GL pay scale 2026: law enforcement pay at grades 3 to 10, and where it stops

The GL rates are base rates for grades 3 to 10 only. For an officer paid from the GL table, the salary is the GL base plus the locality percentage of the duty station, exactly as on the General Schedule; OPM publishes the result for every area as a separate law enforcement table. In a position covered by the special rates, the special rate is paid instead whenever it is higher. The calculator on this site applies the GL table too — choose GL as the pay plan — but it does not apply the special rate tables.

Since 11 January 2026: special rates for covered positions

On 31 December 2025 OPM approved special salary rates under 5 U.S.C. 5305 for certain law enforcement positions (memo CPM 2025-25). They took effect on 11 January 2026, raised covered pay 3.8 percent over 2025 rates, and are capped at the Executive Schedule level IV rate, $197,200. The tables, L001 to L133, cover every step of grades 1 through 15 for covered positions, including positions paid from the GL table. Coverage is set by agency and occupation in the memo’s Attachment 1 — for example Federal Bureau of Investigation GS-1811 Special Agents, Bureau of Prisons GS-0007 Correctional Officers, and Customs and Border Protection GS-1895 CBP Officers and GS-1896 Border Patrol Agents. An employee in a covered position is paid the greater of the locality rate and the special rate, never the two added together.

In Washington-Baltimore-Arlington, DC-MD-VA-WV-PA, OPM’s table L058 applies a 37.65 percent supplement to the base rate, against the area’s 33.94 percent locality payment: GL-7 step 1 is $67,248 and GL-10 step 1 is $82,589, where OPM’s table 2026-DCB (LEO) gives $65,435 and $80,363. Your human resources office can confirm whether your position is covered.

Where the GL table stops

At grade 10 step 1 the GL base rate is $59,999 against $58,064 on the General Schedule base table — $1,935 more, or 3.3 percent, before locality pay. At grade 11 there is no GL rate at all: a law enforcement officer promoted to GS-11 starts from the ordinary General Schedule base rate, $63,795 at step 1, and the GL rate stops applying.

For an officer outside the covered positions this matters before a promotion: the raise from grade 10 to grade 11 is smaller than the grade numbers suggest, because the GL rate is left behind at the same time. In a covered position the special rate tables continue past grade 10 — in Washington-Baltimore-Arlington, DC-MD-VA-WV-PA, table L058 has GS-11 step 1 at $87,814. Every General Schedule grade is listed separately on this site, and the GS-10 to GS-11 row of the promotion table shows the step each promotion lands on.

Locality pay applies the same way

The GL table is a base table. Locality pay is added on top of it with the same percentage that applies to everyone else in that area, so an officer in a high-paying locality is paid the GL base plus that area percentage, unless a higher special rate applies. Which means the ranking this site publishes — what the salary is worth after local prices — holds for law enforcement too, on a different base.

Who is paid from this table

Not everyone with a badge. The special base rates apply to employees who meet the statutory definition of a law enforcement officer for federal retirement purposes — broadly, someone whose duties are the investigation, apprehension or detention of people suspected or convicted of federal offenses, and who is covered by the enhanced law enforcement retirement provisions. The definitions sit in 5 U.S.C. 8331(20) for the older retirement system and 5 U.S.C. 8401(17) for the newer one.

The practical test is the retirement coverage, not the job title: an agency investigator covered by those provisions is paid from this table, and a uniformed officer who is not covered is paid from the ordinary General Schedule. If you do not know which applies to you, your agency human resources office does — it is recorded in your personnel file, because it changes both your pay and your retirement.

Availability pay is the larger number

Criminal investigators who are required to work unscheduled duty hours receive law enforcement availability pay: an additional 25 percent of their rate of basic pay, paid in every paycheck rather than claimed as overtime. The rate of basic pay here includes the locality payment and any special rate (5 CFR 550.185 and 550.103), so the amount depends on the area and on the table. In Washington-Baltimore-Arlington, DC-MD-VA-WV-PA, OPM’s table 2026-DCB (LEO) puts grade 10 step 1 at $80,363, and availability pay adds $20,091 a year on top of it; in a covered position paid from table L058, grade 10 step 1 is $82,589 and availability pay adds $20,647. Both are subject to the premium pay limit of 5 U.S.C. 5547.

Side by side, in the same area the GL rate is worth $2,592 a year more than GS-10 step 1 ($77,771); availability pay, where it applies, is worth $20,091. A table that shows only the first is showing the smaller part of the difference. Availability pay is not automatic and not universal — it applies to criminal investigators with the unscheduled duty requirement, which is why it is described here rather than folded into the figures.

What it comes to in one real place

A GL-7 step 1 in the Washington-Baltimore-Arlington, DC-MD-VA-WV-PA locality area: the base rate is $48,854, the area adds 33.94 percent, and the salary is $65,435 before any availability pay, as OPM’s table for the area prints it — or $67,248 in a position covered by table L058. The same officer at GS-7 step 1 would be paid $57,736 in that area instead. Every other area works the same way, and the ranking on the front page shows what each of them is worth once local prices are counted.

Where these numbers come from

Salary table 2026-GL, published by the Office of Personnel Management and read from OPM's own XML. The Washington-Baltimore figures come from OPM’s table 2026-DCB (LEO), and the build checks all 150 of its cells, and of OPM’s law enforcement tables for Rest of U.S., San Jose, CA, Houston, TX and New York, NY, against the base rates — GL for grades 3 to 10, the General Schedule for the rest — plus each area’s percentage before this page is published; the same arithmetic gives the table of all 58 areas above. The special rate figures come from OPM’s table L058 and are checked against the same base rates plus its 37.65 percent supplement. OPM lists the law enforcement tables for every area on its 2026 law enforcement pay page. The special base rates themselves were created by section 403 of the Federal Employees Pay Comparability Act of 1990 and have been published as a separate table ever since. The methodology page sets out how every table on this site is verified.