GS Pay Scale 2026 Explained: Base Pay, Locality Rates, Steps, and the Pay Cap

Data current as of January 11, 2026 · Sources: OPM · GSA

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2026 GS base pay plus locality for every grade, step, and major pay area — with the pay cap flagged for high-grade positions.

The GS pay scale, defined: The General Schedule (GS) is the pay system covering most white-collar federal employees. It has 15 grades (GS-1 through GS-15), each with 10 steps. Your salary is the nationwide base rate for your grade and step, plus a locality percentage tied to where you work — not where you live.

Who This Article Is For

• Federal employees who want to understand what the 2026 raise actually did to their paycheck
• Applicants comparing a federal offer across different duty stations
• Employees weighing a move between locality areas and wondering what it does to their pay — and their pension
• GS-13/14/15 employees in high-locality metros approaching the pay cap
• Anyone trying to reconcile "the raise was 1.0%" with the number that showed up on their LES

1. How the General Schedule Works

The General Schedule is a grid: 15 grades, each with 10 steps.

• Grade reflects the level of the work — its difficulty, responsibility, and the qualifications it requires. New hires typically enter between GS-5 and GS-9 for professional tracks; GS-12 and GS-13 are the workhorse journeyman grades; GS-14 and GS-15 are senior technical and managerial positions.
• Step reflects time and acceptable performance within a grade. Steps 1 through 10 span roughly a 30% pay range inside each grade, and you climb them on a fixed schedule (Section 6).

Two more layers turn the grid into your actual salary:

1. The base table. OPM publishes one nationwide base rate for every grade/step combination.
2. Locality pay. A percentage adjustment added on top of base, determined by your official duty station.

That's the whole formula. No seniority multipliers, no negotiation. If you know your grade, step, and locality area, your salary is a lookup — which is exactly what our GS Pay Calculator does, using the official 2026 tables.

2. The 2026 Federal Pay Raise: What Actually Changed

The 2026 adjustment, effective January 11, 2026, has two parts worth understanding separately:

• Base pay rose 1.0% across the board. Every cell in the nationwide base table went up 1.0%.
• Locality percentages were frozen at 2025 levels. No locality area's percentage changed.

Because your total pay is base × (1 + locality %), and only the base moved, virtually everyone's total salary rose by the same 1.0% regardless of duty station. There was no extra locality bump in 2026, unlike years where the raise was split between an across-the-board component and locality increases.

Practical check: if your 2025 salary was $100,000 and your grade, step, and duty station didn't change, your 2026 salary is about $101,000.

3. How Locality Pay Is Calculated

Locality pay is the geographic adjustment that recognizes pay for the same work differs by labor market. Mechanically, OPM computes it like this:

Locality-adjusted salary = base pay + (base pay × locality %, rounded to the nearest dollar)

Your locality area is set by your official duty station — the location of your position of record, not your home address. (Remote-work agreements make the duty station designation itself the thing that matters; that's an HR determination, not a choice you make on a form.)

In 2026, locality percentages range from 17.06% for "Rest of U.S." — the catch-all for duty stations outside every defined metro area — to 46.34% for San Jose–San Francisco–Oakland.

Here are the 2026 rates for the largest areas. Figures below are the official OPM 2026 locality percentages; they are unchanged from 2025.

Two things people routinely get wrong about this table:

• Locality pay is basic pay for retirement purposes. It counts toward your High-3, and retirement deductions are withheld from it. A high-locality career materially raises your pension.
• Locality pay is not a cost-of-living adjustment. It's based on labor-market pay gaps measured by BLS salary surveys, not on consumer prices — which is why Houston (35.00%) outranks Boston (32.58%) despite a much lower cost of living.

4. Worked Example: One Job, Three Cities

Take a GS-12, Step 5 position — a mid-career analyst grade. The 2026 nationwide base rate is $86,659. Same grade, same step, same work:

Illustrative example. The table below applies the official OPM formula (base + rounded locality add-on) to the 2026 tables. Your own figures depend on your exact grade, step, and duty station.

The spread between Rest of U.S. and the Bay Area is $25,374 per year — for the identical grade and step. Locality is easily the largest single lever on a GS salary short of a promotion.

For the DC-area figure, the standard conversions used across the government:

• Biweekly gross: $116,071 ÷ 26 pay periods = $4,464
• Hourly rate: $116,071 ÷ 2,087 hours = $55.62

(2,087 is the statutory divisor for converting an annual rate to hourly — not 2,080 — because it averages the actual number of workdays across the calendar cycle.)

5. The $197,200 Pay Cap

GS pay can't rise without limit. Total base-plus-locality pay is capped at Executive Schedule Level IV — $197,200 in 2026.

The cap only matters at the top of the scale, but where it binds depends heavily on locality:

• In San Jose–San Francisco–Oakland, the cap binds from GS-15 Step 3 upward. A GS-15 Step 10 there would compute to $240,438 uncapped — the cap costs that employee about $43,000 a year.
• In Washington–Baltimore, the cap binds from GS-15 Step 6 upward.
• In Rest of U.S., no GS salary reaches the cap.

