Appointment of Certain Family Members of Overseas Employees Eligibility

Federal regulations (5 CFR 315.608) offer certain family members of federal employees, or uniformed service members, who are working or who have worked overseas the ability to apply to Federal Government announcements and to be appointed non-competitively to a position. Your eligibility does not entitle you to a job within the Federal Government. You must still meet qualification standards, go through the selection process and meet any additional requirements, such as a background investigation.

If applying to an announcement directly, the announcement must be accepting applications from outside of the Department of Health and Human Services.

If you were living overseas with a family member, who was officially assigned to an overseas duty station, you may be eligible if you meet the requirements below:

  • You are the family member’s spouse, domestic partner, or unmarried child younger than 23;
  • You have worked at least 52 weeks in an appropriated fund position, under a local hire appointment;
  • You have received a successful or equivalent performance rating during your time on the job; and
  • You have returned to the United States to resume residence less than three (3) years ago.

Requesting a waiver

You may request a waiver to have up to 26 weeks of the 52-week service requirement waived. To request this wavier, you must attach a separate justification document explaining the non-personal situation (e.g., disaster, conflict, terrorism or the threat of terrorism, military deployment) on why the overseas assignment was cut short with your application package. In your justification, provide as much detail as possible to include the number of weeks you are requesting to have waived. A nonpersonal situation does not include circumstances that specifically relate to a particular individual, for example, ill health or personal interest in relocating.  Waiver requests may be reviewed and approved on a case-by-case basis.

Requesting an extension

You may request an extension of the three (3) year time limit based on one of the following reasons:

  1. There were no significant opportunities for Federal employment while accompanying a sponsor on official assignment to an area of the United States; or
  2. You were incapacitated for employment.

To request this time extension, you must attach a separate justification document explaining your situations.  Please provide as much detail as possible in your justification.  Time extension requests may be reviewed and approved on a case-by-case basis.

Please note that NIH has very few overseas assignments; therefore, we did not describe the eligibility options for those currently working outside of the U.S.

Required Documentation

To verify your eligibility, you must submit:

  • A copy of your Notification of Personnel Action, Standard Form 50 (SF-50); 
  • A copy of your latest performance appraisal; and
  • Any additional justification documents described above.

You must submit all required documents by the closing date of the announcement with your application package.

For more information and additional eligibilities, review USAJOBS Former Overseas Employees resources.