What is Schedule Policy/Career (formerly Schedule F)?
- Schedule Policy/Career is a federal employment category, or “schedule,” established by the current Trump administration via a January 2025 executive order. The order directs agency leaders to identify certain federal positions for reassignment from their current employment category into a new category.
- In February 2026, the Office of Personnel Management finalized a rule to regulate Schedule Policy/Career as directed by the January 2025 executive order.
- Schedule Policy/Career will broadly apply to career federal employees in policymaking roles.
- However, the full scope of which positions might be affected is unclear, as the executive order directs agency heads to recommend to the president specific roles that will fall under Schedule Policy/Career. After reviewing agency recommendations, the president will issue a new executive order that officially moves positions to the new schedule.
- See more under “How do I know if Schedule Policy/Career will apply to me?” below.
- Schedule Policy/Career employees will have fewer employment protections, making them easier to fire.
How do I know if Schedule Policy/Career will apply to me?
- It is currently unclear how the Schedule Policy/Career guidelines will be implemented because the reclassification decision is at the president’s discretion.
- The executive order that created Schedule Policy/Career directs agency leaders to identify all employees in competitive service positions or in other schedules already excepted from the competitive service “of a confidential, policy-determining, policymaking, or policy-advocating character.”
- The executive order lists certain job duties that agency heads should consider—for example, whether the position involves developing or drafting regulations or guidance. In January 2025, OPM also issued guidance on additional categories of positions that agencies should consider for the Policy/Career schedule.
- It is up to the agency heads to decide how to apply these considerations and then make an initial recommendation to OPM, which will then make a final recommendation to the president on which positions to reclassify as Schedule Policy/Career.
How is Schedule Policy/Career different from Schedule F?
- The January 2025 executive order and February 2026 final rule clarify that Schedule Policy/Career is directed at career federal employees in competitive and excepted service positions. The January 2025 executive order and subsequent OPM guidance also include directives for agency heads to use when determining which roles to recommend for Schedule Policy/Career.
- Additionally, the executive order and final rule state that Schedule Policy/Career employees, or applicants for these positions, are not required to personally or politically support the president or the policies of the current administration. The 2020 Schedule F executive order did not make this distinction.
How many federal employees were placed in Schedule F during the first Trump administration?
- The Government Accountability Office found that no agency placed positions in Schedule F before the executive order was revoked in January 2021.
- However, according to GAO, some agencies had begun to consider doing so. For example, OPM approved the Office of Management and Budget’s request to move 136 types of positions into Schedule F. This shift would have involved 415 employees—or 68% of OMB’s workforce.
- According to the February 2026 final rule, “OPM estimates that approximately 50,000 positions would be moved or transferred into Schedule Policy/Career.”
What job protections would Schedule Policy/Career positions have?
- Individuals moved or hired into Schedule Policy/Career positions will lose certain due process rights, such as notice of removal and the right to appeal if removed from a job, effectively making them at-will employees.
- The executive order requires agencies to follow the principle of veterans’ preference as far as “administratively feasible,” which leaves its implementation unclear.
- Additionally, the final rule states that current employees being moved into Schedule Policy/Career will retain the competitive status they have earned otherwise.
- The final rule also removes statutory whistleblower protections and prevents workers from appealing their reassignment into Schedule Policy/Career to the Merit Systems Protection Board.
- Lastly, the final rule requires agencies to establish and enforce internal rules around prohibited personnel practices, including whistleblower protections, which will now be enforced by agency general counsel offices instead of the Office of Special Counsel.
If I was hired into a competitive service position, could my role be retroactively moved to Schedule Policy/Career?
- Federal employee unions, as well as other organizations, challenged the 2020 Schedule F executive order, and lawsuits have already been filed to challenge the new 2026 rule.
- Attempts to move employees into Schedule Policy/Career are likely to be challenged in court.
What can Congress do?
- Congress can vote to reject the new Schedule Policy/Career OPM rule using a Congressional Review Act resolution.