If you're a GS-15 in a high-locality metro, this has a quiet retirement implication: within-grade increases past the cap add nothing to your paycheck — and therefore nothing to your High-3. The GS Pay Calculator flags capped combinations automatically.

6. Steps and Within-Grade Increases (WGIs)

Movement through the 10 steps of your grade happens through within-grade increases — automatic raises granted after a waiting period, provided your performance is at an acceptable level. The waiting periods lengthen as you climb:

Going from Step 1 to Step 10 within a grade therefore takes 18 years if you never get promoted. Each step is worth one-ninth of the gap between Step 1 and Step 10 of your grade — at GS-12 in 2026, that's $2,549 of base pay, which becomes about $3,414 in the DC locality area once the 33.94% adjustment applies.

Because each WGI raises your rate of basic pay, each one also nudges up the 36-month average that becomes your pension. Our WGI Calculator shows your next increase date, its dollar value in your locality, and what it does to your High-3.

7. Promotions: How Pay Is Set at the Next Grade

When you're promoted, your new salary isn't just "Step 1 of the next grade." Under the two-step promotion rule, your pay is set at the lowest step of the new grade that exceeds your current rate by at least two within-grade increases.

Illustrative note only. The promotion rule is applied using the pay schedules in effect for your position — including locality — and edge cases (grade skips, retained rates, moves between locality areas at promotion) can change the outcome. Your HR office runs the official computation.

The practical effect: a GS-12 Step 5 promoted to GS-13 typically lands around GS-13 Step 2, not Step 1 — carrying most of their step progress with them. A promotion is worth roughly two to three WGIs immediately, plus a taller ladder of future steps.

8. What GS Pay Means for Your Pension

Your GS salary isn't just this year's income — it's the raw material of your FERS annuity. Three connections worth internalizing:

1. Locality pay counts toward your High-3. Your pension is High-3 × years of service × multiplier, and High-3 is built from basic pay including locality. A late-career move from Rest of U.S. to a 30%+ locality area raises your pension for life; the reverse move lowers it.
2. Steps and promotions compound. Because the High-3 is your highest 36 consecutive months, raises late in your career flow almost directly into the pension base. A WGI two years before retirement is worth far more, pension-wise, than the same WGI at year five.
3. Overtime, bonuses, and awards don't count. Only your rate of basic pay (base + locality) builds the High-3. If a chunk of your income is premium pay, your pension is anchored to a smaller number than your W-2 suggests — see the High-3 guide for what counts and what doesn't.

For a full accounting of what a GS salary is worth once you add the pension, TSP match, FEHB subsidy, and leave — the parts a private-sector offer letter has to beat — see GS-12 Total Compensation 2026.

9. Common Mistakes When Reading the GS Scale

1. Quoting the base table as your salary. The nationwide base rate is never what anyone is actually paid — even Rest of U.S. adds 17.06%.
2. Assuming locality follows your home address. It follows your official duty station. A remote worker's designated duty station controls.
3. Treating locality like a COLA. It's a labor-market adjustment, frozen or changed by policy — it doesn't track your rent.
4. Forgetting the cap at GS-15. In the Bay Area the scale effectively flattens from Step 3 up.
5. Ignoring the pension side of a locality move. Taking a lower-locality post in your final three years can pull down your High-3 — sometimes by more than the move saves in living costs.

Frequently Asked Questions

How much was the 2026 federal pay raise? 1.0% across the board, effective January 11, 2026. Locality percentages did not change from 2025, so the total increase was about 1.0% for essentially everyone.

What is the highest locality pay rate in 2026? San Jose–San Francisco–Oakland at 46.34%. The lowest is Rest of U.S. at 17.06%.

What does a GS-12 make in 2026? The 2026 base range for GS-12 is $76,463 (Step 1) to $99,404 (Step 10). With locality, a GS-12 Step 5 earns $101,443 in Rest of U.S. and $126,817 in the Bay Area.

What is the GS pay cap for 2026? $197,200 — Executive Schedule Level IV. Base plus locality cannot exceed it.

Does locality pay count toward retirement? Yes. Locality pay is basic pay: FERS deductions are withheld from it and it counts fully toward your High-3 average salary.

How is the GS hourly rate calculated? Annual salary ÷ 2,087 hours. A $116,071 salary is $55.62/hour.

How long does it take to go from Step 1 to Step 10? 18 years within a single grade: one year each for Steps 2–4, two years each for Steps 5–7, three years each for Steps 8–10.

Do step increases happen automatically? Effectively yes — a within-grade increase is granted when you complete the waiting period with performance at an acceptable level. Denials are uncommon and must be documented.

Where do I find my exact grade, step, and locality? Your most recent SF-50 (boxes for grade, step, and duty station) or your LES. Then the GS Pay Calculator converts them into the 2026 figure.

The Bottom Line

The GS scale is a lookup, not a mystery: grade and step set your base, your duty station sets the percentage on top, and the 2026 raise moved the whole base table up 1.0% while locality rates stood still. The numbers that deserve your attention are the ones people skip — the 17-to-46-point locality spread that can move a mid-career salary by $25,000, the $197,200 cap that flattens the top of the scale in expensive metros, and the fact that every dollar of base and locality (but nothing else) is quietly building the High-3 your pension will be computed from.

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