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.
Hours ordered or approved above 8 in a day or 40 in a week, across the two weeks.
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. | Prevailing rate (wage grade) employees under 5 U.S.C. 5544, firefighters under 5 U.S.C. 5545b, and the Department of Transportation and law enforcement exceptions in 5542(a)(3) to (5). |
| 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. | Annual premium pay for standby duty or administratively uncontrollable overtime (5 U.S.C. 5545(c)), availability pay for criminal investigators (5545a), and the annual cap in 5 CFR 550.106. |
| Night differential at 10 percent and Sunday premium at 25 percent of the rate of basic pay, paid on top of overtime pay. | 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. | The order-of-payment rule in 5 CFR 550.107, which decides WHICH premium is reduced when the cap bites. We show the total shortfall, not which line item absorbs it. |
| 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). 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. Anyone at GS-12 step 7 or above in a high-locality area is in the same position.
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. A high locality raises both sides of the test, so the crossover grade moves around the country. 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. Under 5 CFR 551.511(b), a premium drops out of the regular rate only when it is at least 1.5 times the nonovertime rate. Night differential is 10 percent and Sunday premium is 25 percent, 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.
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. If it is not used within 26 pay periods after the period you earned it, the rules at 550.114(d) and 551.531(d) govern whether you are paid out or forfeit it.
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.