INDEPENDENTREFERENCEGS GS Pay Tables What the federal pay tables actually mean 2026 edition
Effective January 2026

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Davenport-Moline, IA-IL · 2026$103,064a year
$3,950.40Every two weeks
$49.38Per hour
$49.64Overtime hour
#44On paper
#6After prices
  1. All localities
  2. Davenport-Moline, IA-IL

2026 editionEffective January 202658 locality pay areasData last changed 2026-08-25

Davenport-Moline, IA-IL GS pay scale, 2026

Every General Schedule rate for this locality pay area, what the 18.93% adjustment is actually worth once local prices are counted, and which cells stop growing because they hit the statutory ceiling.

How the number is assembled

Base rate before locality
$86,659
Locality pay, 18.93%
+ $16,405
Annual rate
$103,064

Biweekly is the hourly rate times 80, the way OPM derives it — not the annual rate divided by 26.

Paid #44, 6th in what it buys

+38Places gained once local prices are counted, out of 57 areas with published price data.

What it actually buys

$115,700at average U.S. prices, from a salary of $103,064. Local price level 89.1 against a national average of 100.

Ceiling watch

ClearNo cell in this area reaches the $197,200 ceiling, so every step increase is worth its full face value.
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Every 2026 rate in Davenport-Moline, IA-IL

All 150 cells, read from the published OPM table. Click any cell and the bar at the top of the page moves onto it — or use the arrow keys once a cell is selected.

Annual rates in U.S. dollars, read cell by cell from the published OPM table rather than calculated. The cell marked ◀ is GS-12 step 5, the one quoted at the top of this page. Cells marked ▲ have been cut down to the statutory ceiling of $197,200 — the printed number is lower than the formula would give.

Grade12345678910
GS-126,85927,75928,65329,54230,43330,95531,83932,72832,76533,595
GS-230,20030,91831,92032,76533,13234,10635,08036,05437,02838,002
GS-332,95334,05235,15136,25037,34938,44839,54740,64641,74442,843
GS-436,99138,22439,45740,69141,92443,15744,39145,62446,85748,091
GS-541,38642,76644,14645,52546,90548,28449,66451,04452,42353,803
GS-646,13447,67249,21050,74752,28553,82355,36156,89858,43659,974
GS-751,26652,97554,68456,39358,10259,81161,52063,22964,93866,647
GS-856,77558,66760,55962,45164,34466,23668,12870,02071,91273,804
GS-962,70864,79966,89068,98171,07173,16275,25377,34479,43581,525
GS-1069,05671,35773,65875,95978,26180,56282,86385,16587,46689,767
GS-1175,87178,40180,93183,46085,99088,52091,04993,57996,10998,638
GS-1290,93793,96997,000100,032103,064106,095109,127112,158115,190118,221
GS-13108,137111,742115,347118,951122,556126,161129,766133,370136,975140,580
GS-14127,786132,046136,306140,566144,826149,086153,346157,606161,866166,126
GS-15150,308155,319160,330165,340170,351175,361180,372185,382190,393195,403
Source: OPM 2026 General Schedule salary tables. Every cell on this page was independently recomputed from the base table and the locality percentage and matched the published figure to the dollar.
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Is that a lot? Not until you count local prices

Read this before the number. Locality pay is calculated from what private employers in the same region pay for comparable work. It is not a cost-of-living adjustment, and OPM says so in as many words. Here the distinction works in your favor: the area ranks #44 on the size of the paycheck but #6 once local prices are counted. The salary looks unremarkable and buys more than it appears to.

Exhibit 1 · nobody else publishes this
GS-12 step 5, after local prices

Each bar is the 2026 salary divided by that area's price level, so the bars are comparable in what they actually buy. Longer is better. Price levels are BEA Regional Price Parities for 2024, where the U.S. average is 100.

  • Laredo, TX$121,175
  • Huntsville-Decatur, AL-TN$121,137
  • Houston-The Woodlands, TX$118,616
  • St. Louis-St. Charles-Farmington, MO-IL$118,596
  • Columbus-Marion-Zanesville, OH$118,543
  • Davenport-Moline, IA-IL$115,700
  • Atlanta--Athens-Clarke County--Sandy Springs, GA-AL$114,926
  • Dayton-Springfield-Kettering, OH$113,514
Highest on paper: San Jose-San Francisco-Oakland, CA at $126,817. Highest in what it buys: Laredo, TX at $121,175 of purchasing power from a salary of $105,369. Sources: OPM 2026 salary tables; BEA Regional Price Parities 2024. Price data lags the pay tables, and metropolitan boundaries do not match locality boundaries exactly — the nearest metropolitan area is used as the proxy.

