How Much Do Us Foreign Service Officers Get Paid?

The Foreign Service Officer salary is dynamic and ever-changing. Along with your promotion, each assignment can bring with information technology different danger pay, hardship pay, and price-of-living adjustments that affect what yous have domicile.

Depending on international geopolitics, the forcefulness of domestic and national currencies, and the size of your family unit, to proper noun a few, your salary can rising or pass up between posts.

With this resource and the use of interactive maps, this FSO Salary Guide serves equally a comprehensive introduction to how your income is determined, and the three master modifiers that affect information technology between posts.

Updated January 2020

FSO Salary Ladder

Every organization has a arrangement in place to rail seniority, the Foreign Service is no different.

In guild to sympathize this guide, you must outset larn the foundation before adding layers to it. Let'southward dive in…

You are a make new Strange Service Officer. Subsequently over a year of going through the application procedure (test, essays, orals, clearances, and the Register), yous finally received an offering to join the State Section.

Congratulations!

Among one of the many thoughts running through your mind, you lot may begin to call up about salary. Just how much will I brand?

The Strange Service allocates salaries based on a 'ladder' system fabricated up of grades and steps.

As an incoming entry-level FSO, you are eligible for i of 3 grades

FP-4
FP-5
FP-six

FP-four is the highest (most senior) of the 3 grades.

Inside each course, there are 14 steps. Step ane is the lowest step of each grade and step 14 is the highest.

In short, the lower the grade number the more than senior you lot are. The college the step number, the more senior you are within that course. Your salary follows this progression as well: inside a course, the higher the stride and then the higher your salary.

In table form, information technology looks like this:

As yous progress in your career with the Foreign Service, your promotions will follow "upwards" this ladder.

Takeaway 1: FP-iv is the highest of three entry-level FSO grades (4, v, or 6).

Takeaway 2: Within each course, in that location are 14 steps. Step ane is the everyman stride of each grade and step 14 is the highest – the higher the footstep, the more senior within that grade.

Determining FSO entry grade and step

Now that you know the basics, let's determine the form and footstep you could enter as a brand new Foreign Service Officer.

This is the biggest and most important affiliate, then pay extra shut attending!

The Department of State's Bureau of Man Resource, Office of Recruitment, Examination, and Employment determines entry-level FSO's class and step in two parts. These parts accept into account the level of education attained, your qualifying experience, and your salary prior to joining the Foreign Service.

Role 1: Education and "Qualifying Experience"

The first part is determined past combining the level of educational activity you accept achieved and the number of full years of Qualifying Feel (QE) you take attained. The paradigm below, by the Section of Land, shows how unlike combinations bear on your grade and stride.

The level of education achieved is straightforward, the degree you take in hand. But how is QE determined? The definition of QE is constitute at the Agency of Man Resources, and the bulk of it follows:

The employee's primary duty must be, or must have been, the functioning of work requiring advanced knowledge, defined as work which is predominantly intellectual in character and which includes work requiring the consistent exercise of discretion and judgment. Advanced noesis must be in a field of science or learning customarily acquired by a prolonged course of specialized intellectual instruction.

Each year of QE is equal to 1 additional step.

If yous do not have a full twelvemonth of professional feel, your QE rounds down. For case, 2.5 years of feel is considered 2 years of QE.

However, if the addition of QE would put you lot at a step higher than 14, your step is fourteen, you do non motility to the next grade.

In order to all-time illustrate a salary from now on in this guide, we will need the assist of Sarah, the newest fellow member of the FSO family.

Sarah is in her early on thirties, works every bit a consultant making $69,000, is single, has no children, earned her Master'south degree, and has two years of QE.

Let'southward determine what her class and step are!

Commencement, teaching. With a Main's Degree, Sarah will either enter as a class 4 or 5.

2d, QE. With two years of QE, Sarah falls in the 0-v 'full years of QE' row and cavalcade.

Putting it all together, Sarah attains the grade FP-5. To determine her step, we merely need to add her two years of QE to the minimum step in the range (i.e. v).

Sarah's grade and step are thus FP-5/Step-7.

Accept a moment and look at the image above to become an idea of what your form/step may be if you were to enter the Foreign Service today.

