Hatch Act Compliance: What Government Employees and Managers Need to Know About Political Activity Restrictions in 2026 

If you manage compliance training for a government or public sector organization, the Hatch Act is one of those laws that can quietly create serious liability for your employees, your managers, and your agency if your workforce does not clearly understand it. 

The law has been on the books since 1939, but 2025 brought enforcement changes that make it more important than ever to ensure your teams are working from current, accurate guidance. What federal employees were trained on two years ago may now be partially outdated. And in a workplace where a single social media post or a casual comment to a subordinate can trigger an investigation, that gap in social media compliance training matters.

This blog is a breakdown of what the Hatch Act actually covers, what changed recently, what the real penalties look like, and where the gray areas are that your teams are most likely to trip over. 

Who the Hatch Act Actually Covers 

The Hatch Act covers almost every civilian employee in the federal executive branch: full-time, part-time, and even employees on annual leave, sick leave, furlough, or leave without pay. The U.S. Postal Service is included. The only people exempt at the top are the President and Vice President. 

For state, local, and D.C. government employees, coverage depends on whether the employee works in connection with programs that are financed in whole or in part by federal loans or grants. This pulls in a wide range of public sector workers across health, housing, transportation, law enforcement, employment security, anti-poverty programs, and more. Even employees of private nonprofit organizations receiving federal Head Start or Community Services Block Grant funds can be covered. 

The practical implication for you: if your agency touches federal funding in any way, you likely have covered employees in your workforce, even if they do not think of themselves as “federal employees” in the traditional sense. 

 The Two Categories Every Manager Must Know 

Federal employees fall into one of two categories under the Hatch Act, and the distinction determines how much political activity is permitted. 

Less Restricted Employees make up the majority of the federal workforce. They can participate in partisan political campaigns and party management on their own personal time, away from the workplace. They can volunteer for campaigns, donate money, attend rallies, hold party office, and campaign for candidates, as long as they are off duty and not using government resources or their official title. 

Further Restricted Employees face a much tighter set of rules. They cannot take an active part in partisan political management or campaigns at all, not even on personal time. This category includes employees at the FBI, CIA, NSA, Secret Service, FEC, Election Assistance Commission, Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB), U.S. Office of Special Counsel (OSC), and the National Security Council, among others. It also includes all career Senior Executive Service (SES) employees, Administrative Law Judges, Contract Appeals Board Members, and Administrative Appeals Judges, regardless of which agency they work in. 

For managers in SES positions, this is particularly important. The Further Restricted designation follows the position, not the agency. 

What No One Can Do, Regardless of Category 

Despite the two-tier system, there is a set of prohibitions that apply universally to every covered employee, at every level, in every agency. 

No employee may use their official authority or title to influence an election. No employee may invite or suggest to a subordinate that they attend a political event or engage in partisan activity. No employee may solicit or accept political contributions from anyone who has business pending before their office. And no employee may engage in any partisan political activity while on duty, in a federal building, wearing a uniform or insignia, or using a government vehicle. 

That last point is where a significant number of violations actually happen, because “on duty” includes telework hours, and “federal building” is where most of your workforce spends their day. 

Social Media Is Where Your Teams Are Most at Risk 

The single highest-risk compliance area in your workforce today is social media. Hatch Act social media rules are detailed, and they apply whether an employee is using a government device or a personal phone, and whether their account is public, private, or anonymous.

While on duty or in the workplace, no employee may post, share, like, retweet, or forward content that supports or opposes a partisan political party, candidate, or partisan political group. This applies even during a lunch break, if the employee is still physically present in a federal building, regardless of whether they are in a paid status at that moment. 

Around the clock, no employee, regardless of whether they are at work, may use their official title to endorse a candidate, or send any message that asks others to donate to a partisan group or candidate. 

Further Restricted employees face additional limits even off-duty: they may not share or link to the account of a partisan campaign or political group, and may not retweet content from a candidate or partisan political organization. 

One practical issue that training often misses: LinkedIn. If an employee includes their official job title in their LinkedIn profile headline, that headline accompanies every action they take on the platform. That means any political content they post or share on LinkedIn while that headline is visible could constitute Hatch Act activity in an official capacity, even if they never intended it that way. 

Supervisors face a particular exposure here. Sending a subordinate a message, even a forward or a like, that shows support for a partisan candidate or group can constitute improper use of official authority, even through a personal account. 

What Changed in 2025 and Why Your Training Content May Be Outdated 

In April 2025, OSC rescinded the advisory opinions issued in May 2024 and October 2024 under the prior administration and reverted to guidance that was last published in November 2020.

First, employees may now wear campaign paraphernalia in the workplace, provided the items do not support someone who is actively running for office. Items from the 2024 election cycle, for example, are now generally permissible, as the prior year-round prohibition has been lifted. However, items supporting or opposing a current candidate remain off limits. 

Second, Hatch Act violations committed by White House commissioned officers will be referred to the President for disciplinary action rather than the MSPB. This change only affects a narrow category of political appointees, but it is a structural shift in accountability worth noting. 

Third, and this one matters for your documentation and recordkeeping practices, OSC confirmed in December 2025 that it would resume pursuing Hatch Act complaints against former federal employees, after pausing such cases earlier in the year. An MSPB Administrative Law Judge ruled that jurisdiction exists even after someone has left federal service. OSC is no longer pausing complaints against former employees, and it will pursue cases where warranted. This means the Hatch Act obligations employees carry do not simply disappear when they resign or retire. 

