gs pay scale 2026
The 2026 GS pay scale is currently described in proposals and estimates , not final, but the main story is a modest 1% base GS raise with frozen locality pay and a larger bump targeted at certain law‑enforcement positions.
2026 GS pay scale: key points
- President Trump’s 2026 federal pay plan centers on about a 1% increase in GS base pay for most General Schedule employees.
- Locality pay is expected to be frozen at 2025 levels , meaning only the base table moves up while locality percentages stay the same.
- Certain federal law enforcement employees are slated for a bigger raise via special salary rates, around 3.8% total (1% general + about 2.8% in special salary adjustments).
Official vs. “early” 2026 numbers
- The widely shared 2026 GS numbers right now are labelled as “estimated GS pay scale” tables , created by pay and retirement analysts using the 1% raise assumption and current law.
- These estimates are expected to be updated and finalized when the annual pay Executive Order for 2026 is signed near the end of 2025 and the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) posts the official pay tables.
- Until OPM releases those tables, any 2026 GS pay charts should be treated as projections for planning, not guaranteed final rates.
What this likely means for your paycheck
- With a 1% base increase and frozen locality, many employees will see only a very small nominal raise from the across‑the‑board adjustment, with larger changes coming from within‑grade (step) increases or promotions. Higher‑grade employees (for example GS‑13) still see hundreds to over a thousand dollars more per year from that 1% on a larger salary base.
- Law enforcement employees covered by the new special salary rates could see a noticeably larger bump , since the extra 2.8% or so compounds on top of the 1% general increase, subject to the cap at Executive Schedule Level IV.
- Because locality is projected to stay flat, regional differences in pay will look very similar to 2025; the main change is that the underlying GS base table nudges upward slightly.
How 2026 GS with locality is calculated
- Your gross pay is typically: GS base rate for your grade/step (using the 2026 table) multiplied by your locality factor , with any special salary rate tables applied if your occupation and duty location qualify.
- Grades range from GS‑1 through GS‑15 , and each grade has 10 steps; advancement in step and grade usually has a much bigger impact on your pay than a 1% across‑the‑board raise.
- For 2026, the expectation is that agencies will continue using 2025 locality percentages on top of the new 2026 base table until/unless a different locality structure is enacted.
Forum and “latest news” flavor
“Will this even cover inflation?” and “Guess the step increase is doing the real work again this year” are the type of reactions federal forums are already having around the small GS raise vs. cost‑of‑living pressure.
- In recent years, federal Reddit and other forums have trended toward skeptical or frustrated reactions whenever annual GS raises come in on the low side, with many users focusing instead on using each raise to bump retirement contributions (TSP, etc.).
- The 2026 talk is fitting the same pattern: modest raise, frozen locality , and debates over whether targeted boosts for law enforcement and hard‑to‑fill roles are enough to help agencies recruit and keep people.
TL;DR: For “gs pay scale 2026,” the latest public info points to an estimated 1% GS base increase, frozen locality, and extra special‑rate boosts for some law‑enforcement jobs , with final official tables to come from OPM via an Executive Order late 2025.
Information gathered from public forums or data available on the internet and portrayed here.