# Career Transition Assistance Program The **Career Transition Assistance Program** is the placement-assistance framework for federal employees who are separated or facing separation, most often through a [[Reduction in Force]]. CTAP gives well-qualified surplus or displaced employees selection priority for vacancies **within their own agency**; the Interagency Career Transition Assistance Program (ICTAP) extends a comparable, weaker priority to vacancies at **other** agencies. A related reemployment priority list (RPL) gives separated employees a claim on later openings. The programs are administered under [[Office of Personnel Management]] regulations and depend on the employee applying within specified windows and meeting the vacancy's qualification standards. They confer priority consideration, not a job. The [[Office of Personnel Management]] final rule published August 3, 2026 and effective September 2, 2026 rewrote the CTAP, ICTAP and RPL regulations alongside its overhaul of RIF retention rules. See [[Federal Workforce Structure Tree]] and [[How a Federal Agency Is Dismantled]].