Military Pay Calculator (2026 Basic Pay + 2027 Raise)

By Mark Ellison, Editor · Updated October 23, 2026

Pick your pay grade and enter your years of service to see your 2026 monthly basic pay from the DFAS tables, what one drill and four drills pay a reservist, and what your basic pay would be in January 2027 under each raise now on the table.

What this calculator includes

It covers basic pay only: the monthly rate set by your pay grade and cumulative years of service, from the DFAS tables effective 1 January 2026. It does not include housing (BAH), subsistence (BAS), special and incentive pays, bonuses, or tax and other deductions, which vary by person and location.

Your actual pay, with every entitlement and deduction, is on your Leave and Earnings Statement in myPay.

How years of service map to the pay table

The DFAS tables use columns labeled "2 or less," "Over 2," "Over 3," and so on, up to "Over 40." "Over" means more than that many full years of cumulative service. A soldier with exactly 3 years is in the "Over 2" column and moves to "Over 3" the day after the third anniversary.

Enlisted members in grade E-1 with less than four months of active duty receive a lower rate, $2,225.70 a month in 2026, according to the DFAS enlisted table.

Officers with prior enlisted or warrant service

Officers in grades O-1 to O-3 with more than four years of active service as an enlisted member, a warrant officer, or both are paid from a separate table, shown here as O-1E, O-2E, and O-3E. Those rates start at the "Over 4" column and pay more than the standard rates at higher years of service.

Choose the "E" grade in the calculator if this applies to you.

Drill pay for the Guard and Reserve

Each drill period pays one-thirtieth of the monthly basic pay for your grade and years of service, rounded to the cent. Four drills pay four times that amount. Every one of the 433 drill values in the DFAS 2026 drill tables follows this rule, so the calculator derives drill pay from the basic pay table.

An E-5 with just over six years of service, for example, earns $4,110.00 a month on active duty and $137.00 for each drill period.

The 2027 raise: two numbers, two different statuses

On 26 August 2026, the President sent Congress an alternative pay plan under 37 U.S.C. 1009(e) setting the January 2027 raise at 7.0% for E-1 to E-5, 6.0% for E-6 to O-3, and 5.0% for O-4 and above. That plan takes effect on 1 January 2027 unless Congress enacts a different rate.

The Senate Armed Services Committee's bill, S. 4784, instead provides a flat 3.6% raise, the figure produced by the statutory Employment Cost Index formula. As of 23 October 2026 the FY2027 defense authorization act had not been enacted; CRS reported no further Senate floor action on S. 4784 as of 1 September 2026.

Source: House Document 119-189, effective January 1, 2027; FY2027 NDAA Executive Summary, effective June 15, 2026; checked October 23, 2026.

How much the two raises differ

For an E-4 with three years of service, the 2026 rate of $3,303.00 a month becomes $3,534.21 under the 7% plan and $3,421.91 under a 3.6% raise. The difference is $112.30 a month, or $1,347.60 over a year, in basic pay alone, before any change to allowances.

The gap is widest in percentage terms for E-5 and below, where the plan gives 7% against 3.6%. The calculator shows the monthly and yearly difference for your grade and years of service.

Warrant officers and the 6% band

The President's letter gives 6.0% to "grades E6 to O3" and does not name warrant officers. In the Defense Department's order of pay grades, W-1 to W-5 and O-1E to O-3E fall inside that range, so the calculator applies 6.0% to them. The 2027 DFAS tables will settle the question, and this page will be updated then.

Pay caps for colonels and general officers

Basic pay is capped by the Executive Schedule. For 2026, DFAS limits O-7 to O-10 to $18,999.90 a month, Level II of the Executive Schedule, and O-6 and below to $15,408.30, Level V. Several cells in the O-6 to O-10 rows of the 2026 table already sit at those caps.

For 2027, the caps depend on the 2027 Executive Schedule, which had not been published when this page was checked. The calculator holds any projected amount that would reach or pass a 2026 cap at that cap and marks it as capped. An O-6 with just over 26 years, for example, would move from $15,188.70 to $15,948.14 under a 5% raise, so the result shows $15,408.30, capped.