Feds paid $9.5 billion in leave costs in 2025 due to DOGE buyout

The Trump administration spent $9.5 billion on employee administrative leave costs in 2025, a sixfold increase from 2023 that was spurred by the administration's push to cut down the federal workforce.

According to a Government Accountability Office (GAO) report published Tuesday, the use of paid administrative leave increased by 435% from 2023 to 2025. They calculate that $6.7 billion of this was due to employees who opted into the Deferred Resignation Program, the administration's buyout offer to federal employees that was part of efforts by the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, to shrink the government. 

By comparison, administrative leave salary costs for 2023 and 2024 combined were $3.2 billion, according to the GAO's report.  

The resignation program was overseen and offered by the federal Office of Personnel Management in January 2025 to incentivize federal government employees to leave various agencies. The buyout program allowed employees who opted in to resign or stop working but still receive pay through Sept. 30, 2025. 

The Trump administration had projected that 200,000 federal employees would opt into the program, though the GAO estimated in their report that 144,312 employees accepted the buyout offer, according to administrative leave data. 

The report states that paid administrative leave peaked in July 2025, when 2.5 million of the 3 million leave workdays reported that month were due to the DRP.

Scott Kupor, OPM director, said Wednesday's report failed to highlight the difference between "a one-time expense ($9.5 billion) to reduce the size of the federal government by 270,000 employees and the $40 billion per year savings in taxpayer dollars that this reduction provides."

"That 400% return on investment is a massive benefit to the taxpayer," he said in a statement.

DOGE had claimed, through its webpage called the "Wall of Receipts," that $110 billion of federal funding had been cut through their efforts to slash federal contracts, leases and grants. According to a different GAO report released last month, this number was inflated. That report said that DOGE was not transparent about how it calculated this number and could not provide "sufficient information to verify the method used" to calculate 96% of its reported savings. 

Wednesday's report said that the GAO ran into limitations with the administrative leave data reported by the agencies, and their report states that OPM "does not know the actual costs of the paid administrative leave used for workforce reduction efforts" because the DRP-associated administrative leave efforts were lumped in with the general paid administrative leave numbers.

They also said they were unable to determine if the long-term savings goals that the leave program was meant for were actually met. 

"Without a mechanism to track paid administrative leave for workforce reduction efforts, federal leaders may not have the data needed to understand whether government-wide cost saving goals are being met," the report states. 

The GAO recommended the personnel office to address the transparency of their paid administrative leave data, and to create a new category for paid administrative leave used to support workforce reduction efforts. 

Data from OPM states that 271,000 employees have left the federal government since President Trump began his term in January 2025.