Federal pay raise 2027: where it stands and what it would pay
No 2027 GS table exists yet. Test any raise on your 2026 cell; the result is a scenario, never an official rate.
Scenario for 2027 (not an official rate)
$109,243
+$0 on your 2026 rate of $109,243 if the raise is 0 %.
| 2026 rate (official) | $109,243 |
| 2027 scenario | $109,243 |
| Difference | +$0 |
Pay cap kept at the 2026 level of $197,200 until the 2027 Executive Schedule is known.
Prepared by Radif Partners · How the figures are built · read on opm.gov, ecfr.gov and ssa.gov · not an official determination
As of October 19, 2026, nothing about the January 2027 federal pay raise is final. The President's alternative pay plan, sent to Congress on August 26, 2026, proposes an across-the-board increase of 0 % and no change to any locality percentage for 2027, which would leave every General Schedule rate at its 2026 level. Without that plan, the pay law would have required 3.1 % on the base table and locality payments averaging 20.6 %. Congress can still set a different figure in an appropriations law, but the House financial services bill for fiscal 2027 (H.R. 8495, report H. Rept. 119-623 of April 24, 2026) contains no pay raise provision. If nothing passes, the plan's figure applies and OPM publishes the tables, expected late December 2026 or January 2027. The calculator above applies any raise you type to your 2026 rate, so you can see what 0 %, 1 % or 2 % would mean.
How a January raise is decided
Each year the pay law sets a default. The across-the-board part follows the Employment Cost Index for private wages and salaries minus half a percentage point; the locality part is meant to close the gap between federal and non-federal pay measured in each area. Because the default is expensive, the law lets the President send an alternative plan by the end of August, citing a national emergency or serious economic conditions. The alternative becomes the raise unless Congress passes something else. Congress has done that in some years, through a line in an appropriations act, and stayed silent in others.
So three documents decide the figure: the plan letter, the appropriations bills, and the executive order the President signs in December to put the final rates into effect. For 2027, the first exists, the second is still moving, and the third does not exist yet.
Where 2027 stands
| Step | Status on October 19, 2026 | Figure |
|---|---|---|
| Statutory default (FEPCA) | Replaced by the plan | 3.1 % base, 20.6 % average locality |
| Alternative pay plan | Sent August 26, 2026 | 0 %, locality unchanged from 2026 |
| House bill (H.R. 8495) | Reported April 24, 2026 | No pay raise provision |
| Senate bill and final law | Not final | Unknown |
| Executive order and OPM tables | Not issued | Expected late December 2026 or January 2027 |
A silent appropriations act means the plan applies. A raise inserted by Congress would apply instead. Neither outcome is known, which is why this site publishes no 2027 table and labels every 2027 figure as a scenario.
What each scenario pays
The calculator applies the raise you type to the 2026 base rate, rebuilds the locality rate with the 2026 percentage (or with the points you add in the folded options), and keeps the 2026 cap. For a GS-12 step 3 in Washington, paid $109,243 in 2026:
| Scenario | 2027 annual rate | Change |
|---|---|---|
| 0 % across the board | $109,243 | +$0 |
| 0.5 % across the board | $109,789 | +$546 |
| 1 % across the board | $110,336 | +$1,093 |
| 2 % across the board | $111,427 | +$2,184 |
| 3.1 % across the board | $112,629 | +$3,386 |
Test a scenario on another cell
Scenario for 2027 (not an official rate)
$62,339
| 2026 rate (official) | $61,722 |
| 2027 scenario | $62,339 |
| Difference | +$617 |
At 0 %, a GS-9 step 1 in Rest of U.S. would stay at $61,722. Step increases and promotions continue regardless of the annual raise, so most employees still see their pay rise in 2027 through those.
Locality pay in 2027
The plan keeps every locality percentage at its 2026 level, which would make 2027 the second year in a row without a locality change. A frozen percentage does not freeze your locality payment in dollars: it moves with the base rate, so at 0 % it would not move at all. The folded option of the calculator lets you add points to every area, to see what a locality increase of, say, half a point would add on top of an across-the-board raise.
What to watch until January
Three dates matter. The first is the end of the fiscal 2027 appropriations process, which decides whether a different raise is written into law; a continuing resolution usually carries no pay provision, so the plan stays in place. The second is the executive order on pay, normally signed in the last two weeks of December, which fixes the General Schedule, the Executive Schedule and the cap. The third is OPM's posting of the tables and its pay memo to agencies. Your agency then processes the adjustment for the first pay period beginning on or after January 1, 2027.
If you plan a retirement date, a promotion or a move around January, use the 2026 rates as the floor: under the plan they are also the 2027 rates, and any raise Congress adds would only lift them.
What a 0 % year means for retirement
A flat year keeps the high-3 lower than it would have been, which matters most for people retiring in the next three years: every 1 % missing from the last year's salary is about one third of 1 % missing from the high-3. Annuitants are on a different track. Their January 2027 increase is the cost-of-living adjustment, set by the consumer price index: Social Security announced 3.6 % on October 14, 2026, so the diet COLA rule gives FERS annuitants aged 62 and over 2.6 %. The COLA page has the details and the high-3 page shows the effect of a flat year.
How we will update this page
The 2027 values live in one place in our data file: the raise, the locality change and the cap. When the executive order is signed we will enter the official figures, rebuild the 58 tables from the new base table, check them against the OPM files and date the change here. Until then, the parameter for the official 2027 raise is empty on purpose.