Takeaway 3: Entry-level FSO grade and stride are determined by combining education accomplished and years of QE attained.

Function two: Attempt to match bacon

One time grade and step are calculated, the Agency of Human Resources' next attempts to friction match your current bacon.

Once the candidate'southward grade and step are adamant based on pedagogy and qualifying experience, the Registrar will review the candidate's "electric current salary" to run across if it is higher than the candidate's projected bacon as provided in the Foreign Service "Overseas" Salary Tabular array. If so, the candidate's starting salary will be raised to the step in the grade for which he/she is qualified that is closest to, simply non less than, their electric current salary. If the electric current salary is too high to be matched in the Strange Service form for which the candidate is qualified, step xiv of that form is the starting salary.

And then what does this hateful?

If your initial grade and step result in a loss of salary, you lot will advance inside a form until you reach a step that corresponds slightly higher than your current bacon.

Nevertheless, if your current bacon is college than the stride fourteen salary within the grade yous were assigned, you will be assigned to step xiv. One does not advance to the next highest grade.

If you think about it, that'due south really absurd on the Land Section to brand this adjustment.

To help explain this farther, permit'south take a expect at Sarah over again, who currently makes $69,000, and decide how this may impact her salary.

For farther illustration, below is the 2020 Foreign Service Bacon Tabular array Base Schedule, effective January 5, 2020.

From the steps we completed in a higher place, nosotros know Sarah's grade and footstep are FP-5/Stride-7.

Knowing this, we can determine her base bacon: $56,297. You tin can come across this past looking at the below table (ruby-red highlighted box).

But wait! Sarah's current salary is $69,000. Working as an FSO would mean a loss of $13,000. Fortunately, DOS matches salary and her footstep should exist raised to step 14 within FP-5…correct?

Wrong.

Let's review the above quote over again:

The Registrar will review the candidate'southward "electric current salary" to run across if it is higher than the candidate's projected salary as provided in the Foreign Service "Overseas" Salary Table.

That'south right, we need to look at the "Overseas" tabular array, which is below and has been highlighted at Sarah's current footstep and grade.

Taking into account Overseas Comparability Pay, at FP-5/Step-7, Sarah'southward salary would be $67,737.

This is however lower than her current $69,000 salary. As such, nosotros need to decide the next step within the grade that has the closest highest salary, which is…?

The very next step! Step 8 has a salary of $69,769.

This means that Sarah'due south new entry-level class and pace are FP-five/Footstep-8.

Go ahead and determine how salary matching affects y'all!

Takeaway 4: The Bureau of Human Resources will try to match your current bacon by increasing your step level, up to footstep 14, within your assigned course.

PART 3: Promotions

Once you're in the system, you may wonder about the general process of moving betwixt grades and steps, a.chiliad.a. being promoted.

Offset, promotions are considered one time a year and are based on the needs of the Land Department, your operation, and your potential.

In that location is an exception to this, and that is if y'all enter the Foreign Service as an FP-4/Step-14, you will not be eligible for a promotion (class or pace) until afterward yous are tenured (the first tenure review is after 36 months). This does not mean you may not receive a salary increase within those three years.

Second, for promotion between grades, it is not a requirement to exist at pace 14 to advance to the adjacent grade.

Tertiary, when you are promoted between grades y'all are not promoted to the same step level y'all currently concur. For example, property all other things equal, if Sarah is promoted a course from FP-5/Step-8, she would not be promoted to FP-4/Step-8.

Instead, when you go up a grade your step level is establish by finding the step that matches your electric current salary the closest and so going up two steps or 6%, whichever is greater (Promotion of Foreign Service Members in FAH).

For Sarah, within the next grade, the step that closely matches her current Grade/Pace is FP-four/Stride-1 (Base salary at FP-5/Step-8 is $57,986, base of operations bacon at FP-4/Step-1 is $58,186.

The following table helps illustrate this move:

We must and then compare our two options, and choose the greater of the 2: (ane) go upwards ii steps or (two) half dozen%.

A 6% raise is $61,677.

A ii Step increase (FP-4/Step iii) is $61,730.