The law itself has not changed. Only certain enforcement policies have. Your training content needs to reflect the current policies, not the rescinded 2024 guidance. 

The Real Penalties Are Serious 

The Hatch Act is not a bureaucratic technicality. Penalties for violations range from a formal reprimand all the way to removal from federal service, reduction in grade, or debarment from federal employment for up to five years. 

The civil penalty maximum, adjusted annually for inflation under the Federal Civil Penalties Inflation Adjustment Act, currently stands at $1,365, effective July 22, 2025. Any training materials or policy documents your teams use that still cite “$1,000” are outdated and should be corrected. 

For state and local employees, the penalty structure carries agency-level consequences as well. If the MSPB determines a violation warrants dismissal, the employing agency must either remove the employee or forfeit federal assistance equal to two years of that employee’s salary. If the removed employee is re-hired by another state or local agency within 18 months, that agency may also lose federal funding. 

These are not theoretical outcomes. In fiscal year 2025, OSC received 694 new Hatch Act complaints and resolved 711 cases, a significant jump from 458 complaints the prior year. Real employees faced real suspensions, removals, and fines. One employee from a U.S. Attorneys’ Office received a seven-day unpaid suspension after sharing Facebook posts soliciting donations for a family member’s partisan primary campaign. A Pentagon Force Protection Agency employee faced charges for running for sheriff after receiving explicit warnings not to. 

The Gray Areas That Will Test Your Teams 

A few areas consistently generate questions and violations. 

Employees who hold two jobs, one with a federal agency and one elsewhere, are assessed based on whichever job accounts for the most work time and earned income. The one that qualifies as “principal employment” determines which set of rules applies. 

Candidacy for office is an area with nuance. Less Restricted employees may run in nonpartisan elections. Further Restricted employees may only run in nonpartisan elections as well. State and local employees may run for partisan office, unless their salary is 100% funded by federal grants or loans. 

Employees may display a partisan political bumper sticker on a personally owned vehicle parked in a federal lot. However, any display that makes the vehicle look like a campaign vehicle crosses the line. 

When an employee is uncertain, OSC provides Hatch Act advisory opinions at no cost. The Hatch Act Unit can be reached at (800) 854-2824, (202) 804-7002, or hatchact@osc.gov. Employees are entitled to request a written opinion before taking action, and those opinions provide meaningful protection if followed in good faith. 

What Your Teams Need to Be Trained On 

Understanding the law is one thing. Building effective Hatch Act compliance training that your workforce can apply correctly in everyday situations is another. Based on where violations consistently occur, these are the specific areas your teams need to cover.

• Employee category identification: Every covered employee should know whether they are Less Restricted or Further Restricted before any election cycle begins. This is not a detail to bury in an onboarding packet. It should be a confirmed, working understanding that each employee carries with them, particularly anyone in a career SES position who may not realize the designation applies regardless of which agency they are in. 
• On-duty rules during telework: The most common area of confusion in the current work environment is the on-duty restriction during remote work hours. Training needs to explicitly address that working from home does not change the prohibition. Employees cannot post, share, or engage with partisan political content during work hours, regardless of location or device. 
• Social media conduct, including personal accounts: This is where the volume of violations is growing fastest. Social media compliance training should cover what is prohibited while on duty, the additional off-duty limits that apply to Further Restricted employees, the fact that private accounts and aliases do not provide protection, and the LinkedIn headline issue. Employees consistently underestimate the reach of these rules on personal devices. 
• Supervisor-specific obligations: Managers need training that goes beyond the standard employee briefing. Inviting, suggesting, or implying to a subordinate that they should attend a political event or engage in partisan activity is itself a Hatch Act violation, even when the communication is informal and through a personal account. 
• Use of official authority and resources: Using an official title, agency email, office supplies, or any government resource to support a candidacy or any partisan political activity is prohibited. This applies to federal employees and state and local covered employees equally. 
• The former employee rule: As of December 2025, OSC has resumed pursuing Hatch Act violations committed by employees who have since left federal service. Employees in transition and those working in high-turnover environments should be aware that their obligations do not end on their last day. 
• How to request an advisory opinion: Many violations are preventable. Employees who are unsure about a specific planned activity can request a written advisory opinion from the OSC Hatch Act Unit before acting. Normalizing this as a routine step, rather than a last resort, is one of the most practical compliance habits you can build into your agency’s culture. 

Keeping Your Workforce on the Right Side of This Law 

The Hatch Act is not complicated at its core. It asks government employees to keep their political lives separate from their official roles. The complications arise in specific situations: social media, supervisory relationships, the telework environment, and the gray areas around what counts as “on duty” or “in an official capacity.” 

Your workforce is navigating a changed enforcement environment, a significant policy shift in 2025, and a digital landscape that creates Hatch Act exposure with every scroll, share, and connection request. The gap between what employees think the rules are and what the rules actually are is where violations happen. That is why Hatch Act compliance training needs to be current, specific, and built around real situations your workforce actually faces. 

The employees who end up in front of the MSPB are rarely people who set out to break the rules. They are people who did not know clearly enough where the rules were. That gap is exactly what your role exists to close.