Federal Overtime Pay
Your overtime rate is not always one and a half times your pay. Enter your grade, step, locality, and FLSA status to see the rate the law actually gives you, what the GS-10 step 1 ceiling costs you, and whether the biweekly premium pay cap stops the money.
Reviewed by Jonathan D., 20-year federal employee · Formulas verified against OPM.gov ·
Your locality matters twice: it raises your own hourly rate and it raises the GS-10 step 1 rate your overtime is measured against.
Block 35 of your SF-50 shows E for exempt or N for nonexempt. Most GS-11 and above professional and administrative positions are exempt.
Law enforcement officers at GS-3 to GS-10 are paid from the LEO special base rate tables, and their GS-10 step 1 ceiling uses the LEO rate (5 CFR 550.113(a)). Wildland fire suppression overtime is 1.5 times your own rate with no ceiling (5 U.S.C. 5542(a)(5)), and the biweekly pay cap does not apply to it (5 U.S.C. 5547(b)(1)).
Hours ordered or approved above 40 in a week, across the two weeks. Hours above 8 in a day count too, unless your basic pay is above GS-10 step 1 and your basic workweek is the first 40 hours of duty (5 CFR 550.111(d)).
Your overtime rate is $55.89 an hour, set by 1.5 x the GS-10 step 1 hourly rate.
| Modeled | Not modeled |
|---|---|
| Title 5 overtime for FLSA exempt General Schedule employees, including the greater-of rule in 5 U.S.C. 5542(a)(2) measured against the locality-adjusted GS-10 step 1 rate. Also two exceptions, picked under Overtime Rule: law enforcement officers under 5542(a)(4), paid from the 2026 LEO special base rate tables at GS-3 to GS-10 and measured against the LEO GS-10 step 1 rate (5 CFR 550.113(a); $80,363 in Washington-Baltimore-Arlington, a $57.77 ceiling instead of $55.89), and emergency wildland fire suppression at Interior or the Forest Service under 5542(a)(5), paid at 1.5 times the own rate with no GS-10 ceiling. The biweekly cap does not apply (5 U.S.C. 5547(b)(1), 5 CFR 550.105(c)(1)). You pick when the work was done: for January 1 to September 30, 2026 (Public Law 119-74 section 436(b)) and October 1 to December 11, 2026 (Public Law 119-103 section 142) the wildland fire premium pay waiver applies, leaving Executive Schedule level II, $228,000, as the only limit on 2026 basic plus premium pay. For December 12 to 31, 2026 no extension was enacted as of October 4, 2026, so the result shows both possible limits and says it could not confirm which applies. | Prevailing rate (wage grade) employees under 5 U.S.C. 5544; firefighters paid under 5 U.S.C. 5545b; and the Department of Transportation air traffic rule in 5 U.S.C. 5542(a)(3) (1.5 times the own rate for certain nonmanagerial positions at GS-14 or below). Wildland firefighter special base rates under 5 U.S.C. 5332a (the General Schedule rate raised 1.5 to 42 percent by grade) and incident response premium pay under 5 U.S.C. 5545c are not included, so a 5332a firefighter’s real hourly and overtime rates are higher than shown; the result says so. Whether your agency has designated your work under the waiver is not checked. LEOs on availability pay or AUO are covered by the row below. |
| FLSA overtime for nonexempt employees: straight time for all overtime hours plus half the regular rate, with night and Sunday premium included in the regular rate per 5 CFR 551.511, and never less than the title 5 figure for the same hours, which 5 U.S.C. 5542(c) guarantees ("so as to ensure that no employee receives less pay"). The regular rate is computed per workweek, which is the unit 5 CFR 551.511(a) uses, so you choose whether the premium hours fall evenly across the two weeks or all in one. | Splits other than even or all-in-one-week, since an arbitrary split lands between the two figures. Also not modeled: annual premium pay for standby duty or administratively uncontrollable overtime (5 U.S.C. 5545(c)) and availability pay for criminal investigators (5545a). The annual limits (5 CFR 550.106, and the $228,000 Executive level II limit under the wildland fire waiver) are shown only under the wildland fire rule, and the calendar-year test is not run because the calculator has no year-to-date earnings. Other emergency work and mission-critical determinations under 550.106(b) are not modeled for the standard and LEO rules. |
| Night differential at 10 percent and Sunday premium at 25 percent of the rate of basic pay, paid on top of overtime pay. Night hours may include regularly scheduled overtime at night (5 CFR 550.121(a), 550.122(c)). | Holiday premium pay, travel comp time, credit hours under a flexible schedule, and the compressed-schedule exception that lifts the 8-hour Sunday limit. |