The two Step increase is greater, and Sarah would exist promoted to FP-four/Step 3.

Takeaway five: Promotions are considered in one case a yr.

Takeaway half-dozen: If promoted to a new course, the step you lot are assigned will get-go correlate with your erstwhile step salary, not the step number.

In the next three chapters, nosotros volition talk about the 3 most mutual allowances that affect all FSOs.

Foreign Service Officer Danger Pay Allowance

Unfortunately, non all assignments are safe and some acquit extra danger.

I bet if y'all recollect really hard… y'all'll figure out a few of them.

The State Department thanks yous for taking on these dangerous assignments by bumping your pay.

Thanks, Uncle Sam!

PART 1: What is danger pay assart?

Danger pay allowance may be the monetary supplement near of you lot have heard.

Afghanistan, Iraq, Yemen… become sent to i of these countries, and the question of whether or non you will be paid more than for it will definitely cantankerous your heed.

And the answer is Yes.

Which posts are considered unsafe, and non only difficult, is an important distinction. Additionally, the State Department defines danger pay with the understanding that this designation tin can modify depending on the current state of affairs in that country.

For a post to be designated for danger pay allowance, it must be:

Established past the Secretary of State when, and only when, ceremonious coup, civil war, terrorism or wartime conditions threaten concrete harm or imminent danger to the health or well being of a bulk of employees officially stationed or detailed at a mail or country/expanse in a foreign area.

Farther, to earn danger pay, yous must beginning spend 4 cumulative hours at that postal service. Afterward the four-hr mark, you will receive a danger pay allowance for the full day.

This means if you fly into Yemen from Egypt, do iii hours of piece of work, and then are wheels upward before the iv-hour mark, you do non receive danger pay.

Danger pay designation, and the corporeality of allowance, is reviewed annually.

For more information, visit the online page on the rules and stipulations apropos danger pay.

PART 2: Danger pay allowance rates

Danger pay allowance is a taxable supplement that is designated at 15%, 25%, or 35% and is based on overseas comparability pay.

The more dangerous a post, the higher the assart you lot receive.

Seventeen countries are currently allocated with danger pay allowances, including Afghanistan, Iraq, and Yemen.

Instead of just listing the countries and their allowances (irksome), below you will find an interactive map you lot tin play with.

Color-coded, y'all can visualize the dissimilar danger pay posts (the darker the shade of red, the higher the danger pay allotment), and encounter which countries share the same danger pay allowance.

Additionally, if you hover over Yemen, and so Iraq volition change to a lite bluish color to represent that it shares the same danger pay assart (as will the others that share the aforementioned allocation).

Going back to our recent FSO employee, if Sarah were stationed in Nicaragua her danger pay allowance would be 15%. With overseas comparability pay of $69,769, a 15% allowance comes out to $ten,465.

If you would like to run into a complete list you tin can view the Section of State Danger Pay Assart Tabular array.

Takeaway 7: Danger pay allowance, if given, is set at 15%, 25%, or 35% of overseas comparability pay and is initiated when a majority of employees stationed in a mail service are under conditions that threaten physical harm due to political upheaval.

2 disclaimers regardings the maps

1. The United States does not have diplomatic relations with Bhutan, Islamic republic of iran, North Korea, and Syria. These countries are left "blank" (i.eastward., announced 'off white' on the maps).

2. The allowances allocated to the countries in all the maps on this page are the allowances allocated to where the U.Southward. Embassy, or the predominant U.S. embassy, is located. For instance, Bamako, Republic of mali has a danger pay allowance of 25% and this is what is attributed in the map above. However, if you are posted somewhere else in Mali, the danger pay may be higher.

Foreign Service Officer Hardship Post Assart

Citizens in the U.S. are fortunate to live in a country with a higher standard of living compared to others, and her people have grown accustomed to a college standard of living.

Posts that are designated with hardship allowance, are much more common. However, dissimilar danger pay, hardship doesn't mean life-threatening.

For case, is the land's pollution as well toxic? If it is, then here is a bonus for you…

Role 1: What is hardship post allowance?

