High-3 salary in 2026: how OPM averages your pay for the FERS annuity
Your high-3 is one of the three numbers in the FERS formula, and the one you can still move in your last years. Pick your grade, step and area to estimate it.
Estimated high-3
$117,236
Average of your last three years of basic pay with locality, at 1.0 % a year.
| Pay now | $116,071 |
| Pay in your last year | $118,404 |
| Annuity per year of service (1 %) | $1,172 |
Prepared by Radif Partners · How the figures are built · read on opm.gov, ecfr.gov and ssa.gov · not an official determination
Your high-3 is the highest average basic pay you earned during any three consecutive years of creditable service. Basic pay means the rate of your GS grade and step plus locality pay, so a GS-12 step 5 in the Washington DC area counts $116,071 in 2026, with the 33.94 % locality included. Overtime, bonuses, awards and allowances do not count. The three years are usually the last three, but they can be any three in a row. Each dollar of high-3 is worth 1 % per year of service in the annuity: with 30 years, a $1,000 higher high-3 adds $300 a year for life. A promotion to GS-13 one year before retiring lifts the high-3 from $116,071 to $119,329; held for three full years, the new rate of $125,845 becomes the whole high-3. The pay cap of $197,200 in 2026 also caps the high-3. With fewer than three years of service, OPM averages all of it.
The definition
OPM's computation page defines the high-3 as the highest average basic pay you earned during any three consecutive years of service. Basic pay is the rate set for your position: for a GS employee, the grade and step rate of the GS pay table plus locality pay. The average is weighted by time: if you held one rate for eight months and another for four, each counts for that share of the year. The handbook worksheets round the result to the nearest dollar.
What is in, what is out
| Payment | In the high-3? |
|---|---|
| GS base rate of your grade and step | Yes |
| Locality pay | Yes |
| Within-grade and quality step increases | Yes, from the date they take effect |
| Overtime | No |
| Bonuses, awards, cash incentives | No |
| Lump-sum payment for unused annual leave | No |
Basic pay is also what your FERS contribution is taken from each pay period, which is a quick way to check: the payments that carry the FERS deduction on your leave and earnings statement are, in general, the ones in your high-3. If your service is shorter than three years, OPM averages your basic pay over all your periods of creditable service.
Estimate your high-3
Estimated high-3
$117,236
| Pay now | $116,071 |
| Pay in your last year | $118,404 |
| Annuity per year of service (1 %) | $1,172 |
Example: three years at the same grade
A GS-12 step 5 in the Washington DC area earned $114,923 in 2025 and earns $116,071 in 2026, after the 1 % raise. If that rate held for the three years before retirement, the high-3 would be $116,071, and a 30-year annuity at 1 % would be $34,821 a year. Every raise and every step increase inside the three-year window feeds into the average for the part of the window it covers, which is why the calculator lets you assume a yearly raise.
Example: a promotion near the end
Suppose the same employee is promoted to GS-13. Under the two-step rule, the new rate is GS-13 step 2, $125,845. The effect on the high-3 depends on how much of the window the new rate fills.
| Time at GS-13 before retiring | High-3 | 30-year annuity |
|---|---|---|
| None | $116,071 | $34,821 |
| 1 year | $119,329 | $35,799 |
| 2 years | $122,587 | $36,776 |
| 3 years | $125,845 | $37,754 |
A late promotion is still worth having: one year adds $977 a year for life to a 30-year annuity. But the full value arrives only when you stay three years at the higher rate. People who are close to an MRA with 30 years sometimes delay retirement by a year or two for this reason. The promotion calculator shows the step you land on.
Example: a move to a lower locality
Because the three years can be any three in a row, moving to a lower-paid area at the end of a career does not destroy the high-3. A GS-13 step 5 who works in Washington DC at $138,024 and then transfers to a Rest of U.S. location at $120,629 for the last two years keeps a high-3 of $138,024, from the earlier years, as long as raises in the meantime do not change the comparison. The same reasoning applies to a voluntary change to a lower grade.
Timing your last three years
Three dates move the high-3 without any promotion. The annual raise takes effect with the first pay period beginning on or after January 1: in 2026 that was January 11, 2026, so leaving in early January can mean leaving just before or just after a new rate. A within-grade increase falls due after a fixed waiting period, 52 weeks for steps 2 to 4, 104 for steps 5 to 7 and 156 for steps 8 to 10, and a step that lands a few weeks after your planned date may be worth waiting for. For 2027, nothing is official: the President's plan of August 2026 proposes a 0 % raise and no locality change, so a high-3 that runs into 2027 should be estimated as a scenario, not a projection. The step increase page gives the waiting periods in detail.
The pay cap
GS pay, locality included, cannot exceed Executive Schedule level IV, $197,200 in 2026. The high-3 is computed on the pay actually set, so it cannot exceed the cap either. A GS-15 step 10 in the Washington DC area is at $197,200; its high-3 over three capped years cannot go higher. The pay cap page lists the cells that hit it.
How it enters the annuity
The annuity is the high-3 times your years of service times 1 %, or 1.1 % if you leave at 62 or later with 20 years. A survivor annuity is a share of that annuity, so the high-3 also sets what a spouse would receive. Put your estimate in the FERS retirement calculator to see the whole result, and check the method page for the assumptions. Your official high-3 is the one OPM computes from the pay history your payroll office certifies.