Do raises ever stop counting here?

No. Every one of the 150 cells in this area stays below the $197,200 statutory ceiling.

No General Schedule rate may exceed Level IV of the Executive Schedule, $197,200 in 2026. In the highest-paying localities that ceiling is reached inside the published table, and step increases in that band add nothing at all to the payslip. At 18.93% this area stays clear of it, so every step increase is worth its full face value all the way to GS-15 step 10.

What is next to it

These are the localities immediately around this one once local prices are taken into account. The middle column is the price level, where 100 is the national average — lower is cheaper. Prices are shown to one decimal place; the adjusted figures are computed from the published index, which carries three.

#LocalityOn paperPricesWhat it buys
3Houston-The Woodlands, TX$116,99098.6$118,616
4St. Louis-St. Charles-Farmington, MO-IL$104,01787.7$118,596
5Columbus-Marion-Zanesville, OH$105,85489.3$118,543
6Davenport-Moline, IA-IL$103,06489.1$115,700
7Atlanta--Athens-Clarke County--Sandy Springs, GA-AL$107,27593.3$114,926
8Dayton-Springfield-Kettering, OH$105,22192.7$113,514
9Cleveland-Akron-Canton, OH-PA$105,92393.4$113,444

Which cities does this cover?

OPM names this area after its principal cities: Davenport and Moline. They are not all in the same state, and that is the point worth taking away: the area crosses 2 state lines and pays the same percentage on both sides of every one of them. A state border is not a pay border.

Those cities are the label, not the boundary. The area is defined as 12 named counties, and a duty station anywhere inside them is paid at this rate whether or not it is near any of the cities above. The list is below.

  • Davenport
  • Moline

Am I actually in this locality?

Locality is decided by your duty station — the place you physically report to — not by where you live and not by where your agency is headquartered. If you report to a building in one county and live in the next one over, the building decides your pay. Telework arrangements have their own rules and can change which locality applies, so confirm with your HR office rather than assuming.

This locality covers 12 counties across 2 states (IA, IL). Crossing a state line inside it does not change your pay; crossing out of it does.

Every county in this locality
12 places paid at this rate
  • Cedar County, IA
  • Clinton County, IA
  • Jackson County, IA
  • Louisa County, IA
  • Muscatine County, IA
  • Scott County, IA
  • Carroll County, IL
  • Henry County, IL
  • Lee County, IL
  • Mercer County, IL
  • Rock Island County, IL
  • Whiteside County, IL
Source: OPM 2026 locality pay area definitions. FIPS codes are omitted here for readability. Military installations that OPM assigns to a different locality than the county around them are listed separately and are not shown in this list.

How the number is built

Every General Schedule grade has ten steps. The base rate comes from the nationwide table, and the locality percentage is applied on top of it. For Davenport-Moline, IA-IL in 2026 that percentage is 18.93%, which turns a base rate of $86,659 into $103,064 at GS-12 step 5.

No General Schedule rate may exceed Level IV of the Executive Schedule, $197,200 in 2026. At 18.93% this locality stays below that ceiling everywhere, so every step increase in the table below is worth its full face value — which is not the case in the highest-paying areas.

Steps are not evenly spaced, which catches out anyone trying to extrapolate from the first one. In the 2026 base table the gap between step 8 and step 9 of GS-1 is $46, while the gap between step 1 and step 2 is over $1,100. Every figure on this page is therefore read from the published table rather than derived from a formula.

Work out a different grade and step

GS-12, step 5 in Davenport-Moline, IA-IL

$103,064

Of the 57 areas with a published price level: #44 on the payslip, #6 once local prices are counted.

Starting your first federal job? A first appointment is set at step 1 of the grade unless the agency uses the superior qualifications authority (5 U.S.C. 5333; 5 CFR 531.212). The step above defaults to 5, the middle of the grade, because that is the cell this site ranks every area by.

Rates are recomputed from the published base table and this area's percentage, in the order the law sets: percentage first, rounding second, statutory ceiling last.