As defined past the Office of Allowances, a hardship differential is established:

For any identify when, and just when, the place involves extraordinarily hard living conditions, excessive physical hardship, or notably unhealthful atmospheric condition affecting the majority of employees officially stationed or detailed at that place. Living costs are non considered in the differential decision.

In order for hardship mail service differential to begin, an FSO must be stationed and living at a mail service for at least 42 continuous days. On the 43rd solar day, hardship post differential volition begin and the FSO will as well exist paid the differential for the previous 42 days.

Hardship post allowance allotment is reviewed at to the lowest degree biennially.

PART two: Hardship post allowance rates

Like danger pay, hardship postal service is a taxable allowance and ranges from 0-35% of overseas comparability pay.

If Sarah were stationed in Cathay, her hardship postal service allowance would exist 20%. With overseas comparability pay of $69,769, a 20% allowance is $13,954.

Have a look at the map and let me know your thoughts are on hardship assart.

If you would like to see a complete list you can view the Section of State Hardship Post Allowance Table.

Takeaway 8: Hardship post assart ranges from 0-35% of overseas comparability pay and is broadly based on unhealthy living conditions, which are measured at least biennially.

Foreign Service Officer Cost-of-Living Assart (COLA)

Compared to the rest of the earth, many goods in the U.S. can exist bought for cheap – again, she is a land of plenty.

Some countries though, especially in one case you take into consideration geographic location (think islands) or currency conversion, are quite expensive to make a living at.

Gas costs how much?! Oh my, here's some actress $$$.

PART ane: What is a Cost-of-Living Allowance?

A cost-of-living assart (COLA) differs from the previous two allowances by not being a percentage of your overseas comparability pay, and it is also not taxable.

Instead, COLA is a percentage of spendable income, which is the portion of salary used to purchase the goods and services in the cost of living "market handbasket".

The market place basket is an alphabetize of categories comprising of percentage weights comparing the costs of appurtenances and services in foreign posts to the costs of goods and services in Washington, D.C.

COLA is granted to an FSO who is officially stationed at an overseas post where the cost of living, excluding housing and education, is "essentially higher than in Washington, D.C." (at least 3% more).
More than information on the rules and stipulations concerning COLA can be establish hither.

The "market basket" includes the following categories:

Recreation
Transportation
Nutrient at Home
Food Away from Home
Household Furnishing and Operations
Medical Intendance
Auto Purchase
Clothing
Alcohol and Tobacco
Personal Care
Domestic Service

These weighted categories are then compared to those of foreign posts. The categories remain the aforementioned, but the weights may differ.

The quarterly reports by the U.South. Department of Land go into the methods of how each figure was adamant. For further item, the following is from the U.South. Section of State's Indexes of Living Costs Away January 2014 Report that helps explicate the comparison further:

To compute the indexes, the average price of each item on the Retail Cost Schedule for the foreign mail is converted into U.Southward. dollars using the prevailing foreign currency exchange charge per unit. The strange price is then divided by the average price of the corresponding item on the Washington, D.C. schedule to obtain a ratio of the foreign price to the Washington, D.C. price… To obtain foreign post expenditure weights, the basic expenditure pattern weights for the Washington, D.C. expanse are adapted to reflect necessary modifications in consumption fabricated by Americans living away. For some posts, weights for major expenditure categories are increased… These weight adjustments increase the base expenditure weights so that they full more 100 alphabetize points.

To determine these weights, foreign posts complete a Retail Price Schedule once every four years.

The greater the weight and then the higher the COLA allocated to spendable income.

Non every mail service will have a COLA, but the bulk of posts do.

Fun fact: the highest COLA is currently allocated to Republic of zimbabwe at lxx% of spendable income!

PART 2: Spendable income

Now that you know how percentages are derived, and how COLA compares internationally, allow'southward have a look at how your spendable income is adamant.

Almanac spendable income is adamant by your base of operations pay and family size.

Let's revisit Sarah once more than. Sarah has a base pay of $57,986, is single, and has no children.

Given the information we have on Sarah, her almanac spendable income is $24,800.

Function 3: COLA Instance

If Sarah were posted in Commonwealth of australia, her COLA would exist 25% of spendable income ($24,800), which comes out to $six,200. This income is then added to her pay.

