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- All grades
2026 editionEffective January 202658 locality pay areasData last changed 2026-08-25
Every General Schedule grade in 2026
Fifteen grades, ten steps each, and a locality adjustment between 17.06% and 46.34% on top. This page shows the base range for each grade and how far apart the same job can be paid depending only on the duty station.
The first three columns are nationwide base rates before any locality payment — nobody is paid these. The next two show the lowest and highest actual step-5 salary across all 58 localities. The last column counts how many cells in that grade are pinned to the $197,200 statutory ceiling somewhere in the country.
| Grade | Base step 1 | Base step 5 | Base step 10 | Lowest actual | Highest actual | At ceiling |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| GS-1 | $22,584 | $25,589 | $28,248 | $29,954 | $37,447 | — |
| GS-2 | $25,393 | $27,858 | $31,953 | $32,611 | $40,767 | — |
| GS-3 | $27,708 | $31,404 | $36,024 | $36,762 | $45,957 | — |
| GS-4 | $31,103 | $35,251 | $40,436 | $41,265 | $51,586 | — |
| GS-5 | $34,799 | $39,439 | $45,239 | $46,167 | $57,715 | — |
| GS-6 | $38,791 | $43,963 | $50,428 | $51,463 | $64,335 | — |
| GS-7 | $43,106 | $48,854 | $56,039 | $57,188 | $71,493 | — |
| GS-8 | $47,738 | $54,102 | $62,057 | $63,332 | $79,173 | — |
| GS-9 | $52,727 | $59,759 | $68,549 | $69,954 | $87,451 | — |
| GS-10 | $58,064 | $65,804 | $75,479 | $77,030 | $96,298 | — |
| GS-11 | $63,795 | $72,303 | $82,938 | $84,638 | $105,808 | — |
| GS-12 | $76,463 | $86,659 | $99,404 | $101,443 | $126,817 | — |
| GS-13 | $90,925 | $103,049 | $118,204 | $120,629 | $150,802 | — |
| GS-14 | $107,446 | $121,774 | $139,684 | $142,549 | $178,204 | 2 |
| GS-15 | $126,384 | $143,236 | $164,301 | $167,672 | $197,200 | 95 |
Which grade is which
Grades roughly track responsibility and entry requirements rather than job title. GS-5 to GS-7 is where most degree-holding entrants start, GS-9 to GS-12 covers most working-level professional roles, GS-13 to GS-15 covers senior specialists and supervisors, and above that sits the Senior Executive Service on an entirely different table.
Promotion between grades resets the waiting period for the next step increase, so a promotion that lands just before a step was due can be worth less in the first year than it looks.
How a job lands on a grade
Grades are assigned to the position, not to the person. A classifier evaluates the duties against published standards — how much independent judgement the work requires, how broad its impact is, how much supervision it receives — and the grade follows from that. Two people doing visibly similar work in different agencies can sit on different grades because their position descriptions differ, which is a common source of frustration and a legitimate thing to raise with HR.
Entry grades are governed by qualification standards rather than by negotiation. A bachelor’s degree typically qualifies for GS-5, a degree with superior academic achievement or one year of graduate study for GS-7, a master’s for GS-9, and a doctorate for GS-11. Experience substitutes for education at a defined rate, and one year at the next-lower grade is the usual requirement for promotion.
Career ladders
Many federal positions are advertised as a ladder — GS-7/9/11, say — meaning the successful candidate enters at the lowest grade and is promoted non-competitively to the next as soon as the time-in-grade requirement is met and performance is acceptable. The advertised “full performance level” is the top of that ladder, and it is the number worth paying attention to when comparing offers: the entry grade is temporary, the full performance level is where the job settles.
Above the full performance level, further promotion generally requires competing for a different position. That is why the jump from GS-12 to GS-13 is such a visible barrier in federal careers — for many occupational series GS-12 is where the ladder ends.
What the base table is not
The rates on this page are base rates. Nobody receives them: every duty station in the United States falls inside a locality pay area, and the lowest of those still adds a double-digit percentage. The base table exists as the arithmetic starting point and as the reference for a handful of pay rules, not as anyone’s salary.
Roughly a third of federal employees are not paid from this table at all. Wage Grade trades positions use locality wage schedules built from local prevailing rates; the Senior Executive Service, the Federal Aviation Administration, the Transportation Security Administration, Department of Veterans Affairs Title 38 medical positions and several demonstration projects all run their own systems. Special rate schedules add another layer: where one covers an occupation and location, the employee receives the higher of the special rate and the locality rate — never both added together.