GS promotion calculator: the step you land on, and what it pays

The two-step rule

You land on the lowest step of the higher grade that pays at least as much as your current rate plus two step increases of your current grade.

That is the standard method under 5 U.S.C. 5334(b) and 5 CFR 531.214, and OPM sets it out in its fact sheet on promotions. It works in two moves. First your rate is raised by two within-grade increases of the grade you are leaving: a GS-13 step 4 is treated as a GS-13 step 6. At step 9 or step 10 there are not two steps left, and the rule does not stop at the top of the grade: OPM’s own worked examples add the dollar amount of the increases to the step 10 rate. Then the agency finds the lowest step of the new grade that equals or exceeds the result, and that is the step you are paid at.

The comparison is made on the rates of the area you will work in after the promotion, not on the base table. Below the statutory ceiling that gives the same step as the base table, because every rate in an area is its base rate times the same percentage. At the ceiling it can put you on a lower step of the new grade with no difference in pay, since several steps there are paid the same capped amount.

Two things follow. You do not restart at step 1: where you stood in the old grade comes with you. And the raise is not a fixed amount. It is largest from step 1 and then moves in a saw-tooth, because adjacent grades overlap and the landing step jumps each time two step increases cross a step of the new grade: from GS-13 in 2026 it runs from $6,601 (from step 9) to $16,521 (from step 1) in base pay.

The rule changes shape when a special rate table covers the job, when you are paid a law enforcement officer rate or a retained rate, when the promotion comes with a move to a different pay area, or when the agency may use the alternate method or set pay from a higher rate you held earlier in federal service. Your servicing human resources office computes the official figure; this page gives you the figure to expect and the terms to ask about. A first appointment is a different case altogether: it 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).

Time in grade, career ladders and the step clock

The time-in-grade rule says when you may be promoted. Nothing says you will be.

Under 5 CFR 300.604, a move to GS-12 or above needs 52 weeks in a position no more than one grade lower. For GS-6 through GS-11 it is 52 weeks no more than one grade lower in a line of work that moves one grade at a time, or two grades lower where it moves two at a time, as GS-5, 7, 9 and 11 professional ladders do. Up to GS-5 there is no waiting period, as long as the move is no more than two grades above the lowest grade you held in the past 52 weeks.

On a career ladder — a vacancy advertised with a full performance level above the grade you enter at — the promotion is non-competitive: the year is served, performance is acceptable, and you move up. Off a ladder, the higher grade is another position and you compete for it. The full performance level in a vacancy announcement is therefore the number to compare between offers.

A promotion also starts a new waiting period for your next step increase (5 CFR 531.405): 52 weeks below step 4, 104 weeks from step 4 to step 6, 156 weeks from step 7 on, counted at the new step. Time you had built up toward a step increase in the old grade is lost, so a promotion that arrives a month before a step increase was due is worth less in its first year than it looks. The step increase calculator dates the next step after a promotion, and the one due on the day of it.