{"data":{"id":"us/5-cfr-451.302","jurisdiction":"us","citation":"5 CFR 451.302","heading":"Ranks for senior career employees.","body":"(a) The circumstances under which the President may award the rank of Distinguished Senior Professional and Meritorious Senior Professional to a senior career employee are set forth in 5 U.S.C. 4507a.\n(b) To be eligible for a rank award, a senior career employee must:\n(1) Hold a career appointment in a Senior-Level (SL) or Scientific-Professional (ST) position that is subject to OPM position allocations under part 319 of this chapter and paid under 5 U.S.C. 5376 on the nomination deadline set by OPM;\n(2) Be an employee of the agency on the nomination deadline set by OPM; and\n(3) Have at least 3 years of career or career-type Federal civilian service above GS-15. Service need not be continuous. Qualifying service includes appointments that are not—\n(i) Time-limited; or\n(ii) To positions that are excepted from the competitive service because of their confidential or policy-making character.\n(c) Each agency may nominate up to 9 percent of its senior career employees for rank awards.","path":["Title 5—Administrative Personnel","CHAPTER I—OFFICE OF PERSONNEL MANAGEMENT","SUBCHAPTER B—CIVIL SERVICE REGULATIONS","PART 451—AWARDS","Subpart C—Presidential Rank Awards"],"source_url":"https://www.ecfr.gov/api/versioner/v1/full/2026-08-25/title-5.xml","current_through":"2026-08-25","vintage":"","retrieved_at":"2026-08-27T02:23:53Z","sha256":"f45675fe18df89a5c4e50d544c4cf81165787a09667307943400568f92b0f5fd","source_id":"us-cfr","stale":true,"prev":"us/5-cfr-451.301","next":"us/5-cfr-451.303"},"notice":"GroundRules: Original legal text. Not legal advice."}