What is the General Schedule?
The General Schedule (GS) is the pay scale for most federal civilian employees in white-collar jobs. The Office of Personnel Management (OPM) publishes it each year as a set of tables: one base table, and one table for each locality pay area. The 2026 tables took effect in the first pay period of the year, after a 1% raise in base pay.
What are GS grades and steps?
Each job is given a grade from GS-1 to GS-15, depending on its duties. Within a grade there are ten steps. On the 2026 base table, GS-1 step 1 is $22,584 a year and GS-15 step 10 is $164,301. From GS-3 up, the steps in a grade are evenly spaced: at GS-12, each step adds $2,549, about 3.3% of step 1.
Many people enter at a step 1 and move up the steps with time in the grade, or move to a higher grade with a promotion. The GS pay scale 2026 shows the whole base table.
What is locality pay?
On top of the base table comes locality pay, a percentage set for each of 58 areas. In 2026 it runs from 17.06% (Rest of U.S.) to 46.34% (San Jose-San Francisco-Oakland). Places outside the named areas get the Rest of U.S. rate of 17.06%.
The sum is simple: base pay times one plus the locality percentage, rounded to the dollar. A GS-12 step 1 earns $76,463 on the base table; in Washington-Baltimore-Arlington, with 33.94% locality pay, that becomes $102,415. We checked every cell of OPM’s 58 locality tables against this rule: each matches within a dollar, or sits at the cap. The pages here always show OPM’s own figures.
What does each grade pay at step 1?
Step 1 of the grades many people start at, a year in 2026, on the base table and in the Rest of U.S. area:
- GS-5: $34,799 on the base table, $40,736 with 17.06% locality pay
- GS-7: $43,106 on the base table, $50,460 with 17.06% locality pay
- GS-9: $52,727 on the base table, $61,722 with 17.06% locality pay
- GS-11: $63,795 on the base table, $74,678 with 17.06% locality pay
- GS-12: $76,463 on the base table, $89,508 with 17.06% locality pay
- GS-13: $90,925 on the base table, $106,437 with 17.06% locality pay
Each locality page shows the same grades with its own percentage, and the GS pay calculator adds the tax for your state.
What is the GS pay cap?
No GS salary can go above level IV of the Executive Schedule: $197,200 a year in 2026. Where base pay plus locality pay would pass it, OPM holds the cell at $197,200. In 2026 that happens in 37 of the 58 areas, always at the top of GS-14 or GS-15: in San Jose-San Francisco-Oakland, for example, 10 cells are capped.
How much does a GS employee take home?
Take-home pay depends on the state you live in as well as the salary. A GS-12 step 1 in Washington-Baltimore-Arlington earns $102,415. As a single filer living in Virginia, about $75,804 is left after $13,701 federal income tax, $7,835 Social Security and Medicare and $5,075 Virginia tax, before retirement and insurance deductions. The GS pay calculator works this out for any grade, step, locality and state.
Will GS pay change in 2027?
Not decided yet. In August 2026 the President proposed a freeze for 2027: “I have determined that for 2027, base pay and locality pay for civilian Federal employees will not change from the 2026 rates.” That is a proposal. It becomes final with the year-end executive order, usually signed in late December, unless Congress sets a raise in law. Under the plan, locality percentages would also stay at their 2026 levels.
What does this leave out?
Some jobs have their own special rate tables, such as certain law enforcement officers, and other federal pay plans (the Senior Executive Service, wage grade jobs) are separate. The tables here are yearly pay; OPM also publishes hourly and overtime rates, which these pages do not include.