Most people searching for FEHB want one of two things: a plain description of what the program is, or a number. This page gives both, and every figure comes from OPM’s own 2026 premium tables and the statute behind them, pulled on September 6, 2026.
The short version is that FEHB is an unusually generous employer plan by American standards. The government pays roughly 70 cents of every premium dollar, there is no medical underwriting, no waiting period, and no pre-existing condition exclusion even when you switch plans mid-career. What it is not is free, and the enrollee share has been climbing faster than the total premium.
What FEHB Is
FEHB stands for the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program. It is the employer-sponsored health coverage for federal civilian workers, run by the Office of Personnel Management rather than by any single agency.
OPM does not insure anyone directly. It negotiates rates and benefit terms with private carriers, then publishes the resulting menu. For 2026 that menu is 47 carriers offering 132 plan options, according to OPM’s Open Season Highlights for the 2026 plan year. The same document puts total enrollment, employees plus family members plus annuitants, at roughly 8.2 million people, or about 2.4% of the U.S. population.
Postal workers are no longer part of it. They moved to the separate Postal Service Health Benefits Program starting with the 2025 plan year, which runs on parallel rules with its own premium tables.
Who Is Eligible
OPM’s eligibility page sorts enrollees into a few buckets.
Federal employees are eligible unless their position is specifically excluded by law or regulation. That includes temporary, seasonal and intermittent employees who are expected to work 130 hours a month or more for at least 90 days, and OPM confirms those workers get the same government contribution as a full-time permanent employee.
Annuitants and survivor annuitants keep coverage at the same cost as active employees. The gate is the five-year rule: to carry FEHB into retirement you must be entitled to an immediate annuity and have been continuously covered under any FEHB plan for the five years of service immediately before your annuity starts, or for your full period of service if that is shorter. Time covered as a family member on someone else’s FEHB enrollment counts, and so does TRICARE coverage as long as you were enrolled in FEHB on the day you retired. That rule is the single most expensive thing federal workers get wrong, and it is covered in FEHB in retirement.
Family members means a spouse and children under 26, the same age cutoff the rest of the market uses under the rules for staying on a parent’s plan until 26.
How the Government Share Actually Works
This is the part most summaries get slightly wrong, so here is the statute. Under 5 U.S.C. 8906(b)(1), the biweekly government contribution equals 72% of the program-wide weighted average premium for your enrollment type. Under 8906(b)(2), that contribution “shall not exceed 75 percent of the subscription charge” for the specific plan you chose.
Two different limits, and whichever binds first is the one you feel. OPM computes the weighted average each fall and is required by 8906(a)(1) to do it no later than October 1.
Here is what those numbers are for 2026, straight from OPM’s premium page.
| 2026 figure | Self Only | Self Plus One | Self and Family |
|---|---|---|---|
| Weighted average premium (biweekly) | $451.05 | $987.73 | $1,080.60 |
| Maximum government contribution (biweekly) | $324.76 | $711.17 | $778.03 |
| Weighted average premium (monthly) | $977.28 | $2,140.08 | $2,341.30 |
| Maximum government contribution (monthly) | $703.65 | $1,540.87 | $1,685.73 |
Now watch the two limits fight. Blue Cross Blue Shield FEP Blue Standard costs $513.08 biweekly for Self Only in 2026. That is well above the weighted average, so the government pays its flat $324.76 cap and the enrollee absorbs the remaining $188.32. Every dollar of premium above the cap is yours.
FEP Blue Focus, the same carrier’s low-premium option, costs $267.26 biweekly for Self Only. That is below average, so the 75% ceiling binds instead: the government pays $200.45, exactly three quarters, and the enrollee pays $66.81.
The practical consequence is that moving from an expensive plan to a cheap one saves you more than the sticker difference suggests, because you were personally funding all of the excess.
Self Only, Self Plus One, and Self and Family
Every FEHB plan offers all three enrollment types. Self Plus One covers you and exactly one eligible family member you designate. Self and Family covers you and every eligible family member.
There is a genuine oddity here that OPM flags on its own premium and enrollment pages: in some plans the enrollee share for Self Plus One is higher than for Self and Family. OPM publishes a separate chart listing those plans each year and states plainly that anyone covering one family member is free to elect either type. If you are covering a spouse and nobody else, price both before you assume the smaller-sounding option is cheaper.
What Enrollees Actually Pay
Subtract the government contribution from the weighted average premium and you get the average enrollee bill for 2026.
| Enrollment type | Average enrollee share, biweekly | Average enrollee share, monthly |
|---|---|---|
| Self Only | $126.29 | $273.63 |
| Self Plus One | $276.56 | $599.21 |
| Self and Family | $302.57 | $655.57 |
Those are averages of a very wide field. Real 2026 plans range from roughly $67 biweekly for FEP Blue Focus Self Only up to $226 biweekly for SAMBA High Option Self Only, and regional HMO pricing swings further still. The full plan-by-plan breakdown, including named GEHA, Kaiser and Aetna options, is in FEHB premiums.
