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State of Hawaii

2026 editionEffective January 202658 locality pay areasData last changed 2026-08-25

State of Hawaii GS pay scale, 2026

Every General Schedule rate for this locality pay area, what the 22.21% adjustment is actually worth once local prices are counted, and which cells stop growing because they hit the statutory ceiling.

How the number is assembled

Base rate before locality: $86,659
Locality pay, 22.21%: + $19,247
Annual rate: $105,906

Biweekly is the hourly rate times 80, the way OPM derives it — not the annual rate divided by 26.

Paid #27, 56th in what it buys

−29Places lost once local prices are counted, out of 57 areas with published price data.

What it actually buys

$96,321at average U.S. prices, from a salary of $105,906. Local price level 110.0 against a national average of 100.

Ceiling watch

1 of 150cells are pinned to the $197,200 statutory ceiling. Inside that band a step increase adds nothing.

Every 2026 rate in State of Hawaii

All 150 cells, read from the published OPM table. Click any cell and the bar at the top of the page moves onto it — or use the arrow keys once a cell is selected.

Annual rates in U.S. dollars, read cell by cell from the published OPM table rather than calculated. The cell marked ◀ is GS-12 step 5, the one quoted at the top of this page. Cells marked ▲ have been cut down to the statutory ceiling of $197,200 — the printed number is lower than the formula would give.

Grade	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
GS-1	27,600	28,525	29,443	30,357	31,272	31,809	32,717	33,631	33,669	34,522
GS-2	31,033	31,771	32,800	33,669	34,045	35,046	36,047	37,048	38,049	39,050
GS-3	33,862	34,991	36,120	37,250	38,379	39,508	40,637	41,766	42,896	44,025
GS-4	38,011	39,278	40,546	41,813	43,080	44,348	45,615	46,882	48,150	49,417
GS-5	42,528	43,945	45,363	46,781	48,198	49,616	51,034	52,451	53,869	55,287
GS-6	47,406	48,987	50,567	52,147	53,727	55,307	56,888	58,468	60,048	61,628
GS-7	52,680	54,436	56,192	57,948	59,704	61,461	63,217	64,973	66,729	68,485
GS-8	58,341	60,285	62,229	64,174	66,118	68,062	70,007	71,951	73,895	75,840
GS-9	64,438	66,586	68,735	70,883	73,031	75,180	77,328	79,477	81,625	83,774
GS-10	70,960	73,325	75,690	78,054	80,419	82,784	85,149	87,513	89,878	92,243
GS-11	77,964	80,563	83,163	85,762	88,361	90,961	93,560	96,160	98,759	101,359
GS-12	93,445	96,561	99,676	102,791	105,906	109,021	112,136	115,251	118,366	121,482
GS-13	111,119	114,824	118,528	122,232	125,936	129,640	133,345	137,049	140,753	144,457
GS-14	131,310	135,687	140,065	144,442	148,820	153,198	157,575	161,953	166,330	170,708
GS-15	154,454	159,603	164,751	169,900	175,049	180,197	185,346	190,495	195,644	197,200

Source: OPM 2026 General Schedule salary tables. Every cell on this page was independently recomputed from the base table and the locality percentage and matched the published figure to the dollar.

Is that a lot? Not until you count local prices

Read this before the number. Locality pay is calculated from what private employers in the same region pay for comparable work. It is not a cost-of-living adjustment, and OPM says so in as many words. Here the distinction matters a great deal. The area ranks #27 by the number on the paycheck and only #56 once local prices are counted — a 22.21% adjustment that a high cost base takes back.

Exhibit 1 · nobody else publishes this

GS-12 step 5, after local prices

Each bar is the 2026 salary divided by that area's price level, so the bars are comparable in what they actually buy. Longer is better. Price levels are BEA Regional Price Parities for 2024, where the U.S. average is 100.

