Federal Employee Remote Work: Agreements, Locality Pay, and Taxes

Federal employee remote work rules changed sharply on January 20, 2025, when a White House directive ordered executive branch agencies to terminate remote arrangements and require employees back at their duty stations full-time. Agency heads may grant exemptions they consider necessary, and the Telework Enhancement Act of 2010 still supplies the underlying legal framework, but the default posture has flipped from encouraging off-site work to restricting it.¹ If you are currently working remotely or hoping to, the practical rules that matter now are your agency’s current policy, the statutory eligibility limits, and the pay and legal consequences that attach the moment your home becomes your official worksite.

Telework and Remote Work Are Not the Same Thing

Federal policy draws a hard line between these two arrangements. Telework means you work from an approved alternative location on some days but still report to the agency office on a regular and recurring basis. Remote work means you are not expected to report to the agency office regularly at all.²

The distinction controls your pay. Under federal regulations, a teleworker who physically reports to the agency office at least twice each biweekly pay period keeps the agency office as their official worksite for locality pay purposes. Miss that twice-per-pay-period standard without a qualifying temporary exception, and your official worksite shifts to wherever you are actually working. A remote worker’s official worksite is the alternative location by definition. Limited temporary exceptions apply for medical recovery, emergencies that prevent a commute, extended approved leave, or temporary duty travel.³

Who Is Eligible and Who Is Not

The Telework Enhancement Act of 2010, codified at 5 U.S.C. Chapter 65, requires every executive agency to establish a telework policy, determine each employee’s eligibility, and notify them.⁴ The statute also identifies two hard disqualifications and one operational exclusion.

You cannot telework if you have been officially disciplined for being absent without permission for more than five days in any calendar year. You are also disqualified if you have been disciplined for accessing pornography on a government computer or while performing official duties.⁵

Beyond those hard disqualifiers, the statute excludes employees whose official duties require daily handling of secure materials the agency deems inappropriate for telework, or daily on-site activity that cannot be performed remotely. The key word is “daily.” Occasional contact with classified materials is not automatically disqualifying under the statute, though your agency may still deny the request based on operational needs. The law also requires that telework not diminish employee performance or agency operations, and any authorized employee must have a written agreement with their manager. If performance falls short of that agreement’s terms, authorization can be revoked.⁵

Agencies routinely layer additional criteria on top of the statute, such as minimum performance ratings or completion of a probationary period. Those are agency-specific policies, not government-wide mandates.

What a Remote Work Agreement Must Cover

There is no single government-wide form. Each agency uses its own template, accessed through internal HR channels. OPM guidance recommends that agencies develop standardized agreements and identifies the elements a remote work agreement should address:⁶

Your official duty station must match where you actually work. If it does not, the agency must process a change-in-duty-station action.
If you move, you are responsible for submitting an updated agreement and getting approval before you relocate. Moving without approval can create a pay debt to the government and lead to discipline.
The agreement should specify your worksite location, duties, work hours, reporting requirements, and how often you will communicate with your supervisor.
It should identify which equipment the agency provides and how expenses are handled.
Remote workers are generally expected to keep working during closures, delayed arrivals, and early dismissals affecting the agency office. A snow day at headquarters is not a snow day at your kitchen table.

Most agencies also require a safety self-certification. You describe your designated work area and confirm it is free from hazards, typically covering the physical space, ergonomic setup, and internet connectivity.⁷

How Locality Pay Changes If You Move

General Schedule employees receive locality pay on top of base salary, and the rate depends on where your official worksite sits. Once your home becomes your official worksite, your locality pay adjusts to the rate for your home’s geographic area.⁸

The differences are meaningful. High-cost areas such as San Francisco, New York, and the Washington, D.C., metro area carry some of the largest supplements, while the “Rest of U.S.” rate that covers areas without their own pay table is significantly lower. A GS-9 employee leaving a major metro area for a Rest of U.S. location can see a pay reduction of several thousand dollars a year. The adjustment runs in the other direction too. Once your remote work agreement is finalized and the duty station update processes, the change is mandatory. A mismatch between the address on your agreement and where you actually live can create a pay debt to the government.⁶

Travel Back to the Agency Office

When your home is your official worksite, a trip to the agency office is official travel, not a commute. OPM guidance lets agencies establish an official station radius (commonly 50 miles) around the alternative worksite, and travel from your home to the agency office may be reimbursable as a local travel expense if the office falls within that radius.⁹

Travel more than 50 miles from your alternative worksite is treated as temporary duty travel and must be authorized under the Federal Travel Regulation, which can include per diem for meals and lodging.⁹ If your agency expects periodic in-person appearances, pin down in the written agreement who pays for travel and when.

Injuries at a Home Office

Federal employees are covered for work-related injuries under the Federal Employees’ Compensation Act, and that coverage extends to injuries sustained at an approved alternative worksite, including your home.⁷ The statute compensates disability or death from personal injury sustained while in the performance of duty, with exceptions for willful misconduct, intentional self-harm, and intoxication.¹⁰

Proving that an injury at home was work-related is harder than proving one that happened in a federal building. You are responsible for maintaining a safe workspace, and you must report any work-related injury immediately. Your manager should investigate.⁷ The safety self-certification you signed becomes relevant here, because it documents your assessment of the workspace.

How Remote Work Arrangements End

A remote work agreement is not permanent. Under the statute, authorization can be revoked when your performance does not comply with the agreement’s terms.⁵ Beyond individual performance, the 2025 return-to-office directive gave agencies broad authority to terminate arrangements across the board, and agencies retain discretion to end remote work when operational needs, budgets, or mission requirements change.

Your agreement should spell out how it can be modified or terminated and how much notice you will receive. If you relocated based on a remote approval, revocation can force a choice between returning to the duty station or resigning. This is the single biggest risk of federal remote work. Weigh it before making life decisions built on an arrangement that can be rescinded.

State Income Tax When You Cross a State Line

When your remote worksite sits in a different state than your agency’s office, state income tax gets complicated, and this is one area where federal rules do not settle the question. There is no uniform federal standard for how states tax remote workers. Each state sets its own rules, and a handful apply “convenience of the employer” rules that can tax you based on the employer’s office location even if you never set foot there. Federal agencies withhold state taxes based on where you perform work, but the interaction between your home state and the agency’s state can produce unexpected obligations. A tax professional familiar with interstate remote work is worth the cost before you finalize any arrangement that crosses state lines.

1
The White House. Return to In-Person Work
2
U.S. Office of Personnel Management. What Is the Difference Between Telework and Remote Work?
3
eCFR. 5 CFR 531.605 – Determining an Employee’s Official Worksite
4
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 5 USC Ch. 65 – Telework
5
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 5 USC 6502 – Executive Agencies Telework Requirement
6
U.S. Office of Personnel Management. Guide to Telework and Remote Work in the Federal Government
7
U.S. Office of Personnel Management. Remote Work
8
U.S. Office of Personnel Management. Fact Sheet: Official Worksite for Location-Based Pay Purposes
9
U.S. Office of Personnel Management. General
10
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 5 USC 8102 – Compensation for Disability or Death of Employee