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Military Pay Calculator

2024 Military Pay

Military.com | By Tiffini Theisen

The Military Pay Calculator is the perfect tool to help you figure out how much you make as a U.S. military service member. While knowing your basic military pay rate may be simple enough, it can be more challenging to understand how certain allowances, including Basic Allowance for Housing (BAH) , affect what you take home each month.

About the Military Pay Calculator

With a few taps or clicks, the Military.com Military Pay Calculator can help you easily determine how much you will earn before taxes, now and in the future. Getting ready to move? Factor in the BAH for your new ZIP code. Getting promoted or deployed ? Adjust your information, and learn what you'll take home.

To begin using the Military Pay Calculator, first choose your status: whether Active Duty, National Guard or Reserve. Then scroll down to find your current pay grade: E1-9, W1-5, or O1-10. "E" stands for enlisted, "W" for warrant officer and "O" for commissioned officer. Finally, indicate your number of years of service in the dropdown menu.

Tap "Next: Allowances" and enter your ZIP code at the top. Then, check the boxes to choose Housing Allowance (BAH), short for Basic Allowance for Housing. This monthly allowance may be in place when military housing is not provided, depending on geographic duty location and other factors.

The next box, COLA (CONUS) , stands for Continental United States Cost-of-Living Allowance and applies to locations where the cost of living is 8% or more higher than average. If your location isn't one of these areas, you may check the box, but the amount will remain at 0.

Check the Dependents box if you have any, and the calculator will adjust your pay to reflect this.

Next, if you receive any of the following, check the boxes for: Clothing Allowance, Family Separation Pay and Subsistence Allowance (BAS) which is short for Basic Allowance for Subsistence. BAS offsets the cost of food and is paid to service members who aren't provided regular meals or whose housing lacks access to adequate kitchen facilities. Remember: even if you regularly receive BAS under normal circumstances, it may not be a part of your final paycheck if you are deployed or on a training rotation away from home.

The final box in this section allows you to manually input any other allowance you receive.

Special Pay

Some military members who face unusual duty conditions, including service that may be particularly difficult or dangerous, may qualify for special pay on top of their basic pay . This is an additional monthly or annual sum added to your compensation.

For example, extra money is added to the paychecks of military members who are on diving or parachute duty; assigned to a flight deck; or on assignments designated as hazardous or a hardship, or simply outside the scope of normal duty.

You can also earn extra money for serving in a medical capacity or​​ brushing up on a foreign language, among other incentive categories.

In this section of the calculator, first select your service from the dropdown menu, and then check any of the boxes that apply to you.

Finally, tap View Summary to get an overview of all your calculator selections. You will also see all your totals in the light blue box.

How Much Does the Military Pay?

The best way to figure out how much the military pays is to use the military pay calculator or check military pay charts . If you're not yet in the service, start by looking at E-1, which will show the amount you might be paid during Basic Training, depending on your circumstances.

How much you get paid over time will change based on your rank, location, job and other factors.

Related : Military Ranks: Everything You Need to Know

About Military Pay

Service members receive a base salary set by law. Each year, Congress approves a military pay raise to account for inflation -- typically between 1% and 3%. The amount is tied to each person's rank, or "pay grade," and is the minimum amount a service member can expect to receive before taxes and any other deductions.

Troops also typically receive a variety of allowances on top of their military pay. Those can include Basic Allowance for Subsistence (BAS), Basic Allowance for Housing (BAH), a Cost of Living Adjustment (COLA) based on location, a clothing allowance and more.

Military members may also receive other special pay amounts tied to their specific military jobs or deployment . For example, troops might receive Hazardous Duty Pay, Imminent Danger Pay and Jump Pay.

The military pay calculator factors in all of those pays in one easy-to-use place.

Which Military Branch Pays the Most?

Basic military pay amounts are set by law and are the same for each branch of the military. Pay amounts are tied to pay grade. While the different services often customize the names of their ranks, all of those ranks are tied to that same pay grade chart.

Service members do, however, receive fluctuating pay based on their location, special skills, family size or risk associated with their job. For example, a deployed Special Forces soldier with a family stationed in a high cost-of-living area will bring home a lot more pay in the form of allowances and special pays than an unmarried soldier of the same rank with a desk job in Oklahoma. Both, however, will have the same base pay.

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Military considers allowing calculators on entrance exam amid continued recruiting struggles: report

T he Pentagon is considering a policy that would allow military applicants to use calculators on entrance exams as it continues to seek a way to combat the ongoing recruiting crisis.

The new policy would change how applicants take the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery, or ASVAB. Many young Americans have struggled to score high enough on the test to qualify for military service, according to a report from Military.com and confirmed by Fox News Digital.

The test, which both qualifies applicants for enlistment and determines what jobs an applicant is eligible for, has become a barrier for some potential recruits who would have otherwise joined the military, deepening what has already become one of the worst recruiting crises the Pentagon has faced.

TOP ARMY OFFICIAL BLAMES ANTI-WOKE RHETORIC OF RIGHT FOR SEVERE RECRUITING CRISIS

"The department is carefully considering the use of calculators for the ASVAB," a defense official told Fox News Digital Monday. "We are taking a systematic approach, which will assess the impact of calculator use, and we are developing a way forward for calculator inclusion based on best practices in test development and psychometric theory."

The Army, Navy, and Air Force are all expected to miss their recruiting goals for the second consecutive year, according to the report, while the Marine Corps and Space Force are expected to hit their needed number. Some of the recruiting woes can be traced back to the ASVAB test, the report said, with many applicants being turned away as a result of their scores on the test.

READ ON THE FOX NEWS APP

At the heart of the crisis is a shrinking pool of young Americans who are eligible for enlistment, while the military has also pointed to struggles that have continued as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.

But others have pinned the blame on the military's shift to so-called "woke" politics in recent years, a narrative Army Secretary Christine Wormuth pushed back against in recent months.

"We are a ready Army, not a ‘woke’ Army," Wormuth told reporters in June. "That’s something, frankly, the chief [Army Chief of Staff Gen. James McConville] and I said throughout posture season in hearings, in meetings with members of Congress."

At a later media roundtable, Wormuth also said part of the blame for the crisis was on those who have accused the military of being "woke."

ARMY EXPANDS PROGRAM FOR RECRUITS WHO DON'T MEET WEIGHT AND TEST REQUIREMENTS AS RECRUITING CRISIS DEEPENS

"I think one of the things that we see that’s contributing to a decline in trust in the military is a concern on both sides of the aisle about politicization of our military leaders," Wormuth said at the time. 

"I think the more our military leaders are sort of dragged into spaces that have been politicized like that, I think the more it contributes to this perception that they’re political when they really aren’t," Wormuth added. "So, I hope that we don’t see more of the kind of talk that’s been out in the past few days."

Whatever the reason for the crisis, the military has looked for creative ways to alleviate the shortfall. The Army, which has been the hardest hit by recruiting woes, launched the Future Soldier Preparatory Course last year. The course gives applicants who didn't meet aptitude or body fat standards 90 days to come into compliance with Army standards, with successful recruits then shipping off to basic military training.

The Army has so far graduated 9,216 students through the course, according to Military.com, with 7,045 going through the academic version of the course and 2,171 completing the fitness course.