| The biweekly premium pay limitation in 5 U.S.C. 5547 and 5 CFR 550.105, computed as the greater of the GS-15 step 10 and Executive level V biweekly rates. Under the wildland fire rule the biweekly cap is replaced by the calendar-year limit that applies to your work dates: Executive Schedule level II ($228,000) under the wildland fire premium pay waiver, or the 5 CFR 550.106(c) and (d) limit at 26 pay periods where the waiver does not reach the work. Where the waiver could not be confirmed, both are shown and no pay is withheld on the lower one. | Which premium line item your payroll office reduces when the cap bites. We show the total shortfall, not which line item absorbs it. We assume night differential and Sunday premium consume the room before overtime, since those are owed whichever way the overtime is taken. (5 CFR 550.107 sets a payment order only for standby, AUO, availability pay, firefighter regular-tour overtime and the Border Patrol supplement, when an annual limitation applies.) For a nonexempt employee, only the night and Sunday pay actually paid under the cap enters the FLSA regular rate, because 5 CFR 551.511(a) counts remuneration paid. |
| A single biweekly pay period with a standard 80-hour basic work requirement. | Paid leave inside the period (which changes night pay entitlement), part-time and intermittent tours, special rate supplements under 5 U.S.C. 5305, and retained grade or pay. |
| 2026 General Schedule rates effective January 11, 2026, with Executive level IV at $197,200 applied as the basic pay cap. | Prior years, 2027 projections, and any agency-specific demonstration project pay system. |
Rates are rounded to the cent at each step, the way payroll does it under 5 U.S.C. 5504(b). The FLSA weekly regular rate is also rounded to the cent before the half-time multiply. No rule fixes that step, so your payroll office may land a cent or two away from this figure. Your leave and earnings statement is the record of what you were actually paid. This is an estimate, not an agency pay determination.
The rule that surprises people
Most pay systems multiply your hourly rate by 1.5 and stop there. Title 5 does not. If you are FLSA exempt and your rate of basic pay is higher than GS-10 step 1 in your locality, 5 U.S.C. 5542(a)(2) pays you the greater of 1.5 times the GS-10 step 1 hourly rate or your own hourly rate. Once your own rate passes that 1.5 times GS-10 figure, the greater-of test picks your own rate, and the overtime premium quietly becomes zero.
In the Washington-Baltimore-Arlington area for 2026, GS-10 step 1 is $77,771, or $37.26 an hour, so the ceiling sits at $55.89. A GS-13 step 1 there makes $58.35 an hour. Their overtime rate is $58.35, not $87.53. On a 10-hour overtime pay period that is $291.80 that never arrives. And it is not only the expensive metros: we ran the greater-of test across every grade and step in all 58 locality pay areas, and the crossover lands on GS-12 step 6 in every single one, Rest of U.S. included. OPM’s own published hourly tables show it — the 2026 Washington-Baltimore-Arlington GS-12 overtime row reads $55.89 for steps 1 through 5, then $57.25 at step 6, which is the employee’s own rate taking over.
The comparison uses the GS-10 step 1 rate for your locality, not the base table. 5 CFR 550.113(a) spells that out: the GS-10 minimum includes any applicable locality comparability payment and special rate supplement. That is also why the crossover does not move around the country: a locality payment multiplies both sides of the test by the same percentage, so the grade and step where your own rate overtakes the ceiling is the same in a 46 percent area as in Rest of U.S. Use the Locality Pay Area Finder if you are not sure which area covers your duty station.
FLSA status is the line that matters
None of that ceiling applies to FLSA nonexempt employees. OPM's own fact sheet says the hourly overtime limitations “do not apply to prevailing rate (wage) employees or to FLSA overtime pay.” A nonexempt employee gets straight time for every overtime hour plus half the regular rate for every overtime hour, which works out to 1.5 times the rate with no cap.
The regular rate is where night and Sunday work sneak in. 5 CFR 551.511(b)(5) always leaves overtime premiums out, and (b)(6) and (b)(7) leave out Sunday, holiday and outside-regular-hours premiums only when they are at least 1.5 times the nonovertime rate. Night differential and Sunday premium fit none of those exclusions, so both stay in, and both push the half-time part of your FLSA overtime up. Check block 35 of your SF-50 before you assume which system you are in.
The cap that stops the money
5 U.S.C. 5547 and 5 CFR 550.105 set a biweekly ceiling: basic pay plus premium pay cannot exceed the greater of the GS-15 step 10 biweekly rate including locality pay, or the biweekly rate for level V of the Executive Schedule, which is $184,900 for 2026. Here is something nobody publishes: because GS-15 step 10 base pay is $164,301 and the smallest 2026 locality payment is 17.06 percent, the GS-15 step 10 leg wins in all 58 locality pay areas this year. The level V leg never governs a General Schedule employee in 2026.
