Schedule F

Schedule F refers to a category of U.S. federal civil service positions created by Executive Order 13957, signed by President Donald Trump on October 21, 2020. The order directed agencies to reclassify career federal employees in "confidential, policy-determining, policy-making, or policy-advocating" roles into a new excepted-service schedule, stripping them of most procedural protections against removal that apply to standard competitive-service employees under Title 5 of the U.S. Code.

The practical effect would have been to make affected civil servants effectively at-will employees, easier to dismiss, discipline, or reassign. Critics, including federal employee unions such as the National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU) and the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE), argued it would politicize the career bureaucracy and undermine merit-system principles dating to the Pendleton Act of 1883. Supporters argued it would restore democratic accountability over an unaccountable "deep state."

President Joe Biden rescinded EO 13957 via Executive Order 14003 on January 22, 2021, before any agency had completed reclassifications. In April 2024, the Biden administration's Office of Personnel Management finalized a rule intended to make future reinstatement more procedurally difficult by reinforcing that competitive-service employees retain their status and appeal rights when positions are moved between schedules.

On his first day of his second term, January 20, 2025, President Trump signed a new executive order reviving the policy, this time labeled "Schedule Policy/Career." The order again sought to reclassify policy-influencing career roles, with estimates from observers and OPM filings suggesting tens of thousands of positions could be affected, though exact figures depend on agency implementation.

Schedule F is frequently discussed alongside the Heritage Foundation's Project 2025 document, which endorsed the concept as part of broader proposals to reshape the executive branch. The debate centers on a long-standing tension in administrative governance: balancing political responsiveness with neutral expertise and protection from patronage.