Federal Government Closings Today: Pay, Telework, and Shutdowns

To find out whether federal offices are closed today, check the Office of Personnel Management’s operating status at opm.gov if you work in the Washington, D.C., area, or your own agency’s announcement if you work anywhere else. A closure doesn’t mean the same thing for every employee: whether you get the day off, work from home, or still have to report depends on whether you’re a telework participant, an emergency employee, or a non-telework employee scheduled to report to a physical worksite.

Where to Check Today’s Status

OPM posts the official operating status for federal offices inside the Washington Capital Beltway on its website and through the OPM Alert mobile app, which pushes real-time updates for the D.C. area.¹ Announcements usually go out early in the morning and get updated during the day if conditions change.

Outside the D.C. metro area, OPM’s announcement doesn’t govern you. Your agency or regional command issues its own operating status based on local conditions.² Most agencies build their procedures on OPM’s framework, but the formal agency notice, delivered through internal alert systems, email, or official social media, is the one that controls your reporting obligation.

What Each Operating Status Means

OPM and agencies use a small set of standard statuses, and the wording matters more than it might look.

Closed. Federal offices are shut. Non-emergency employees scheduled to report to a physical worksite are excused from duty. Telework program participants, though, are still expected to work from their approved alternative location.³ This is where most of the confusion happens. A closure is not a day off if you’re set up to telework.

Delayed Arrival. You report later than normal, often two hours after your usual start time. This is frequently paired with the option for unscheduled leave or unscheduled telework, which lets you use annual leave, compensatory time, or telework without needing advance supervisor approval.³

Maximum Telework. All non-emergency employees who are telework-ready work from home instead of coming in. The agency uses this when travel is unsafe but the mission can run remotely.

If Conditions Worsen During the Workday

Sometimes the announcement comes after you’re already at the office. OPM or your agency may call an early departure with a staggered release, directing employees to leave a set number of hours before their normal quitting time so everyone doesn’t hit the roads at once.⁴

What happens next depends on your category:

Non-telework employees at the office leave at their assigned staggered time and get weather and safety leave for the remaining hours of the scheduled workday.⁴
Telework employees at the office get weather and safety leave only for the commute home. After that, they finish the workday by teleworking, using unscheduled leave, or combining the two.⁴
Telework employees already working from home, and full remote workers, keep working. They generally cannot get weather and safety leave and must cover the full workday through work, leave, or a combination.
Emergency employees stay at their worksite unless told otherwise.

One rule catches people every winter: if you leave the office before your assigned staggered departure time, you forfeit weather and safety leave for the entire day, not just the extra hours you took. You can still request unscheduled leave to cover the time, but the paid weather leave is gone.³ Waiting for the official time matters.

If You’re on Telework

OPM’s regulations expect telework-ready employees to keep working through closures and other emergencies. Because you can perform your duties from an approved alternative location, you generally are not “prevented from performing work” and therefore don’t qualify for weather and safety leave.⁵

If you’re a telework participant but can’t work remotely on a given day, you need to use unscheduled leave or other paid time off. The rare exception is when the same emergency also prevents you from working at your home location, such as a widespread power outage in your area.

Working From Home With Children Out of School

School closures often follow the same storms that close federal offices. OPM’s standing guidance is that telework is not a substitute for dependent care.⁶ Whether you can telework with children at home depends on your agency’s specific policy. Some agencies allow it during emergencies as a special exception but require you to account honestly for work and non-work time, taking appropriate leave for the hours spent on caregiving rather than work.⁷ If your agency flatly prohibits telework with dependents needing care in the home, your home isn’t an approved telework location under those circumstances, and you’d need to report to the worksite or take annual leave.

If You’re an Emergency Employee

Some of the federal workforce is designated as “emergency employees,” sometimes called essential personnel. Standard closure and dismissal announcements do not apply to you. You’re expected to report or continue working as directed regardless of the operating status.⁸

Agency heads or their designees identify emergency employees at least once a year and must notify them in writing. That notice should say plainly that dismissal and closure announcements do not apply unless the employee is told otherwise.⁸ Common examples include law enforcement officers, emergency responders, certain medical staff, and critical IT personnel. Emergency employees who report during a closure receive their regular pay, and depending on agency policy and the circumstances, may qualify for premium pay categories such as overtime or holiday pay under Title 5.

How Pay and Leave Work During a Closure

Non-emergency employees who were scheduled to report to a physical worksite and are excused because of a closure receive weather and safety leave under federal law. It’s a distinct category of paid leave and does not reduce your annual leave, sick leave, or any other balance.⁹

Agencies grant it when employees are prevented from safely traveling to, or performing work at, an approved location because of an act of God, a terrorist attack, or another condition that creates unsafe travel or working conditions.⁹ It covers the hours you were scheduled to work at the physical office.

If You Already Had Leave Approved

Annual leave, sick leave, or other paid time off you already had approved for the day of a closure cannot be switched over to weather and safety leave. OPM’s regulations bar agencies from granting weather and safety leave for hours during which an employee is on pre-approved leave, and agencies are instructed not to cancel pre-approved leave when the reason is to get weather and safety leave instead.³ The reasoning is that if you weren’t expected to report or travel, the closure didn’t prevent you from doing anything.

If You’re a Federal Contractor

Federal contractors are not covered by OPM’s weather and safety leave provisions. Whether contractor employees get paid when a federal building closes depends on the contract terms and the contractor’s own leave policies, not the government’s operating status. Your employer’s HR department is your resource, not OPM.

A Weather Closure Is Not a Government Shutdown

These two often get mixed up, especially when both are in the news. A weather closure is an operational decision about safety, and you get paid through weather and safety leave. A government shutdown happens when Congress fails to pass appropriations, cutting off funding.¹⁰

During a shutdown, employees whose work is funded by the lapsed appropriations and who are not performing excepted duties are furloughed into a temporary no-work, no-pay status. Excepted employees must keep working, protecting human life or property for example, but won’t receive a paycheck until funding is restored. Furloughed employees are barred from working at all beyond minimal wind-down tasks. Whether furloughed employees eventually receive back pay is up to Congress; it has historically been provided after past shutdowns, but that’s a political decision made after the fact rather than a guaranteed right.¹⁰ If you’re checking OPM’s site because of a funding lapse rather than a snowstorm, the shutdown furlough guidance is what applies.

1
U.S. Office of Personnel Management. How Do You Load the OPM Alert Mobile App
2
U.S. Office of Personnel Management. Snow and Dismissal Procedures
3
U.S. Office of Personnel Management. Governmentwide Dismissal and Closure Procedures
4
U.S. Office of Personnel Management. Operating Status Archives
5
U.S. Office of Personnel Management. If Federal Offices Are Closed Due to Inclement Weather or Some Other Emergency, Are Teleworkers Excused From Work as Well
6
U.S. Office of Personnel Management. Due to an Emergency Where Schools Are Closed, Can Employees Telework With School-Aged Children at Home
7
U.S. Office of Personnel Management. Is It Permissible for a Telework Program Participant to Perform Telework With a Child in the Home
8
U.S. Office of Personnel Management. Frequently Asked Questions – Pay and Leave FAQ – Section: Who Designates an Employee as an Emergency Employee
9
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 5 USC 6329c – Weather and Safety Leave
10
U.S. Office of Personnel Management. Guidance for Shutdown Furloughs