One more number worth knowing: for 2026 OPM reported an overall average premium increase of 10.2% but an average enrollee share increase of 12.3%. The enrollee side rises faster whenever premiums outrun the weighted average, which is the mechanical result of the 72% cap.
The Four Plan Types
OPM sorts the menu into a handful of structures, and the choice matters more for your out-of-pocket exposure than for your premium.
Fee-for-service with a PPO. The dominant format. You can see anyone, but you pay less using preferred providers, and OPM warns that a PPO hospital does not guarantee PPO rates for every provider inside it (independent radiologists and labs are the usual trap). If PPO mechanics are new to you, start with what a PPO plan is and in-network versus out-of-network.
HMO. Regional plans tied to where you live or work, generally with copays instead of coinsurance and often no deductible for inpatient care. Care outside the network is not covered except in emergencies or where the plan has a reciprocity arrangement. See HMO vs PPO for the trade-off.
Consumer-driven health plans. A funded account you spend first, then significantly higher cost sharing after it runs out, with a catastrophic limit that is usually higher than other plans.
High deductible health plans with an HSA. FEHB HDHPs establish and partially fund a health savings account for eligible enrollees, and provide a comparable HRA for anyone who is not HSA-eligible. That plan-funded contribution is real money that does not show up in a premium comparison. Read HDHP vs PPO and HRA vs HSA before assuming the low premium is the whole story, and check the HSA contribution limits, since the plan’s own deposit counts against your annual cap.
Whatever you pick, the numbers that determine your bad-year exposure are the deductible, the out-of-pocket maximum, and the copay or coinsurance structure, not the premium.
Premium Conversion Makes the Real Cost Lower
Active federal employees are automatically enrolled in premium conversion, which pays the enrollee share of FEHB premiums with pre-tax salary. OPM’s own worked example: on an $1,800 annual premium at a 35% combined rate, you save $630 a year, about $24.23 per pay period. It also cuts FICA, and in most states income tax too.
There are two catches, and OPM names both. Premium conversion locks you into the qualifying life event rules if you want to drop coverage or shrink to Self Only outside Open Season, and because you pay less Social Security tax you may accrue marginally lower Social Security benefits. OPM’s view is that the flexibility is “generally of little or no value compared to the tax savings.”
Retirees do not get premium conversion. Annuitants pay the same dollar premium as employees, but out of after-tax income.
FEHB Compared With a Marketplace Plan
For anyone weighing FEHB against buying their own coverage, the honest comparison is not premium against premium. It is subsidized against unsubsidized.
| FEHB, 2026 average | ACA marketplace, 2026 | |
|---|---|---|
| Full premium, one adult | $977.28 a month (program weighted average) | $625 a month, national average benchmark silver at age 40 (KFF) |
| What you personally pay | $273.63 a month | Full price unless you qualify for a premium tax credit |
| Subsidy structure | 72% of the weighted average, capped at 75% of your plan | Income-based premium tax credit |
| Can you claim both? | No | No |
HealthCare.gov is explicit that an offer of job-based coverage meeting the affordability and minimum-value standards disqualifies you from premium tax credits. FEHB clears that bar comfortably, so declining FEHB to buy a marketplace plan usually means paying the full unsubsidized rate. If you are weighing that anyway, ACA subsidy income limits explains where the credit actually lands.
For context on the private-sector side, KFF’s 2025 Employer Health Benefits Survey put the average employer single-coverage premium at $9,325 a year with workers contributing $1,440, and family coverage at $26,993 with workers contributing $6,850. FEHB’s contribution structure is set by statute at 28% of the weighted average, a somewhat larger enrollee share for single coverage than the private-sector norm and a slightly smaller one for family coverage.
The Rest of the Federal Benefits Stack
FEHB is one of several programs, and they interact. Dental and vision are separate under FEDVIP, which pays secondary to your FEHB plan. Pre-tax accounts for copays, deductibles and dependent care run through FSAFEDS, which is not open to retirees. Once you reach 65, the coordination question in FEHB vs Medicare becomes the biggest cost decision left.
All of these change on the same schedule. See FEHB Open Season for the window and when open enrollment happens for how the federal calendar compares with everyone else’s.
Bottom Line
FEHB in 2026 costs the average Self Only enrollee $273.63 a month and the average family enrollee $655.57 a month, against total premiums of $977.28 and $2,341.30. The government pays 72% of the program-wide weighted average and never more than 75% of your specific plan, which means the cheapest plans are subsidized at a higher percentage and the most expensive plans put every extra dollar on you. Pick on total annual exposure rather than premium alone, and re-run the math every Open Season, because the enrollee share has been rising faster than the total premium.