The Federal Wage System: an overview

The Federal Wage System (FWS) is the hourly pay system for the federal government's trade, craft and laboring employees. Its schedules are set wage area by wage area from local surveys, not from one national table, and they are issued by the Department of Defense rather than by OPM. No FWS schedule is mirrored on this site; the official source is DoD's Wage and Salary site, which publishes each wage area's schedule, and OPM's Federal Wage System page, which sets the rules it is built under.

What the system is

OPM's overview states: "The Federal Wage System (FWS) is a uniform pay-setting system that covers Federal appropriated fund and nonappropriated fund blue-collar employees who are paid by the hour. The system's goal is to make sure that Federal trade, craft, and laboring employees within a local wage area who perform the same duties receive the same rate of pay. The FWS includes 118 appropriated fund and 114 nonappropriated fund local wage areas." The statutory policy is in 5 U.S.C. 5341: rates "fixed and adjusted from time to time as nearly as is consistent with the public interest in accordance with prevailing rates", with pay distinctions "maintained in keeping with work distinctions" and "equal pay for substantially equal work".

A regular FWS schedule has grades WG-1 to WG-15 with five steps each; under 5 U.S.C. 5343(e) step 2 is the prevailing rate for the grade, step 1 is 96 percent of it, and steps 3, 4 and 5 are 104, 108 and 112 percent. Leader (WL) and supervisor (WS) schedules are built from the same surveys; 5 CFR part 532 carries the wage area definitions (subpart B), the survey and schedule rules (subpart C) and the special schedules. The schedules are issued on each area's own effective date through the year rather than every January.

Who sets the schedules

OPM prescribes the regulations and defines the wage areas; the lead agency conducts the surveys and issues the schedules. OPM's page states: "The Department of Defense (DOD) is the lead agency responsible for conducting Federal Wage System (FWS) wage surveys and issuing wage schedules. DOD's Defense Civilian Personnel Advisory Service maintains a website with all FWS wage schedules." That site is DCPAS's Wage and Salary Division. Under 5 U.S.C. 5343(a) the lead agency determines the prevailing rates for a wage area "on the basis of a survey of rates paid by private employers in the area", with the Federal Prevailing Rate Advisory Committee advising OPM on the system as a whole. The wage area boundaries were last redefined by OPM's final rule of January 21, 2025 (90 FR, document 2025-01150), which DCPAS says affected about 230 counties and took effect for its schedules on October 1, 2025.

Annual adjustments are also subject to the pay limitation Congress attaches to the appropriations acts. OPM's page records that on December 18, 2025 it issued Compensation Policy Memorandum 2025-20 on section 737 of the Further Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2024, "as extended by Division A of the Continuing Appropriations, Agriculture, Legislative Branch, Military Construction and Veterans Affairs, and Extensions Act, 2026", which "continues the provisions affecting the determination of pay adjustments for certain prevailing rate (wage) employees through January 30, 2026". On October 18, 2026, DCPAS's site carried a notice that the FY 2027 schedules "will be delayed until the FY 2027 pay limitations are released" and were expected to be retroactive to their normal effective dates.

How to find a schedule or a rate

1. Open DCPAS's Appropriated Fund schedules (or the Nonappropriated Fund schedules for exchange, morale and recreation employees). The page asks for a state, a schedule type (regular, special, leader or supervisor), then a wage area or county, then the issue year.
2. Find the wage area from the county where the installation sits; 5 CFR 532, appendix C to subpart B lists every appropriated fund wage area and its counties, and the DCPAS page resolves a county to its area.
3. Read the rate at the grade (WG, WL or WS) and step on the schedule DCPAS returns, which carries its own effective date; special schedules (for example the $15 minimum pay rate schedules issued under OPM's Compensation Policy Memorandum 2022-02) appear under the "special" schedule type.

Nothing on this site computes an FWS rate. The GS tables on this site do not apply to FWS positions; movements between the two systems are described in OPM's "Paysetting for FWS to GS Movements" on the Federal Wage System page.

Related

• The 2026 General Schedule: the white-collar system the FWS is often compared with.
• Special rates: OPM's higher GS rates for hard-to-staff occupations and areas.
• Occupations: what the same trades pay outside government, from BLS OEWS.