GS pay scale 2026
States

58 locality pay areasPage last changed 2026-10-07

GS pay scale by state, 2026

In 2026 the same GS-12 step 5 is paid anywhere from $101,443 to $126,817 inside California alone, because locality pay areas do not follow state lines. Most states contain more than one; a state with a single area links straight to that area’s page.

Every state, by how many locality pay areas it has

Several pay areas the county decides 38

One pay area the whole state on one rate 5

No named area every duty station on the Rest of U.S. rate 8

Why a state is not a pay area

The General Schedule knows nothing about states. It is built from 58 locality pay areas, and those are defined as lists of counties (OPM, 2026 locality pay area definitions).

Some of those areas cover parts of several states at once: the Washington-Baltimore-Arlington area reaches into 4 states and the District of Columbia, and a federal employee crossing from Maryland into Virginia inside it sees no change in pay. Others split a single state into pieces that are paid very differently — Pennsylvania contains 6 named areas plus the Rest of U.S. rate in its remaining counties.

So a state page is a convenience, not a unit of the pay system. What it is good for is the question people have: if I take a federal job somewhere in this state, what am I likely to be paid, and how much does it depend on where exactly?

Where the answer changes most

In 38 states the answer depends on the county, counting the Rest of U.S. rate that covers every county outside a named area. In 5 one area covers the whole state.

8 states contain no named locality pay area whatsoever: every federal duty station in them is paid the Rest of U.S. rate, and geography inside the state makes no difference. At the other extreme, California spans 6 areas and $25,374 of difference on a single grade and step.

Each state page below says which case it is, names the areas, and adds the figure the official tables do not show: what each salary is worth once local prices are counted. In several states the best-paid area is not the one where the money goes furthest.

Why the spread inside a state can be large

Locality pay follows private labor markets, and those vary far more inside a state than most people expect.

An area is set at a percentage above the nationwide base table, and that percentage is derived from what private employers in the region pay for comparable work. A state containing both a major metropolitan labor market and a stretch of countryside will therefore contain both a high-percentage area and, in the countryside, the Rest of U.S. floor. The same grade and step, forty miles apart, on two different rates.

This is also why the boundaries look arbitrary from inside a car. They are county lists, drawn to follow economic areas rather than anything visible: a river, a ring road or a county line can be a pay boundary, and nothing on the ground marks it.

One consequence matters when people transfer. A move to a higher-percentage area inside the same state reads as a raise on the offer letter, but the regions where private pay is high are usually also the regions where things cost more. How much of the increase is left after that is exactly what these pages calculate, and on some moves the answer is almost none of it.

What these pages do not cover

The General Schedule, and only the General Schedule.

Roughly a third of federal employees are paid from other systems: the Federal Wage System for trades and labor positions, the Senior Executive Service, Title 38 medical positions at the Department of Veterans Affairs, and several demonstration projects. Law enforcement officers at grades 3 to 10 are paid from a higher base table, many front-line law enforcement positions from OPM special rate tables (both on the law enforcement pay page), and special rate tables also cover occupations where recruitment is difficult — where one applies, the employee receives the higher of the special rate and the locality rate, never both.

Every figure here is also gross pay, before deductions. State income tax in particular can matter as much as the locality difference: several states levy none at all, and a comparison that ignores it is incomplete in a way we would rather name than paper over.