Holidays and bank days
Federal pay calendar 2026: the pay periods left
Independent site, not OPM or a federal payroll office. Official pay dates are those your payroll provider publishes.
The calendar opens on the use-or-lose date: pick any date to see its pay period, or switch to the 2027 leave year.
Leave year 2026: January 11, 2026 to January 9, 2027
26 pay periods
Use-or-lose annual leave must be scheduled by Saturday, November 28, 2026.
- PP 01: Jan 11 to Jan 24
- PP 02: Jan 25 to Feb 7
- PP 03: Feb 8 to Feb 21
- PP 04: Feb 22 to Mar 7
- PP 05: Mar 8 to Mar 21
- PP 06: Mar 22 to Apr 4
- PP 07: Apr 5 to Apr 18
- PP 08: Apr 19 to May 2
- PP 09: May 3 to May 16
- PP 10: May 17 to May 30
- PP 11: May 31 to Jun 13
- PP 12: Jun 14 to Jun 27
- PP 13: Jun 28 to Jul 11
- PP 14: Jul 12 to Jul 25
- PP 15: Jul 26 to Aug 8
- PP 16: Aug 9 to Aug 22
- PP 17: Aug 23 to Sep 5
- PP 18: Sep 6 to Sep 19
- PP 19: Sep 20 to Oct 3
- PP 20: Oct 4 to Oct 17
- PP 21: Oct 18 to Oct 31
- PP 22: Nov 1 to Nov 14
- PP 23: Nov 15 to Nov 28
- PP 24: Nov 29 to Dec 12
- PP 25: Dec 13 to Dec 26
- PP 26: Dec 27 to Jan 9
Sunday to Saturday, two weeks each. Your payday follows each period by the delay your payroll provider publishes. Everything you enter stays in this browser: nothing is sent or stored.
Leave year 2026 for federal employees started on Sunday, January 11, 2026 and ends on Saturday, January 9, 2027, according to the OPM leave year table. It holds 26 biweekly pay periods, each from a Sunday to the second Saturday after it. On October 28, 2026, the date these pages were last checked, the current period was number 21, from October 18 to October 31, which leaves 5 full periods after it. The most pressing date of the fall is Saturday, November 28, 2026: annual leave above the carryover ceiling must be scheduled in writing by then to be restorable if it cannot be used. Holidays left in the leave year are Veterans Day on Wednesday, November 11, 2026, Thanksgiving on Thursday, November 26, Christmas on Friday, December 25 and New Year’s Day on Friday, January 1, 2027. Paydays are set by each agency’s payroll provider.
Federal leave year at a glance
Pay periods in leave year 2026
26
| Starts | Sunday, January 11, 2026 |
| Ends | Saturday, January 9, 2027 |
| Pay period 1 | Sunday, January 11 to Saturday, January 24 |
| Schedule annual leave by | Saturday, November 28, 2026 |
From the OPM leave year table; pay dates themselves are set by each payroll provider.
Holiday rules and pay calendars read by Radif Partners · Editorial policy · Method
Pay periods from late October 2026
The table starts with the pay period that was running when these dates were last checked and lists every one to the end of the leave year, with the federal holidays inside each, from OPM’s holiday table. The tool at the top shows all 26 periods; the National Finance Center 2026 calendar has the same periods for the agencies it pays.
| Period | Dates | Holidays |
|---|---|---|
| PP 21 | October 18 to October 31, 2026 | |
| PP 22 | November 1 to November 14, 2026 | Veterans Day |
| PP 23 | November 15 to November 28, 2026 | Thanksgiving Day |
| PP 24 | November 29 to December 12, 2026 | |
| PP 25 | December 13 to December 26, 2026 | Christmas Day |
| PP 26 | December 27 to January 9, 2027 | New Year’s Day |
Before the use-or-lose date
The use-or-lose date is the day before the third pay period from the end of the leave year begins: Saturday, November 28, 2026 for 2026. Annual leave in excess of the maximum carryover, 240 hours for most employees in the United States, is lost at the end of the leave year. It can be restored only if it was scheduled in writing before that date and then cancelled for an exigency of the public business, illness or administrative error. A practical planning step is to count the hours you can still take: with 3 pay periods left after that date, the leave you schedule later is not protected.
The mini tool below gives the same dates for the following leave years, so you can plan 2027 ahead.
Federal leave year at a glance
Pay periods in leave year 2027
26
| Starts | Sunday, January 10, 2027 |
| Ends | Saturday, January 8, 2028 |
| Pay period 1 | Sunday, January 10 to Saturday, January 23 |
| Schedule annual leave by | Saturday, November 27, 2027 |
From the OPM leave year table; pay dates themselves are set by each payroll provider.
Pay dates are set by your provider
Federal employees are paid by one of a few payroll providers, each with its own calendar of pay dates, usually a few business days after the pay period closes. This page therefore lists periods, not paydays. When a federal holiday falls in the week after a period ends, the payday may shift; the provider’s calendar says by how much. Retirees and annuitants follow a monthly calendar of their own and are not concerned by pay periods.
Reading a pay period number
Pay period numbers restart at 1 every leave year, so “PP 21” means nothing without the year. Earnings statements, timecards and leave balances all carry the period number and the leave year together, and the period ending date is the easiest way to match them. Because a leave year starts in the second week of January, the first days of January belong to the last pay period of the previous leave year: hours worked on January 4 are recorded in pay period 26 of leave year 2026. The tool at the top answers the question for any date between 2023 and 2030; type the date of a holiday, a training course or the first day of a leave request to see the period it falls in.
Leave is also earned by full pay period, so the number of periods left in the leave year sets how much more annual and sick leave can still be added to your balance before the year closes and the carryover ceiling is applied.
The year after
Leave year 2027 starts on Sunday, January 10, 2027 and has 26 periods, with its use-or-lose date on Saturday, November 27, 2027. The federal pay calendar 2027 lists them and the holidays that fall in each. For private-sector biweekly schedules, the payroll calendar 2026 works from your own first payday.