For a GS-15 step 10 in a major metro, that cap is brutal. Their payable basic pay is already at the Executive level IV limit of $197,200, which is the same figure the GS-15 step 10 cap leg produces, so every dollar of overtime, night differential, and Sunday premium in the period is unpayable. Compensatory time off is no escape: OPM treats the biweekly limit as a ceiling on comp time hours too, because comp time is just another form of payment for the same work.
FLSA overtime pay is the exception. It is not premium pay under 5 CFR part 550 subpart A, so it does not count against the biweekly limit at all. That is the second reason a nonexempt designation is worth money.
Emergency work is the other exception. 5 U.S.C. 5547(b)(1) says the biweekly limit “shall not apply to an employee who is paid premium pay by reason of work in connection with an emergency (including a wildfire emergency),” and 5 CFR 550.106(a) has the agency apply an annual limit instead: basic pay plus premium pay for the calendar year cannot pass the greater of the GS-15 step 10 or Executive level V rate, computed as the biweekly rate times 26 or 27 pay periods.
Wildland fire work goes further. Under the wildland fire premium pay waiver (Public Law 117-43, division B, section 1701, a note to 5 U.S.C. 5547), premium pay for designated Interior and Forest Service fire employees doing work that is primarily related to emergency wildland fire suppression “shall be disregarded” for both the biweekly and the annual limits. What is left is a calendar-year limit at Executive Schedule level II, $228,000 for 2026. Congress renews the waiver year by year: Public Law 119-74 applied it in fiscal year 2026 (work through September 30, 2026), and the FY2027 continuing resolution, Public Law 119-103, keeps it running through December 11, 2026 at the latest. For a GS-13 step 10 in the Rest of U.S. area, that is $89,630 of room for premium pay above the $138,370 annual rate, against $53,322.80 under the 550.106 limit of $191,692.80. Pick the wildland fire rule and the dates you worked, and the calculator shows the limit for those dates, or says plainly that it could not confirm one. It cannot see your year-to-date pay, so checking the annual total is up to you and your payroll office.
Comp time is one for one
Compensatory time off is granted for “an equal amount” of overtime work, under 5 CFR 550.114(a) for exempt employees and 5 CFR 551.531(a) for nonexempt employees. Ten overtime hours buys ten hours off, never fifteen.
Comp time is not a way around the biweekly cap, and this is where people get caught. OPM is explicit: “The biweekly pay limitation in 5 U.S.C. 5547 is also a ceiling on compensatory time off. Compensatory time off is merely an alternative form of payment for overtime work … the number of hours for which an employee may receive monetary overtime pay is also the number of hours of compensatory time off that may be credited in a pay period. An employee may not exceed the biweekly pay limitation by choosing compensatory time off as a substitute for monetary overtime pay.” 5 CFR 550.114(g) is the mechanism: the dollar value of comp time “for the purpose of applying pay limitations” is the overtime pay you would otherwise have received. So an exempt GS-15 step 10 in the Washington-Baltimore-Arlington area, whose basic pay already sits at the cap, earns zero creditable comp time hours as well as zero overtime dollars. The calculator applies that ceiling. FLSA comp time under 551.531 is not reduced, because the limitation does not reach FLSA overtime pay.
What happens if you do not use it inside 26 pay periods depends entirely on your FLSA status, and the two rules point in opposite directions. If you are nonexempt, you cannot lose it: 5 CFR 551.531(d) says that if the comp time “is not taken within 26 pay periods after the pay period during which it was earned or if the employee transfers or separates from an agency before using the compensatory time, the employee must be paid for overtime work at the dollar value prescribed in paragraph (g).” There is no forfeiture option in that sentence. If you are exempt, forfeiture is on the table: 5 CFR 550.114(d) lets an agency head, “at his or her sole and exclusive discretion,” provide that an employee who fails to use it must either “(1) Receive payment for such unused compensatory time off” or “(2) Forfeit the unused compensatory time off, unless the failure to take the compensatory time off is due to an exigency of the service beyond the employee’s control,” in which case the agency head must pay it. Paragraph (e) applies the same two-way choice to any balance carried from before May 14, 2007. So check block 35 of your SF-50 before you assume a use-or-lose deadline applies to you.
One agency power is worth knowing. Under 5 CFR 550.114(c), an agency may require comp time instead of overtime pay for irregular or occasional overtime by an exempt employee whose rate of basic pay exceeds the maximum rate for GS-10, meaning GS-10 step 10 with locality pay. For nonexempt employees, 5 CFR 551.531(c) prohibits forcing it.