Yellow Jacket InitiativeBy E. Lawrence Anderson, Yellow Jacket Initiative
On Monday, October 19, the Office of Personnel Management published a final rule that removes the "time-in-grade" requirement for General Schedule promotions. The rule takes effect Tuesday, January 19, 2027.
What the text does. Under the regulation being removed (5 CFR part 300, subpart F), an employee generally could not be promoted to a competitive-service GS position at GS-6 or above until he or she had served 52 weeks in a position no more than one grade lower, or two grades lower for jobs in two-grade-interval lines of work. The final rule deletes that requirement. It also removes OPM's approval of training agreements that allow faster consecutive promotions, and the related limit of no more than two such promotions in any 52-week period.
OPM states what the rule does not change. Employees must still meet OPM qualification standards and any job-related requirements their agency sets. The rule "does not create an entitlement to promotion," and the merit promotion requirements in 5 CFR part 335 "remain fully in force." Agencies may keep their own job-related minimum service requirements if they set them out in their written merit promotion plans.
The rule was proposed May 28, 2026 (91 FR 31669) and finalized substantially as proposed. OPM designated it a "significant regulatory action" reviewed by the Office of Management and Budget, and an Executive Order 14192 deregulatory action.
The case for the change, in OPM's words. Time-in-grade began as the Whitten Amendment, a section of an appropriations act enacted September 27, 1950, during the Korean conflict. That statute expired on September 14, 1978; the requirement continued in OPM's regulations. OPM's position is that a calendar is a poor stand-in for qualification. The governmentwide qualification standards and merit promotion rules it relies on now, OPM writes, "did not exist in 1950," and qualification should be "shown directly rather than inferred from the passage of time." One commenter argued that the abuses that prompted the Whitten Amendment could return. OPM disagreed. Of the 75 comments OPM received, 41 supported ending the requirement.
The link OPM draws to ratings. Commenters asked how supervisors would judge readiness for promotion once OPM applies a standardized distribution of performance ratings. OPM's answer ties this rule to its July 7 performance-appraisal rule (91 FR 41521, effective August 6), which removed the prohibition on forced distribution of ratings.
- OPM quotes that rule's text: ranking procedures "may also be used, where otherwise authorized by law and regulation, to inform award determinations and promotion decisions" (5 CFR 430.208(d)).
- It says the two rules "are therefore complementary rather than in tension": this rule removes "a calendar-based barrier," while the appraisal rule "improves the quality of the performance information that agencies use."
- Under the new ratings regime, OPM writes, a rating of record "will accordingly carry information about relative performance," and a supervisor recommending someone for higher-graded work "will be able to point to" it.
- OPM also states a limit: "nothing in this rule makes a rating of record either necessary or sufficient for promotion."
This is the agency's own account of how its rules fit together. Earlier OPM preambles linked the appraisal rule to its reduction-in-force and accountability rules. This preamble adds promotion to that list, in OPM's words. The same week, OPM extended the rating-distribution authority to senior scientists and experts (The Rating Curve Moves Up a Grade).
What OPM declined. Commenters asked for governmentwide documentation rules, review boards, or reporting on accelerated promotions. OPM declined to add any of them here, saying a change of that kind to the promotion process belongs in a separate rulemaking under part 335.
Two points in the text.
- The comment count. The preamble gives the breakdown twice, and the two differ. In one place: 75 comments, of which 41 supported, 22 proposed conditions and 11 opposed (74 in all). In another: 41 supported, 12 opposed and 23 proposed conditions (76 in all). The preamble also says its category counts "sum to the 75 comments received." Both breakdowns are stated here; we do not choose between them.
- The effective date. The rule describes its effective date as "90 days after publication." January 19, 2027 is 92 days after October 19, 2026. The date the rule states is January 19.
What is not established. How agencies will use ratings in promotion decisions is not yet known; the rule does not require it. Press coverage of the rule was not reviewed for this note.
Sources: OPM, Elimination of Time-in-Grade, final rule, 91 FR 65887 (Oct. 19, 2026), FR Doc 2026-21319, RIN 3206-AP05, Docket OPM-2026-0067: https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-2026-10-19/pdf/2026-21319.pdf. Proposed rule: 91 FR 31669 (May 28, 2026). Appraisal rule: 91 FR 41521 (July 7, 2026), RIN 3206-AP06. Rule re-read October 23, 2026; the Federal Register listed no correction to it as of that date.
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