. A separate formula applies to small agencies with few SES positions.
The most prestigious cash recognition available to a career appointee is a Presidential Rank Award, based on sustained performance over multiple years rather than a single strong rating.9U.S. Office of Personnel Management. SES Desk Guide – Ch. 6 – Awards The two tiers pay very differently:
- Distinguished Rank Award: 35 percent of annual base pay, plus a gold lapel pin and a presidential certificate
- Meritorious Rank Award: 20 percent of annual base pay, plus a silver lapel pin and a presidential certificate
At the top of the 2025 range, a Distinguished award would be worth roughly $79,000.
The Cap on Total Annual Pay
All of these components stack, and the law caps what they can add up to in a calendar year. For SES members at agencies without a certified appraisal system, total annual compensation cannot exceed the annual rate for Level I of the Executive Schedule, which is $250,600 in 2025.10Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 5 USC 5307 – Limitation on Certain Payments The cap covers base salary, performance bonuses, rank awards, and other cash payments. At certified agencies, the cap rises to the total annual compensation payable to the Vice President. This is the second reason certification matters: it lifts both the base pay ceiling and the aggregate compensation ceiling at once.
If bonuses and awards would push total pay past the cap in a given year, the excess is not forfeited. It is deferred and paid as a lump sum at the beginning of the next calendar year.
Who Is Eligible for the Full Compensation Package
Appointment type affects what parts of the pay scale an SES member can actually access. Career appointees are hired through a competitive merit staffing process with their executive qualifications certified by an OPM-administered Qualifications Review Board, and they have no time limit on their appointment. Noncareer appointees also serve without a time limit but at the pleasure of the appointing authority. Limited term appointments run three years or less and are nonrenewable. Limited emergency appointments run up to 18 months for an urgent, unanticipated need.11U.S. Office of Personnel Management. SES Desk Guide – Ch. 2 – General Staffing and Career Appointments
The compensation consequence is straightforward: only career appointees are eligible for performance awards and Presidential Rank Awards. A noncareer executive earns a salary within the same band but is shut out of the two largest cash add-ons.