Military Pay Calculator

No. The Basic Allowance for Housing is excluded from gross income under IRS Publication 3, which lists living allowances including BAH and BAS among the items not included in gross income. That means no federal income tax, no state income tax and no Social Security or Medicare on it. It is the single largest reason a service member's take-home pay is higher than a civilian's on the same headline compensation, and it is why comparing a military total-compensation figure against a civilian salary understates the military side.

No, on the same basis. The Basic Allowance for Subsistence is a living allowance excluded from gross income. For 2026 it is function(){throw Error("Attempted to call BAS_ENLISTED() from the server but BAS_ENLISTED is on the client. It's not possible to invoke a client function from the server, it can only be rendered as a Component or passed to props of a Client Component.")} a month for enlisted members and function(){throw Error("Attempted to call BAS_OFFICER() from the server but BAS_OFFICER is on the client. It's not possible to invoke a client function from the server, it can only be rendered as a Component or passed to props of a Client Component.")} for officers, flat across every pay grade and every year of service — an E-1 and an E-9 receive the same amount. It is adjusted annually from USDA food cost data rather than by the basic pay raise percentage, which is why the two move by different amounts.

Basic pay is taxable and so are most special and incentive pays — flight pay, sea pay, hazardous duty pay, bonuses and reenlistment bonuses. The allowances are not: BAH, BAS, the uniform allowance, moving allowances and per diem sit outside gross income. So on a typical LES the taxable column is essentially basic pay plus any special pay, while everything in the allowance column flows through untouched by federal tax, state tax and FICA alike.

3.8%, effective January 1, 2026, across all grades for Active Duty, Guard and Reserve, authorised by the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2026 and signed on December 18, 2025. Because it is a percentage, the dollar increase is larger at higher grades and longer service even though the percentage is identical. BAS rose separately by 2.4%, and BAH is recalculated every year from local housing cost data rather than by any fixed percentage.

Yes, on basic pay, at the ordinary rates of 6.2% and 1.45%. This catches people out in two places. First, allowances escape FICA as well as income tax, so FICA applies to a smaller base than total compensation. Second, in a combat zone the income tax exclusion does not extend to FICA — Social Security and Medicare keep coming out of basic pay even in months where no federal income tax does.

It depends on your state of legal residence, not your duty station — a distinction unique to the military. Your SLR is where you are domiciled for tax purposes and it does not change simply because you receive orders somewhere else. Many states exempt military pay entirely, others exempt part of it, and some tax it in full; several service members deliberately maintain residence in a state with no income tax. Because the rules differ substantially and change, check your specific state rather than assuming, and set the state field above to your SLR.

Gross income does not include compensation for active service for any month during any part of which you served in a combat zone or qualified hazardous duty area — so a single day in the zone excludes the whole month. For enlisted members and warrant officers the exclusion is unlimited. For commissioned officers it is capped at the highest rate of enlisted pay plus imminent danger or hostile fire pay, which was $10,983 a month for 2025. Social Security and Medicare are unaffected either way.

Basic pay plus BAH plus BAS plus the federal tax advantage those allowances carry, which is the services' own measure of what military compensation is worth and the right figure to compare against a civilian salary. Because BAH and BAS are excluded from gross income, they are worth more than the same money paid as salary — the tax advantage is exactly that difference. This calculator computes it in the most useful direction: rather than quoting an RMC total, it solves for the fully taxable civilian salary that would leave you the same amount after tax.

Higher than the total compensation figure, because part of yours arrives untaxed. The calculator above solves it directly: it works out your actual take-home, then finds the fully taxable salary that would leave a civilian with the same amount after federal tax, state tax and FICA. For someone with substantial BAH the gap is routinely five figures, which is worth knowing before comparing a separation offer against what you have now.

An LES carries more lines than basic pay and allowances. Traditional TSP contributions, SGLI premiums, dental, meal deductions, advance pay repayments and garnishments all reduce the deposit without being taxes, and special or incentive pays add taxable income this page does not model. Start from the basic pay, BAH and BAS entitlement lines and treat the result here as the tax picture rather than the exact deposit.