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- Promotions
2026 editionEffective January 202658 locality pay areasData last changed 2026-08-25
\nWhat a General Schedule promotion is worth
\nThe step you land on after a promotion is decided by a rule, and the raise it produces is smaller the longer you waited. These pages work out both, for every pair of adjacent grades.
\n\nThe short version
\nTwo within-grade increases of your current grade, then the lowest step of the new grade that matches or exceeds it.
\nThat is the standard method under 5 CFR 531.214, and it explains the two things people find surprising about promotion pay. You do not restart at step 1 — your position in the old grade carries over. And the increase shrinks as your step rises, because adjacent grades overlap: near the top of one grade you are already earning what the next grade pays near its bottom.
\n| Promotion | From step 1 | From step 10 | Ceiling raised by |
|---|---|---|---|
| GS-7 to GS-8 | +4,632 | +1,245 | 6,018 |
| GS-9 to GS-10 | +5,337 | +1,125 | 6,930 |
| GS-11 to GS-12 | +12,668 | +1,172 | 16,466 |
| GS-12 to GS-13 | +14,462 | +614 | 18,800 |
| GS-13 to GS-14 | +16,521 | +3,570 | 21,480 |
All figures are base rates before locality pay. In an area paying 30% above base every number is roughly a third larger, and the calculator will do it for a specific area.
Time in grade is a floor, not a schedule
\nFifty-two weeks at the next-lower grade makes you eligible. It does not make anything happen.
\nOn a career ladder the promotion is non-competitive: the position was advertised with a full performance level above your entry grade, and once the year is served and performance is acceptable you move up. Off a ladder, the higher grade is a separate position and you compete for it.
\nThe number to look for in a vacancy announcement is therefore the full performance level, not the grade being filled. The entry grade is temporary by design; the full performance level is where the job settles, and it is the figure worth comparing between offers.
\nOne more thing that catches people: promotion resets the waiting period for your next within-grade increase. Time accumulated toward the next step is lost. A promotion landing a month before a step increase was due is worth less in that first year than it appears.
Where this stops applying
\nSpecial rates, retained rates and the alternate method all change the arithmetic.
\nWhere a special rate table covers your occupation and location, the promotion is computed against the higher of the special and locality rate ranges, and the result can differ from the figures here. Employees on a retained rate are a separate case again. Agencies may also use the alternate method under the same regulation, which produces a different result in some situations.
\nYour servicing human resources office computes the official figure and is the authority on it. What these pages give you is the expectation to walk in with, and the vocabulary to ask about it — which is more than a pay table on its own will do.
Two grades at once, and why it happens
\nSome ladders skip a grade: GS-7 to GS-9 to GS-11 rather than every step of the way.
\nProfessional and administrative positions frequently advance in two-grade intervals, because the work changes substantially between one level and the next rather than incrementally. Where that applies, the same rule still governs the landing step — two within-grade increases first, then the lowest matching step — but it is applied against the grade two levels up, and the resulting jump is correspondingly larger.
\nWhether your occupational series advances in one-grade or two-grade intervals is set by the qualification standard for that series, not by your agency. It is worth knowing which one you are on before you count years: on a two-grade ladder the same span of time covers more ground.
What a promotion does not change
\nThe statutory ceiling, and the arithmetic of local prices.
\nNo General Schedule rate may exceed Level IV of the Executive Schedule. In the highest-paying localities that ceiling is reached inside the published table, and a promotion into the affected band produces a smaller increase than the base figures suggest — sometimes none at all. Each locality page marks exactly which of its 150 cells are affected.
\nAnd a promotion does not move you to a different place. If you are weighing a promotion against a transfer, the two are not comparable on salary alone: a higher grade in an expensive area can leave you worse off than the grade you have in a cheaper one. That comparison is what the area pages are for.