Largest Federal Agencies by Employment

What the Ranked Data Shows

This ranking covers 50 federal agencies drawn from OPM FedScope Employment Cubes. The leader is DEPARTMENT OF VETERANS AFFAIRS with 474,532 on the "Employees" measure, followed closely by the remaining top performers. Federal workforce data of this kind is widely used by USAJOBS applicants, congressional staff, and GAO analysts to understand where federal hiring and compensation are concentrated across the country.

The median agency in this list is SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION at 4,453, illustrating the midpoint of the distribution. At the other end, NAT FOUNDATION ON ARTS AND HUMANITIES anchors the bottom of the ranked set with 465. The spread between leader and trailing positions is what matters most for policy: it shows how unevenly federal employment, compensation, and tenure are distributed across jurisdictions and departments, and where shifts in locality pay, mission assignments, or hiring freezes would bite hardest.

For job seekers evaluating federal career moves on USAJOBS, these rankings inform strategic choices: a higher-salary state or agency often signals concentrated senior-grade positions, while a large-headcount jurisdiction points to broader entry-level opportunity. Combined with length-of-service patterns, the ranking gives a practical view of where the federal workforce is most durable and where turnover creates openings. Data sourced from Office of Personnel Management (OPM) FedScope and refreshed as OPM publishes new quarterly FedScope releases.