An independent resource for federal employeesSourced from OPM · TSP · GSA
FedToolsIndependent pay & benefits data for the federal workforce
Calculator
Locality Pay Area Finder
Locality pay follows your duty station county, and the areas reach much further than the cities they are named for. Pick your state and county to get the 2026 area, the percentage, and what the same grade earns there versus Rest of U.S.
Reviewed by Jonathan D., 20-year federal employee · County list built from OPM.gov ·
What the locality pay area finder models and what it does not model
Modeled
Not modeled
Every county, parish, independent city, and named duty station OPM lists in the 2026 locality pay area definitions: 925 places across 57 separate areas, plus the Rest of U.S. fallback.
City search. The lookup is state plus county, because county is the unit OPM actually defines. Independent cities appear where OPM names them, such as Alexandria city, VA.
The Rest of U.S. answer for any county OPM does not name, and a direct answer for the eight states with no named county.
A full list of all 3,000-plus U.S. counties. We list only what OPM names and treat everything else as Rest of U.S., which is what 5 CFR 531.603 provides.
2026 locality percentages read from the same GS pay table the FedTools GS Pay Calculator uses, so the two cannot drift apart.
Prior-year or projected 2027 percentages, and any mid-year redefinition. OPM says the 2026 geographic definitions match 2025.
GS-7 step 1 and GS-12 step 1 annual pay in the matched area, with the dollar gap against Rest of U.S.
Your own grade and step. Use the GS Pay Calculator for that, and the pay-table link in the result jumps straight to the area page.
General Schedule locality pay under 5 U.S.C. 5304.
Special rate tables under 5 U.S.C. 5305, Federal Wage System wage areas, law enforcement special base rates, SES and Senior Level pay (which carries no locality payment), and the three named Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst duty stations beyond their area assignment.
A duty-station lookup for pay purposes.
GSA per diem localities and OPM locality pay areas are different geographies with different boundaries. Do not use one to answer the other.
Annual figures are rounded to the dollar the way OPM publishes them. Your SF-50 and your servicing HR office are the record of your official duty station.
What we counted
Nobody publishes the shape of the locality pay map as numbers, so we counted it. OPM's 2026 definitions name 925 places across 57 separate locality pay areas, plus the Rest of U.S. catch-all. The list is almost entirely counties, with independent cities where a state has them and three named duty stations at Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst.
The areas are wildly uneven. Atlanta reaches 64 counties across two states. Washington- Baltimore-Arlington covers 55 places across five states and DC. At the other end, San Diego is a single county, and Palm Bay-Melbourne-Titusville is one county in Florida.
The six largest 2026 locality pay areas by number of named counties and places
Locality pay area
Places
2026 rate
Atlanta--Athens-Clarke County--Sandy Springs, GA-AL
64
23.79%
Washington-Baltimore-Arlington, DC-MD-VA-WV-PA
55
33.94%
New York-Newark, NY-NJ-CT-PA
40
37.95%
Minneapolis-St. Paul, MN-WI
36
27.62%
Indianapolis-Carmel-Muncie, IN
34
18.15%
Kansas City-Overland Park-Kansas City, MO-KS
33
18.97%
FedTools count of the OPM 2026 Locality Pay Area Definitions, computed October 3, 2026. Percentages from the OPM 2026 salary tables.
Eight states are entirely Rest of U.S.
For 2026, OPM names no county at all in Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Utah, or Wyoming. Every federal duty station in those eight states is paid at the Rest of U.S. rate of 17.06 percent. If you work in one of them, the finder says so outright rather than making you scroll a list.
Rest of U.S. is not a leftover category. OPM defines it as the portions of the United States and its territories and possessions, excluding foreign areas, not located within another locality pay area, and it has its own pay table. Puerto Rico, Guam, and the other non-foreign areas outside Alaska and Hawaii sit inside it under 5 CFR 591.205.
Why the county line is worth thousands
At GS-12 step 1 the 2026 base rate is $76,463. In Rest of U.S. that becomes $89,508. In the Washington-Baltimore-Arlington area it is $102,415, a difference of $12,907 for identical work. In San Jose-San Francisco-Oakland, the highest area in the country at 46.34 percent, it is $111,896, or $22,388 above Rest of U.S.
That gap is why a duty-station change, a telework agreement that moves your official worksite, or a reassignment across one county line can move your salary by more than a promotion would. It also feeds into your high-3 average and your FERS annuity, because locality pay is basic pay for retirement purposes. And it sets the GS-10 step 1 figure that caps your title 5 overtime rate.
One warning worth repeating: GSA per diem localities and OPM locality pay areas are different geographies. A city can be its own per diem locality while its county sits inside a much larger pay area. Do not use the per diem lookup to answer a locality pay question.
Frequently asked questions
Locality pay follows your official duty station, not your home address. Pick the state your worksite is in, then the county, parish, or independent city. The 2026 definitions name 925 places across 57 separate locality pay areas. If your county is not on OPM’s list, your duty station is in the Rest of U.S. area at 17.06 percent.
Fifty-eight, counting Rest of U.S. There are 57 separate areas plus the Rest of U.S. catch-all. OPM says the 2026 geographic definitions are the same as 2025. The highest payment is San Jose-San Francisco-Oakland, CA at 46.34 percent and the lowest is Rest of U.S. at 17.06 percent.
Eight. For 2026 OPM names no county in Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Utah, or Wyoming, so every federal duty station in those states is paid at the Rest of U.S. rate. Every other state and the District of Columbia has at least one county inside a separate area.
OPM defines it as "those portions of the United States and its territories and possessions (nonforeign areas), not located within another locality pay area." For 2026 it pays 17.06 percent on top of base pay. Puerto Rico, Guam, and the other non-foreign areas outside Alaska and Hawaii sit inside Rest of U.S. under 5 CFR 591.205.
Yes. OPM uses state codes rather than county codes for both. Alaska pays 32.36 percent and Hawaii pays 22.21 percent for 2026. Section 1911 of the Non-Foreign Area Retirement Equity Assurance Act of 2009 phased locality pay into the non-foreign areas, and Alaska and Hawaii came out as separate areas with their own pay tables.
Locality pay areas are built from metropolitan statistical areas plus areas of application, so they reach well past the city they are named for. The Atlanta area covers 64 counties across Georgia and Alabama. The Washington-Baltimore-Arlington area covers 55 places across DC, Maryland, Virginia, West Virginia, and Pennsylvania. The county, not the city, is the deciding unit.
At GS-12 step 1 in 2026, base pay is $76,463. Rest of U.S. pays $89,508. The Washington-Baltimore-Arlington area pays $102,415, which is $12,907 more for identical work. San Jose-San Francisco-Oakland pays $111,896, or $22,388 more than Rest of U.S. That gap is why a duty station change across a county line matters so much.
The county list is built from OPM’s 2026 Locality Pay Area Definitions page, which OPM says is consistent with 5 CFR 531.603 and is the authoritative definition for the year. The percentages come from the same 2026 OPM salary tables that drive the FedTools GS Pay Calculator, so the two tools can never disagree. Five percentages were recomputed directly from OPM tables on October 3, 2026 as a check.