BAS 2026: $476.95 enlisted, $328.48 officer, and BAS II

The 2026 rates

The Defense Finance and Accounting Service (DFAS) publishes the table, effective January 1 each year. The 2026 row and the three years before it:

Both 2026 rates rose 2.4% from 2025. Over a full year, enlisted BAS comes to $5,723.40 and officer BAS to $3,941.76.

The Financial Management Regulation (FMR) is plain about who gets which: “A single rate of BAS applies to all officers” (Vol. 7A, ch. 25, 2.1.1), and enlisted members get the standard enlisted rate unless they qualify for, and the proper authority approves, BAS II (2.1.2.1). Warrant officers are officers for this purpose — Title 37 defines “officer” as a commissioned or warrant officer (37 U.S.C. 101(11)) — so a W-2 draws $328.48, not the enlisted rate.

Why officers get less

The gap isn’t a judgment about who eats more. It comes from how the law sets each rate (37 U.S.C. 402(b)):

• Enlisted BAS is tied to the cost of food as measured by the Department of Agriculture.
• Officer BAS is last year’s officer rate, increased by the same percentage as the enlisted rate.

Because the officer rate only ever moves in step with the enlisted rate, the difference carries forward from year to year. In 2026 it is $148.47 a month, or $1,781.64 a year. The statute doesn’t explain the historical reason for the lower starting point, and we don’t guess at it here.

A new enlisted formula from the FY2026 defense bill

The National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2026 (Public Law 119-60, section 621, enacted December 18, 2025) rewrote the enlisted formula. As 37 U.S.C. 402(b)(1) now reads:

• the enlisted rate for a year equals the monthly cost of the Department of Agriculture’s liberal food plan for a male aged 19 to 50, as determined on October 1 of the year before;
• the enlisted rate may not decrease compared with the year before.

The same section required the Department of Defense (DoD) to send Congress an implementation plan by September 30, 2026. The DFAS page showing the 2026 rates was last updated December 19, 2025, the day after the law was signed, and neither the DFAS table nor the FMR (last revised August 2025) says which formula produced the $476.95 figure. So the sources we read don’t state the first year the new rule sets the rate; we’ll note it on the change log when DoD says. Because officer BAS follows the enlisted percentage, any change in the enlisted formula carries over to officers too.

BAS II: who can get the double rate

BAS II is twice the standard enlisted rate — $953.90 a month in 2026. DFAS and the FMR describe it the same way. It may be paid to enlisted members who are:

1. on duty at a permanent station, and
2. assigned to single (unaccompanied) government quarters without adequate food storage or preparation facilities, and
3. where no government mess is available and the government can’t otherwise make meals available.

It also has to be authorized by the secretary of the military department concerned (and, for the Coast Guard, the Commandant), according to the FMR’s rate-table note. The FMR mentions two examples of where it has been authorized: Navy members assigned to vessels in pre-commissioning status, and Air Force members at specific locations.

BAS II also has limits where it is authorized. A government mess that is only temporarily closed for less than 14 days doesn’t create a BAS II entitlement, and BAS II isn’t authorized while you’re on leave, on temporary duty or in the hospital; for those periods you revert to standard enlisted BAS (FMR 7A, ch. 25, 2.2.2.4 and 2.3.2). Whether your quarters qualify is your command’s and finance office’s call, not a calculator’s.

When BAS isn’t paid, and other special cases

The FMR lists the main cases where no BAS is paid:

• during basic military training and initial officer training (Officer Candidate School, Officer Training School), unless you have continuous prior enlisted service — you’re fed in kind instead;
• in excess leave, or absent without leave for more than 24 hours unless the absence is excused;
• on an approved educational leave of absence of up to two years;
• when a court-martial sentence forfeits pay and allowances.

Two special rules sit in the statute itself. Enlisted members can be paid BAS in advance for up to three months (37 U.S.C. 402(c)). And a Guard or Reserve enlisted member who isn’t on active duty may, at the service’s discretion, be given rations in kind on a day when drills or duty periods total at least 8 hours, or a cash commutation when rations aren’t available (402(e)); that is separate from the monthly BAS paid on active duty.

If you draw BAS and eat government-provided meals, you pay for them. The FMR treats that as a debt you owe for the meals, collected in cash, from travel per diem or from your pay account — not as a cut in your BAS (2.4.1).

Worked example: BAS inside a monthly paycheck

BAS is small next to basic pay and the Basic Allowance for Housing (BAH), but it is tax-free: Internal Revenue Service (IRS) Publication 3 lists BAS among the allowances excluded from gross income. Here is how it sits in two house examples, computed with our military pay calculator from the DFAS 2026 basic pay tables for enlisted members↗ and officers↗ and the Defense Travel Management Office’s 2026 BAH rate file↗:

For the E-5, BAS is $476.95 of $6,853.75. For the O-3, the officer rate of $328.48 is a smaller share of a larger total. An enlisted member who qualified for BAS II would see $953.90 on that line instead of $476.95.

Next step

See BAS next to your basic pay and BAH in the military pay calculator, which picks the enlisted or officer rate from your grade. If your LES shows BAS II or no BAS at all and you’re not sure why, your finance office can tell you which rule applies.

This is general information, not financial or tax advice. Your Leave and Earnings Statement and your finance office are the final word on your pay.