Laredo, TX$121,175
Huntsville-Decatur, AL-TN$121,137
Houston-The Woodlands, TX$118,616
St. Louis-St. Charles-Farmington, MO-IL$118,596
Columbus-Marion-Zanesville, OH$118,543
Davenport-Moline, IA-IL$115,700
Atlanta--Athens-Clarke County--Sandy Springs, GA-AL$114,926
Dayton-Springfield-Kettering, OH$113,514
State of Hawaii$96,321

Highest on paper: San Jose-San Francisco-Oakland, CA at $126,817. Highest in what it buys: Laredo, TX at $121,175 of purchasing power from a salary of $105,369. Sources: OPM 2026 salary tables; BEA Regional Price Parities 2024. Price data lags the pay tables, and metropolitan boundaries do not match locality boundaries exactly — the nearest metropolitan area is used as the proxy.

Where raises stop being raises

In this locality 1 of the 150 cells are pinned to the $197,200 ceiling. Inside that band a step increase is worth nothing at all: the formula produces a bigger number, the law cuts it back, and the payslip does not move.

GS-15

Step 10

Hits the ceiling here. Only the top step is affected.

This matters most when comparing job offers. Two identical grades in two localities can look like a clear win on paper while the higher-paid one has already run out of room to grow.

What is next to it

Fresno-Madera-Hanford, CA pays $3,952 less on paper than this locality and still leaves you better off once prices are counted. There are 30 such areas above this one.

These are the localities immediately around this one once local prices are taken into account. The middle column is the price level, where 100 is the national average — lower is cheaper. Prices are shown to one decimal place; the adjusted figures are computed from the published index, which carries three.

#	Locality	On paper	Prices	What it buys
53	Spokane-Spokane Valley-Coeur d'Alene, WA-ID	$101,972	100.3	$101,620
54	Reno-Fernley, NV	$101,842	101.0	$100,820
55	Fresno-Madera-Hanford, CA	$101,954	102.2	$99,800
56	State of Hawaii	$105,906	110.0	$96,321
57	Miami-Port St. Lucie-Fort Lauderdale, FL	$108,038	114.2	$94,641

Which cities does this cover?

All of them. This locality pay area is the whole state of Hawaii: Hawaii City limits and county lines make no difference to the percentage, and a duty station anywhere in the state is paid from the same table.

Am I actually in this locality?

Locality is decided by your duty station — the place you physically report to — not by where you live and not by where your agency is headquartered. If you report to a building in one county and live in the next one over, the building decides your pay. Telework arrangements have their own rules and can change which locality applies, so confirm with your HR office rather than assuming.

This locality is defined by exclusion: every duty station in the United States that does not fall inside one of the 57 named metropolitan areas is paid at this rate. It is the floor of the system and the lowest adjustment there is.

How the number is built

Every General Schedule grade has ten steps. The base rate comes from the nationwide table, and the locality percentage is applied on top of it. For State of Hawaii in 2026 that percentage is 22.21%, which turns a base rate of $86,659 into $105,906 at GS-12 step 5.

No General Schedule rate may exceed Level IV of the Executive Schedule, $197,200 in 2026. Because this locality pays 22.21% over base, that ceiling is reached inside the published table: 1 of the 150 cells here are printed at the cap rather than at what the formula produces.

Steps are not evenly spaced, which catches out anyone trying to extrapolate from the first one. In the 2026 base table the gap between step 8 and step 9 of GS-1 is $46, while the gap between step 1 and step 2 is over $1,100. Every figure on this page is therefore read from the published table rather than derived from a formula.

Work out a different grade and step

GS-12, step 5 in State of Hawaii

$105,906

Of the 57 areas with a published price level: #27 on the payslip, #56 once local prices are counted.

Grade

Step

Starting your first federal job? A first appointment is set at step 1 of the grade unless the agency uses the superior qualifications authority (5 U.S.C. 5333; 5 CFR 531.212). The step above defaults to 5, the middle of the grade, because that is the cell this site ranks every area by.

Rates are recomputed from the published base table and this area's percentage, in the order the law sets: percentage first, rounding second, statutory ceiling last.