Executive Order 14368, signed on December 18, 2025, is the administration's annual government-wide pay-setting order, formalizing 2026 compensation tables for federal civilian employees, military personnel, senior executives, elected officials, and judges across all three branches of government. It supersedes the prior year's equivalent order (Executive Order 14132, issued December 23, 2024) and largely codifies pay decisions rather than introducing a new compensation policy framework. The order exercises presidential authority under Title 5 and Title 37 of the U.S. Code to implement a general statutory civilian pay adjustment reflected in the attached schedules—though the order text itself does not state the government-wide civilian increase percentage explicitly—affecting hundreds of thousands of federal workers and officeholders. Senior decision-makers should note that, absent the law enforcement carve-out discussed below, this order represents a broad-based annual adjustment rather than a targeted compensation reform.
The order establishes pay rates across ten schedules: Schedule 1 (General Schedule civilian employees), Schedule 2 (Foreign Service), Schedule 3 (Veterans Health Administration), Schedule 4 (Senior Executive Service ranges), Schedules 5–7 (Executive Schedule leadership, the Vice President and Congress, and federal judges and justices), Schedule 8 (uniformed military and cadets), Schedule 9 (locality-based comparability payments adjusting salaries for regional cost-of-living differences), and Schedule 10 (administrative law judges). The only explicit numerical policy signal in the order is a provision directing the Director of the Office of Personnel Management to assess whether to provide a total pay increase of up to 3.8 percent—inclusive of the general statutory adjustment—for certain federal civilian law enforcement personnel.
That law enforcement provision is the order's sole notable discretionary element and warrants executive attention. It creates a potential exception to the otherwise uniform annual adjustment, signaling possible targeted pay differentiation aimed at recruitment and retention in hard-to-staff public safety roles. This distinction carries implications for workforce equity across occupational categories, agency budget planning, and labor relations, as some agencies may face downstream pressure to absorb higher compensation costs for law enforcement personnel. Implementation responsibility rests with the OPM Director, who must coordinate with agencies, conduct the assessment consistent with 5 U.S.C. 5305, and publish required notices in the Federal Register. Military pay under Schedule 8 takes effect January 1, 2026; all other schedules are effective the first day of the first applicable pay period beginning on or after that date.