Estimated 2025 GS Pay Scale | FedSmith.com (2024)

The 2025 federal pay raise is one step closer to being finalized after President Bidenissued his alternative pay plan letterat the end of August outlining the amounts he wants for next year’s pay raise for federal employees.

The president proposed a 2% raise for federal employees in March and reiterated it in his alternative pay plan letter. Assuming that is the final amount, the 2% 2025 federal pay raise will be divided between an average of 0.3% for locality pay areas and 1.7% as an across-the-board pay raise, according to what Bidenoutlined in the letter.

Anticipating the percentage increase for how each GS locality pay area will fare in 2025 would be futile. When the figures are finalized, the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) will provide a copy of the 2025 General Schedule (GS) pay tables, including 2025 GS locality pay. This usually happens in December.

The Annual Federal Pay Raise Process

The Biden administrationproposed a 2% 2025 federal pay raise in March. That is the first step in a complex process. Congress has thus far not indicated any interest in approving a different amount.

The next step occurred on August 30, 2024, when President Bidenissued an alternative pay plan letter for the 2025 federal pay raise.

This letter states:

Title 5, United States Code, authorizes me to implement alternative plans for pay adjustments for civilian Federal employees covered by the General Schedule and certain other pay systems if, because of “national emergency or serious economic conditions affecting the general welfare,” I view the increases that would otherwise take effect as inappropriate.

Congress could also pass legislation to determine a different pay raise amount. As that has not been done earlier this year, and there were several opportunities for Congress to do so in legislation that was under consideration, that is possible but unlikely to happen for the 2025 pay raise for federal employees.

Estimated 2025 GS Pay Scale Table

FedSmith has created this 2025 GS pay scale table of the base pay rates to provide readers with some early information.

While we will not know the percentage increase for each locality pay area until later this year, it is possible to calculate an estimate of how the base pay rates will be changed for each GS pay grade before the final locality pay percentages are calculated.

This table shows an estimated 2025 GS pay scale based on the expected 2025 federal pay raise of 2% with a 2025 General Schedule (GS) base pay raise of 1.7%.

Why only 1.7% and not 2%? 2% will probably be the average raise, and when the annual federal pay raise is issued each year, it usually includes an across-the-board base pay increase and an amount set aside for locality pay. Since the president proposed a base pay increase of 1.7% with 0.3% for locality pay in hisalternative pay plan letter, we used the 1.7% figure for the estimated 2025 GS pay scale table.

Note that the 2025 GS pay table will not be finalized until OPM issues the final figures after the 2025 federal pay raise is finalized with an executive order. In most years, this occurs in December. Last year, the Executive Order implementing the2024 federal pay raise was issuedon December 21st.

This means the final figures will be adjusted. The final adjustment will reflect the larger increase for areas that usually receive large pay raises. Typically, this includes higher pay raises for larger cities because of locality pay. Here are the2024 GS pay tablesfor each locality.

2025 GS Locality Pay Areas

The Federal Salary Council (FSC) proposed adding about 15,000 federal employees from the “Rest of the U.S.” to existing locality pay areas for 2025. Being added to a locality pay area usuallyresults in higher payfor impacted employees.

FSC is recommending the Pay Agent add Wyandot County, OH, to the Columbus,
OH, locality pay area and Yuma County, AZ, to the Phoenix, AZ, locality pay area. These recommendations do not create new locality pay areas. In this case, they are adding employees to existing pay areas using various techniques to reduce employees in the “Rest of the U.S.” and add more to higher-paying locality pay areas.

Note that this is a proposal only at this point and has not been finalized, but it is possible that impacted federal employees could find themselves in a new locality pay area in the future.

Existing GS Locality Pay Areas

The current 2024 General Schedule locality pay area definitions are as follows:

• Alaska
• Albany-Schenectady, NY-MA
• Albuquerque-Santa Fe-Las Vegas, NM
• Atlanta–Athens-Clarke County–Sandy Springs, GA-AL
• Austin-Round Rock-Georgetown, TX
• Birmingham-Hoover-Talladega, AL
• Boston-Worcester-Providence, MA-RI-NH-CT-ME-VT
• Buffalo-Cheektowaga-Olean, NY
• Burlington-South Burlington-Barre, VT
• Charlotte-Concord, NC-SC
• Chicago-Naperville, IL-IN-WI
• Cincinnati-Wilmington-Maysville, OH-KY-IN
• Cleveland-Akron-Canton, OH-PA
• Colorado Springs, CO
• Columbus-Marion-Zanesville, OH
• Corpus Christi-Kingsville-Alice, TX
• Dallas-Fort Worth, TX-OK
• Davenport-Moline, IA-IL
• Dayton-Springfield-Kettering, OH
• Denver-Aurora, CO
• Des Moines-Ames-West Des Moines, IA
• Detroit-Warren-Ann Arbor, MI
• Fresno-Madera-Hanford, CA
• Harrisburg-Lebanon, PA
• Hartford-East Hartford, CT-MA
• Hawaii
• Houston-The Woodlands, TX
• Huntsville-Decatur, AL-TN
• Indianapolis-Carmel-Muncie, IN
• Kansas City-Overland Park-Kansas City, MO-KS
• Laredo, TX
• Las Vegas-Henderson, NV-AZ
• Los Angeles-Long Beach, CA
• Miami-Port St. Lucie-Fort Lauderdale, FL
• Milwaukee-Racine-Waukesha, WI
• Minneapolis-St. Paul, MN-WI
• New York-Newark, NY-NJ-CT-PA
• Omaha-Council Bluffs-Fremont, NE-IA
• Palm Bay-Melbourne-Titusville, FL
• Philadelphia-Reading-Camden, PA-NJ-DE-MD
• Phoenix-Mesa, AZ
• Pittsburgh-New Castle-Weirton, PA-OH-WV
• Portland-Vancouver-Salem, OR-WA
• Raleigh-Durham-Cary, NC
• Reno-Fernley, NV
• Richmond, VA
• Rochester-Batavia-Seneca Falls, NY
• Sacramento-Roseville, CA-NV
• San Antonio-New Braunfels-Pearsall, TX
• San Diego-Chula Vista-Carlsbad, CA
• San Jose-San Francisco-Oakland, CA
• Seattle-Tacoma, WA
• Spokane-Spokane Valley-Coeur d’Alene, WA-ID
• St. Louis-St. Charles-Farmington, MO-IL
• Tucson-Nogales, AZ
• Virginia Beach-Norfolk, VA-NC
• Washington-Baltimore-Arlington, DC-MD-VA-WV-PA
• Rest of U.S.

2024 GS Pay Scale

The2024 GS pay scalewas based on an overall average pay raise of 5.2%. The2024 federal pay raisealso included an across-the-board base pay increase of 4.7% with 0.5% for locality pay.

The average federal employee salary as of February 2024 is $106,363 according to the Office of Personnel Management.