OPM Pay Scale for 2026: The GS Table, the 2027 Civilian Pay Freeze, and What Seven Military Grades Earn Against It

The OPM pay scale in effect today is Salary Table 2026-GS, which OPM labels "Incorporating the 1% General Schedule Increase" and "Effective January 2026." Its base rates run from $22,584 a year at GS-1 step 1 to $164,301 at GS-15 step 10, and no federal employee in the United States is paid from that base table alone: a locality percentage is added on top, 17.06 percent for the "Rest of U.S." area and 33.94 percent for Washington-Baltimore-Arlington in 2026. That much is settled. What is not settled is 2027. On August 26, 2026 the President sent the Speaker of the House an alternative pay plan stating that "base pay and locality pay for civilian Federal employees will not change from the 2026 rates," and in the same letter set the January 2027 military basic pay raise at 7.0 percent for E-1 to E-5, 6.0 percent for E-6 to O-3 and 5.0 percent for O-4 and above. Congress can still legislate a different adjustment, and OPM has not published a 2027 table. Below: the 2026 scale, the locality math, and seven military grades priced against it from our own 2026 pay data.

How to read the OPM pay scale

The General Schedule has 15 grades, and each grade has 10 steps. A new hire normally starts at step 1 and moves up a step over time; the within-grade increase, the dollar distance between steps, is printed in the last column of the table and is $1,160 at GS-5, $2,549 at GS-12 and $4,213 at GS-15 in 2026. The table is annual pay before locality, before taxes, and before any special rate that some occupations draw.

Source: OPM Salary Table 2026-GS, annual rates by grade and step. The full ten steps for every grade are on the OPM page linked in the sources.

Locality pay: the number that actually lands in the paycheck

OPM publishes a separate table for each locality pay area, and the base rate times one plus the locality percentage, rounded to the dollar, is the figure on the offer letter. In 2026 the "Rest of U.S." table carries 17.06 percent and the Washington-Baltimore-Arlington table carries 33.94 percent. A GS-7 step 1 is $43,106 on the base table, $50,460 in Rest of U.S., and $57,736 in Washington. This is the mechanism the August 26 letter froze: the President wrote that without the plan, "locality pay for the civilian workforce would automatically increase by an average of 20.6 percent, costing $26 billion in the first year alone," on top of "an additional 3.1 percent across-the-board increase for the base General Schedule."

Military basic pay has no locality component. An E-6 at Minot draws the same basic pay as an E-6 at the Pentagon with the same years of service; the geography shows up in BAH, which is set by duty station ZIP code and paid tax-free. That is why a GS offer in a high-locality city can look larger than it is against a military paycheck in the same city.

What the August 26, 2026 letter does, in its own words

The letter is short. Its civilian finding is one sentence: "I have determined that for 2027, base pay and locality pay for civilian Federal employees will not change from the 2026 rates." The authority it cites is 5 U.S.C. 5303(b), which lets the President substitute an alternative adjustment when, "because of national emergency or serious economic conditions affecting the general welfare," the formula increase is inappropriate, provided the plan reaches Congress "before September 1 of the preceding calendar year." The letter reached the House on August 27, 2026 and was referred to the Oversight and Armed Services committees. One group is carved out: the letter directs OPM "to increase 2027 compensation for law enforcement personnel by 3.8 percent," which it calls "a separate process" from the pay plan.

The military paragraph is the mirror image. Under 37 U.S.C. 1009(e) the letter sets "the 2027 monthly basic pay increase for members of the Armed Forces at 7.0 percent for grades E1 to E5, 6.0 percent for grades E6 to O3, and 5.0 percent for grades O4 and above, subject to the caps established by 37 U.S.C. 203," effective January 1, 2027. "Uniformed service members who do not serve in the Armed Forces" get 3.6 percent under 37 U.S.C. 1009(c). The Senate Armed Services Committee's bill would replace the tiered military raise with a flat 3.6 percent; that bill had not passed as of our last check, and the 2027 military pay chart carries the current status.

Seven military grades priced against the 2026 OPM pay scale

The table takes 2026 monthly basic pay, enlisted or officer BAS, and with-dependents BAH for Military Housing Area DC053, Washington, DC Metro Area, from our data, multiplies by 12, and finds the GS grade and step on the 2026 Washington table and on the Rest of U.S. table whose annual rate is closest. The last column is what the January 2027 raise in the August 26 letter would add to annual basic pay at the same grade and years, rounded to the dollar; the official 2027 table is not published. The GS side is fully taxable wages. On the military side, BAS and BAH are not subject to federal income tax, so the military figure understates the real comparison; 37 U.S.C. 101(25) counts that tax advantage inside Regular Military Compensation, and the RMC calculator adds it for your own grade and filing status.

Two things stand out. First, the Washington BAH card lifts every enlisted grade into the GS-9 to GS-12 band on the DC table before any tax advantage is counted; an E-7 over 12 draws the cash equivalent of a GS-12 step 6 in the same city. Second, the two columns on the right move in opposite directions in 2027 if the letter stands: the GS cell stays where it is, and the military cell rises by $2,500 to $6,800 a year on basic pay alone, before whatever the 2027 BAH and BAS tables do. Run your own grade through the basic pay calculator and the BAH rates for your duty station to replace the DC053 figures with yours.

Where a military family meets the GS scale

• A spouse in a GS job. The 2026 locality table for the duty station's area is the pay; the step the spouse holds is on the offer letter. The letter freezes the schedule's rates for 2027 and says nothing about step movement within a grade, which runs on its own statute and timetable.
• A reservist who is a federal employee. Reservist differential under 5 U.S.C. 5538 pays the amount by which civilian pay exceeds military pay and allowances on covered orders. A frozen GS rate against a 6 or 7 percent military raise shrinks that gap in 2027; the mechanics and the 2026 figures by rank are in our reservist differential guide.
• A member separating into federal service. The comparison table is the honest starting point: match your annual basic pay plus BAS plus BAH to the locality table for the city, then add the tax advantage with the RMC calculator. A GS grade is not a rank, and no pay rule converts one into the other.

The bottom line

The OPM pay scale for 2026 is a 1 percent increase over 2025, $22,584 to $164,301 before locality, with 17.06 percent added in Rest of U.S. and 33.94 percent in Washington. The President's August 26, 2026 letter sets the 2027 civilian adjustment at zero and the military raise at 7, 6 and 5 percent by grade band; both are plans until the January tables post, and Congress can change either. Against the 2026 DC table, an E-5 over 6 with dependents draws the cash of a GS-9 step 10 and an O-3 over 6 the cash of a GS-14 step 1, before counting the tax-free status of BAS and BAH. Rates shown are 2026 rates; always verify with your finance office, or your agency's HR office on the civilian side, before making financial decisions.