Most civilian federal employees will see a 1% pay increase in 2026, according to a pay plan the White House quietly transmitted to Congress, with one big exception: Law enforcement officers will see bigger raises, though it’s not yet clear exactly which ones.

For the majority of workers, the annual increase is the smallest it’s been since 2021, when President Trump also directed a 1% increase during his last year in office. Presidents are required to submit an “alternative pay plan” by Sept. 1 of each year in order to keep larger formulaic raises from taking effect the following year under the Federal Employee Pay Comparability Act (FEPCA).

However, a yet-to-be-determined number of federal law enforcement officers will get a 3.8% raise next year, in line with the increase military members will receive in 2026.

In the same message to Congress, the president said the law enforcement raise is meant “to increase recruitment and retention in critical law enforcement roles and to ensure our great Federal law enforcement officers are treated fairly.”

But it will be up to federal agencies and the Office of Personnel Management to determine which employees will be eligible for the larger law enforcement raise. Starting on Tuesday, OPM will begin consulting with agencies to identify “categories” of law enforcement personnel who will receive it.

Prior to 2021, the last time feds received a raise of 1% or lower was 2015, the final year of what had been a multi-year drought in civilian employee increases. More recently, most white collar workers received raises of 2.7% in 2022, 4.6% in 2023, 5.2% in 2024, and 2% in 2025.

Under FEPCA, federal workers under the General Schedule are supposed to receive annual increases in line with private sector wages, as measured by the Employment Cost Index. But presidents of both parties have made it an annual practice to depart from that formula and use alternative pay plans to set their own increases instead. Those increases have consistently lagged behind private sector averages.

And since the statutory formula, which also considers locality pay, has been sidelined for so many years, allowing it to take effect in 2026 would have resulted in an average locality pay increase of 18.88%, plus a 3.3% across-the-board raise for all General Schedule workers.

“We must maintain efforts to put our nation on a fiscally sustainable course; federal agency budgets cannot sustain such irresponsible increases,” Trump wrote in the pay message. “Federal employee pay must be based on merit and practical skill and aligned with the budget and my administration’s goals of streamlining the federal workforce and reducing federal spending. My alternative pay plan will further my administration’s efforts to create an excellent and efficient federal workforce of the highest caliber while maintaining fiscal responsibility.”