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2026 editionEffective January 202658 locality pay areasData last changed 2026-08-25
South Carolina GS pay scale, 2026
One locality pay area covers the federal jobs in South Carolina, at 19.67% above the nationwide base table. What that is actually worth once local prices are counted is a different question, and this page answers it.
Locality pay areas
1covering federal duty stations in South Carolina.Locality adjustment
19.67%on top of the nationwide base table, for every grade and step.What it buys
$106,530at average U.S. prices, from a salary of $103,705.Against Rest of U.S.
+$2,262is what the best-paid area in South Carolina adds over the $101,443 paid outside every named area.Which areas cover South Carolina, and what each pays
Rates are GS-12 step 5 in 2026. The last column is how many counties of this state each area covers.
| Locality pay area | Locality pay | On paper | Prices | What it buys | Counties here |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Charlotte-Concord, NC-SC | 19.67% | $103,705 | 97.3 | $106,530 | 4 |
Every grade at step 5 in South Carolina
Annual rates in U.S. dollars. Cells marked ▲ have been cut to the $197,200 statutory ceiling.
| Grade | Charlotte-Concord |
|---|---|
| GS-1 | 30,622 |
| GS-2 | 33,338 |
| GS-3 | 37,581 |
| GS-4 | 42,185 |
| GS-5 | 47,197 |
| GS-6 | 52,611 |
| GS-7 | 58,464 |
| GS-8 | 64,744 |
| GS-9 | 71,514 |
| GS-10 | 78,748 |
| GS-11 | 86,525 |
| GS-12 | 103,705 |
| GS-13 | 123,319 |
| GS-14 | 145,727 |
| GS-15 | 171,411 |
Each area has its own full table of 150 rates; follow the links above. To put your own grade and step against any of them, use the pay calculator, which will also find your area from a ZIP code.
Which one applies to you?
Your duty station decides it — the place you physically report to, not where you live and not where your agency is headquartered.
Locality pay areas are defined as lists of counties, and county lines rarely follow anything a person would notice. A house on one side of a line and an office on the other are paid by the office. Telework arrangements have their own rules and can change which area applies, so confirm with your servicing human resources office rather than assuming.
A few military installations are assigned by OPM to a different area than the county around them: the base gate can be a pay boundary. Each area page lists its counties in full.
One area, one rate, the whole state
South Carolina sits inside a single locality pay area, so a federal job anywhere in the state is paid from exactly the same table.
That area is Charlotte-Concord, NC-SC, at 19.67% above the nationwide base. Against the $101,443 paid outside every named area, that is $2,262 more on a GS-12 step 5 — about 2% more — and it applies as much to a small office as to the largest facility in the state.
Nationally the area ranks #38 of 57 by the size of the paycheck and #35 once local prices are counted. Those two numbers being different is the whole subject of this site: locality pay is set from what private employers in the region pay for comparable work, not from what living there costs, and the two do not move together reliably.
The practical consequence: inside South Carolina, where you work does not change your federal pay. Crossing out of the state can change it a great deal, and the calculator will tell you by how much for any grade and step.
Cities named in the South Carolina pay areas
OPM names each area after its principal cities. These are the ones that appear in the areas covering South Carolina.
- Charlotte
- Concord
The list is a label rather than a boundary. An area reaches well past the city limits of the places it is named after, and plenty of towns nobody would associate with any of them are paid at the same rate. What decides it is the county.
Some of these cities are not in South Carolina at all: an area named after a city in a neighboring state can still reach across the line and cover counties here. That is the point of the whole system — pay follows labor markets, and labor markets ignore state borders.
How South Carolina sits against the rest of the country
Of the 58 locality pay areas in the General Schedule, 37 pay more at GS-12 step 5 than the best-paid area in South Carolina.
The areas covering this state account for 4 named counties of the 920 that OPM lists across the whole system. Every county not on one of those lists falls into Rest of U.S., which is why a state can contain both a named area and large stretches paid at the floor rate.
Comparing states directly is less useful than it looks. Areas cross state lines: several reach into three or more states at once, and an employee moving between two of those states inside the same area sees no change in pay whatsoever. The unit of the system is the area, not the state, and the national ranking is the honest way to read it.
What a state page is good for is the question that brings people here: if a federal job in this state comes up, what is it likely to pay, and how much does the answer depend on exactly where the building is. For South Carolina the answer is above.
Where else these areas reach
Locality pay areas are lists of counties, and county lists ignore state borders entirely.
- Charlotte-Concord, NC-SC covers 4 counties in South Carolina and also reaches into North Carolina. A federal employee moving between those states inside this area sees no change in pay at all.
This is the part that surprises people transferring. A state line looks like a boundary and usually is one for tax, licensing and a dozen other things. For federal locality pay it is nothing: what matters is whether the county your duty station sits in appears on the list, and lists routinely span several states.
It also means the cost of living on either side of such a border can differ while the pay does not — which is one more reason the figure worth watching is not the salary but what the salary buys.