(a) Authority. An executive branch agency may noncompetitively appoint, to a competitive service position within the United States (including Guam, Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Islands), an individual who has completed 52 weeks of creditable overseas service as defined in paragraph (b) of this section and is appointed within the time limits in paragraph (d) of this section. Any law, Executive order, or regulation that disqualifies an applicant for appointment in the competitive service, such as the citizenship requirement, also disqualifies the applicant for appointment under this section. An individual may be appointed to any occupation and grade level for which qualified. An agency may waive any requirement for a written test after determining that the duties and responsibilities of the applicant's overseas position were similar enough to make the written test unnecessary.

(1) Tenure. A person appointed under this section becomes a career-conditional employee unless he or she has already satisfied the requirements for career tenure or is exempt from the service requirement in 5 CFR 315.201.

(2) Competitive status. A person appointed under this section acquires competitive status automatically upon completion of probation.

(b) Creditable overseas service. For purposes of this section only, creditable service is service in an appropriated fund position(s) performed by a family member under a local hire appointment(s) overseas during the time the family member was accompanying a sponsor officially assigned to an overseas area and for which the family member received a fully successful or better (or equivalent) performance rating. Creditable overseas service is computed in accordance with the procedures in the OPM Guide to Processing Personnel Actions. Creditable service may have been under more than one appointment and need not be continuous. Leave without pay taken during the time an individual is in the overseas area is credited on the same basis as time worked.

(c) Service waiver. Up to 26 weeks of the 52-week service requirement is waived when the head of an agency (or designee) that employed the family member overseas certifies that the family member's expected 52 weeks of employment were cut short because of a nonpersonal situation that necessitated the relocation of the family member from the overseas area. The certification must include the number of weeks waived. For this purpose, a nonpersonal situation includes disaster, conflict, terrorism or the threat of terrorism, and those situations when a family member is forced to return to the United States because of military deployment, drawdowns, or other management-initiated actions. A nonpersonal situation does not include circumstances that specifically relate to a particular individual, for example, ill health or personal interest in relocating.

(d) Time limit on eligibility. An individual is eligible for appointment(s) under this authority for a period of 3 years following the date of returning from overseas to the United States to resume residence or until March 31, 1998, whichever date is later. An agency may extend an individual's appointment eligibility beyond 3 years for periods equivalent to—

(1) The time the individual was accompanying a sponsor on official assignment to an area of the United States with no significant opportunities for Federal employment; or

(2) The time an individual was incapacitated for employment.

(e) Definitions. In this section terms have the following meaning:

(1) Family member. An unmarried child under age 23, a spouse, or a domestic partner. An individual must have been a family member at the time he or she met the overseas service requirement and other conditions but does not need to be a family member at the time of noncompetitive appointment in the United States.

(2) Sponsor. A Federal civilian employee, a Federal nonappropriated fund employee, or a member of a uniformed service who is officially assigned to an overseas area.

(i) Officially assigned. Under active orders issued by the United States Government.

(ii) Federal civilian employee. An employee of the executive, judicial, or legislative branch of the United States Government who serves in an appropriated fund position.

(iii) Nonappropriated fund employee. An employee paid from nonappropriated funds of the Army and Air Force Exchange Service, Navy Ship's Stores Ashore, Navy Exchanges, Marine Corps Exchanges, Coast Guard Exchanges, or other instrumentalities of the United States.

(iv) Member of a uniformed service. Personnel of the U.S. Armed Forces (including the Coast Guard), the commissioned corps of the Public Health Service, and the commissioned corps of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

(3) Accompanying. The family member resided in the overseas area while the sponsor was officially assigned to an overseas post of duty. The family member need not have physically resided with the sponsor at all times or have traveled with the sponsor to or from the overseas area.

(4) Local hire appointment. An appointment that is not actually or potentially permanent and that is made from among individuals residing in the overseas area. In this section only, a local hire appointment includes nonpermanent employment under:

(i) Overseas limited appointment under 5 CFR 301.203(b) or (c);

(ii) Expected appointment under Schedule A 213.3106(b)(1), 213.3106(b)(6), or 213.3106(d)(1)) when the duration of the appointment is tied to the sponsor's rotation date or when the appointment is made on a not-to-exceed (NTE) basis;

(iii) An “American family member” or “part-time intermittent temporary (PIT)” appointment in U.S. diplomatic establishments;

(iv) 50 U.S.C. 403j; Public Law 86-36 (50 U.S.C. 402, note); the Berlin Tariff Agreement; or as a local national employee paid from appropriated funds; or

(v) Any other nonpermanent appointment in the competitive or excepted service approved by OPM.

(5) Overseas. A location outside the 50 States of the United States, the District of Columbia, Guam, Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Islands.

(6) Domestic partner. A person in a domestic partnership with a sponsor of the same sex.

(7) Domestic partnership. A committed relationship between two adults, of the same sex, in which the partners:

(i) Are each other's sole domestic partner and intend to remain so indefinitely;

(ii) Maintain a common residence, and intend to continue to do so (or would maintain a common residence but for an assignment abroad or other employment-related, financial, or similar obstacle);

(iii) Are at least 18 years of age and mentally competent to consent to contract;

(iv) Share responsibility for a significant measure of each other's financial obligations;

(v) Are not married or joined in a civil union to anyone else;

(vi) Are not the domestic partner of anyone else;

(vii) Are not related in a way that, if they were of opposite sex, would prohibit legal marriage in the U.S. jurisdiction in which the domestic partnership was formed;

(viii) Are willing to certify, if required by the agency, that they understand that willful falsification of any documentation required to establish that an individual is in a domestic partnership may lead to disciplinary action and the recovery of the cost of benefits received related to such falsification, as well as constitute a criminal violation under 18 U.S.C. 1001, and that the method for securing such certification, if required, shall be determined by the agency; and

(ix) Are willing promptly to disclose, if required by the agency, any dissolution or material change in the status of the domestic partnership.

[61 FR 9322, Mar. 8, 1996, as amended at 77 FR 42903, July 20, 2012]