Takeaway 9: COLA is a percentage of your spendable income and is non taxable.

Takeaway 10: As your base of operations pay increases and (possibly) the number of persons in your family, so too will your annual spendable income.

Hardship pay, danger pay, and COLA - putting it all together

But like a puzzle, by putting together a little flake of information we at present have a amend understanding of what goes into the FSO salary.

Allow'due south see the prototype we are creating by combining everything nosotros have learned into ane final map.

We've at present discussed the three major allowances that impact a Foreign Service Officeholder's salary: Hardship pay, danger pay, and Cost-of-living.

Quite a chip of information!

From reading the sections above, you know how each allowance is allocated to each country and how each country stacks up confronting each other.

This information individually is already interesting, merely viewing the entire picture at once makes for an heady analysis.

The map below is a comparison of the diplomatic posts that takes the information above and adds it up.

One final time, to our new Foreign Service Officer Sarah:

Sarah has just completed the starting time function of her training in Washington, D.C., and on 'Flag Day' finds out she volition be posted in Nairobi, Kenya.

Heady!

Now let's try and determine what her bacon (at minimum) volition exist from the data nosotros have learned higher up.

Base Salary	Amount	Caption
Base of operations Salary:	$57,986	FP-v/Step-8
Overseas Pay:	$69,769	Overseas Comparability Pay

Allowances	Corporeality	Caption
Danger Pay:	$0	No danger pay
Hardship Pay:	$13,954	twenty% of overseas pay
COLA:	$two,480	10% of spendable income: $23,700
Total	$86,203	Overseas Pay + allowances

The combined map below volition help to visualize all this information.

When you scroll over a country you will run into 2 outputs. The get-go is the annual salary Sarah would receive if she were stationed at that place. The 2nd is the percentage increase in salary when compared to her overseas comparability pay.

I discover this dynamic map to be very interesting and I hope you lot do too. In that location is simply and then much information! For instance, all four of these countries have the same salary, and notwithstanding are in unlike parts of the world: People's democratic republic of algeria, Greenland, Republic of india, and Indonesia.

As well, just in instance you are wondering, the nine posts with the highest percent increases are:

Rank	Country	Bacon	% Inc.
one	South SUDAN	$125,534	80%
2	CENTRAL AFRICAN Republic	$123,567	77%
3	LIBYA	$119,846	72%
iv	SYRIA	$118,607	70%
5	SOMALIA	$118,607	lxx%
half dozen	AFGHANISTAN	$118,607	70%
7	Republic of yemen	$115,118	65%
eight	Iraq	$115,118	65%
nine	Pakistan	$111,630	threescore%

The consummate list

Conclusion

Well, that does it. Phew…

There is still a lot that goes into bacon, and we have non even gone into the benefits… and we won't.

Only, I do suggest reading the conclusion every bit there are some important bits of information in there apropos this guide and other details.

Thanks for reading!

This guide should be used as a launching pad to any other questions you accept on the Foreign Service Officeholder's salary. Feel free to bookmark this page and then you lot tin can return for reference and click on the external links.

I put this resource together because I could non find one location discussing all the data higher up. Instead, in that location were many sources describing only split up parts. Now, a comprehensive guide exists.

For those who have not read the "about" folio, it is important to note that I am not an employee of the Land Department. However, the information and figures used are accurate every bit of the posting date.

I do my all-time to make certain the information is reliable, but please speak with the Function of Allowances for more detailed questions on bacon and the factors the impact information technology.

Having read this guide, you should at present understand how to decide your base salary, overseas comparability pay, and the three master allowances that touch on all FSO salaries.

Notwithstanding, there are other allowances that will change your salary between posts.

Three examples non discussed in this guide are:

Instruction allowance (if y'all have children so their education is covered overseas)
Hard-to-staff incentive differential
Quarters allowance (gratuitous housing overseas or a generous stipend)

Once again, for questions outside of the allowances discussed in this post, delight contact the Office of Allowances. Otherwise, I am happy to have a get with whatsoever questions you have.

If y'all are non in the Foreign Service but interested in joining, I hope this information has been useful to y'all! If yous are in the Foreign Service, I look forrard to your insights.