Military ranks of the six services, E-1 to O-10

Pay grades first, titles second

Title 37 of the United States Code lists the pay grades of the uniformed services in section 201: E-1 to E-9 for enlisted members, W-1 to W-5 for warrant officers and O-1 to O-10 for commissioned officers. The letter gives the category and the number the step: E-1 is the most junior enlisted grade, O-10 the four-star general or admiral. Every service uses the same grades and the same pay tables, which is why they are the common language between branches. A Marine who reads that a sailor is an E-6 knows at once that the sailor sits at the level of a Marine staff sergeant, whatever the sailor's title.

Titles, by contrast, belong to each service. The Army and the Marine Corps call their E-5 a sergeant, the Air Force a staff sergeant, the Navy and the Coast Guard a petty officer second class. Some grades carry two titles in the same service: the Army has specialists and corporals at E-4, the Marine Corps master gunnery sergeants and sergeants major at E-9. In that case the two receive the same pay, but one ranks above the other inside the service. The Department of War chart notes that "among the services, however, rank and precedence are determined by pay grade". The grid below gives the Army and Navy titles of each grade; each grade opens its own page with the six services side by side.

Enlisted ranks, E-1 to E-9

Most members of the armed forces are enlisted. The chart describes three stages. Members in grades E-1 to E-3 "are usually either in some kind of training status or on their initial assignment": basic training, then a specialty called a military occupational specialty in the Army and the Marine Corps, a rate in the Navy and an Air Force specialty in the Air Force. The midlevel grades bring formal leadership through the titles noncommissioned officer and petty officer: an Army sergeant, an Air Force staff sergeant and a Marine corporal are NCOs, and the Navy reaches petty officer at third class, E-4. At E-8 and E-9 members have, in the chart's words, "15 to 30 years on the job, and are commanders' senior advisers for enlisted matters".

Each service has its own logic. The Army runs private, private, private first class, then specialist or corporal at E-4 and a ladder of sergeants up to sergeant major. The Marine Corps names its E-1 private and its E-2 private first class, then lance corporal and corporal before its sergeants. The Navy and the Coast Guard climb from seaman recruit through petty officer to master chief petty officer, and the Coast Guard wears the Navy's insignia in another color, except at seaman recruit, which has one stripe. The Air Force starts with airman basic and airman first class; the Space Force uses specialist titles, specialist 1 to specialist 4, below its sergeants. The enlisted ranks page compares the six ladders, and the NCO page explains where each service starts its noncommissioned officers.

Warrant officers, W-1 to W-5

Warrant officers are technical specialists. The chart explains that they "hold warrants from their service secretary", that the lowest-ranking serve under that warrant but "receive commissions from the president upon promotion to chief warrant officer 2", and that they remain specialists where commissioned officers are generalists. The Army, the Marine Corps and the Navy use all five grades, from warrant officer 1 to chief warrant officer 5. The Coast Guard has chief warrant officers 2 to 4. The Space Force has none.

The Air Force is the change the chart has not caught up with. It still says that there are no warrant officers in the Air Force, but the service had reintroduced the corps by 2024: on December 6, 2024, the first 30 Air Force warrant officers graduated from its Warrant Officer Training School, for cyber, intelligence and space duties, after a gap since 1959. Their titles and insignia do not appear on the chart we read, so this site shows the grades without inventing them. The warrant officer page gives the five grades service by service.

Commissioned officers, O-1 to O-10

Commissioned officers "hold presidential commissions and are confirmed at their ranks by the Senate". The Army, the Air Force and the Marine Corps group them as company grade officers from O-1 to O-3, field grade officers from O-4 to O-6 and general officers from O-7 up; the Navy speaks of junior grade, mid-grade and flag officers. The Army, Marine Corps, Air Force and Space Force share the titles: second lieutenant, first lieutenant, captain, major, lieutenant colonel, colonel, then brigadier general to general. The Navy and the Coast Guard run from ensign through lieutenant junior grade, lieutenant, lieutenant commander, commander and captain to rear admiral lower half, rear admiral, vice admiral and admiral.

One title therefore means two different grades: a captain is an O-3 in the Army and an O-6 in the Navy. That is the most common confusion between the services, and the reason the lookup above always shows the pay grade with the title. Above O-10 the chart places General of the Army, Fleet Admiral and General of the Air Force, each "reserved for wartime only"; the five-star page names the officers who held them. The officer ranks page sets the six ladders side by side.

Insignia

Rank insignia follow a few families. Enlisted members wear chevrons, with rockers below and arcs or stripes added as they rise, and the Navy and Coast Guard add an eagle and a specialty mark on their rating badges; the chart notes that gold stripes indicate 12 or more years of good conduct. Officers wear bars, oak leaves, eagles and stars: one gold bar for a second lieutenant or ensign, one silver bar for a first lieutenant, two silver bars for a captain or Navy lieutenant, a gold oak leaf at O-4 and a silver oak leaf at O-5, an eagle at O-6, then one star per grade from O-7 to O-10. Naval officers also wear sleeve stripes or shoulder boards depending on the uniform. The site shows 133 insignia images taken from the Department of War chart, a work of the federal government, and its insignia quiz tests them one by one.

Equivalent ranks between services

Equivalence follows the pay grade, and nothing else. A Navy chief petty officer, an Army sergeant first class, a Marine gunnery sergeant and an Air Force master sergeant are all E-7, earn the same basic pay at the same length of service and rank equally between services. Titles that look alike can mislead: an Air Force staff sergeant is E-5, a Marine staff sergeant E-6. The equivalents chart lines up every grade of the six services, and the abbreviations page explains why the same rank is SSG in the Army and SSgt in the Marine Corps.

Basic pay in 2026

Basic pay rose by 3.8% on January 1, 2026, the increase given by the formula of 37 U.S.C. 1009, which follows the Employment Cost Index. The Defense Finance and Accounting Service publishes three monthly tables, for enlisted members, warrant officers and commissioned officers, each by grade and cumulative years of service, from "2 or less" to "over 40". A private with more than four months earns $2,407.20 a month, a sergeant at E-5 over four years $3,946.80, a new second lieutenant or ensign $4,150.20. Officer rates are capped at $15,408.30 for O-6 and below and $18,999.90 for O-7 to O-10, the levels V and II of the Executive Schedule; the six service senior enlisted leaders and two senior enlisted advisors receive $11,166.90 whatever their years of service.

Basic pay is only part of military compensation. The Congressional Research Service puts it at about three-fifths of regular military compensation, the rest being the tax-free housing and food allowances and the tax advantage they carry. Those allowances depend on location and family, so this site does not estimate them. The 2026 pay chart gives every rate with a calculator, and the pay grades page explains how the tables are read.

The 2027 raise is not settled

No 2027 table exists yet. The statutory formula gives 3.6% on January 1, 2027, and the Senate Armed Services Committee bill keeps that figure. The President's budget and the House bill instead propose 7% for E-1 to E-5, 6% for E-6 to O-3 and 5% for O-4 and above, according to the Congressional Research Service. The raise becomes final with the National Defense Authorization Act, or by the formula if Congress sets no other figure. Until then, every 2027 amount on this site is labeled an estimate, and the 2027 raise page follows the bills. The history of raises since 2004 shows how often Congress has departed from the formula.

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