How do USCF rating floors work?

I heard something about a USCF "rating floor", which means your rating can't go below a certain number.
How do you get a rating floor, also how many are there and at what ratings?

You get it by doing well in a rated tournament, usually winning prize money in a class section (like U1800). USCF will then assign you a floor to prevent you from sandbagging, which is dropping your rating to win money in lower rated sections. Floors are assigned at like 1600, 1800, 2000, etc. You cannot drop below this rating ever.

@crtex said in #2:
> You get it by doing well in a rated tournament, usually winning prize money in a class section (like U1800). USCF will then assign you a floor to prevent you from sandbagging, which is dropping your rating to win money in lower rated sections. Floors are assigned at like 1600, 1800, 2000, etc. You cannot drop below this rating ever.
I also heard that if you reach a certain rating, you will get a rating floor below that rating. (Ex. your rating right now is 1694, you get a rating floor at a rating below you) Is that true?

Yes. In fact I believe your peak rating is the main determinant of rating floors, though I don't know the exact formulas. Although you have to do well in rated events, so the two typically go hand in hand.

All I know is mine is 2000.

All I know is that mine cannot be a negative number.

Keep in mind that zero is neither positive nor negative.

@ThatRandomPerson111 said in #3:
> I also heard that if you reach a certain rating, you will get a rating floor below that rating. (Ex. your rating right now is 1694, you get a rating floor at a rating below you) Is that true?

Your rating floor is 200 points below your peak official rating rounded down to the nearest 100. For example, since my USCF rating is 1843, my floor is 1600. Note that below a certain peak rating (I think it's either 1400 or 1600), you don't have a floor. Also note that your peak rating only takes into account official ratings, which are published every month. So if you are at your current peak rating, which we will say is 1790 and you play in a tournament and go up to 1810 but then play in another tournament and go down to 1795 before your rating becomes official, your peak will be 1795 when it becomes official, not 1810, and thus your floor would remain at 1500.

Is it really forever, i.e. once you reach e.g. 1800, you can never fall below 1600 and will be artificially held there even if your performance is consistently worse?

@mkubecek said in #8:
> Is it really forever, i.e. once you reach e.g. 1800, you can never fall below 1600 and will be artificially held there even if your performance is consistently worse?

I believe so, but I think you can request that the USCF remove your floor if you really feel that your playing strength has decreased that much. I remember once reading about someone who did this.

@mkubecek said in #8:
> Is it really forever, i.e. once you reach e.g. 1800, you can never fall below 1600 and will be artificially held there even if your performance is consistently worse?

If you are at your floor for a really long time and are clearly at a level below the floor, you may petition to have it lowered. USCF will look at your request, and see if your results really merit a reduction, and may grant a reduced rating floor at their discretion.