Military pay
Military pay grades: E, W and O
Why the military talks about E-5 and O-3 rather than sergeant and captain, and how 24 pay grades set the basic pay of every service member.
Pay grade to 2026 basic pay
E-5, over 4 years of service, from January 1, 2026
$3,946.80 / month
| Over 12 months | $47,362 |
| Next increase | $4,110.00 at over 6 (6 yrs) |
DFAS table effective January 1, 2026. 2027 lines are estimates from proposals that Congress has not passed. Basic pay only.
Columns of the table: 2 or less, Over 2, Over 3, Over 4, Over 6 … Over 40. 24 pay grades.
A pay grade is the administrative level that sets a service member's basic pay, written as a letter and a number. The Department of War chart puts it this way: "Do not confuse rank with paygrades, such as E-1, W-2 and O-5." The E stands for enlisted, W for warrant officers and O for commissioned officers, and the number gives the level within the category: E-1 to E-9, W-1 to W-5, O-1 to O-10, 24 grades in all. Title 37 of the US Code assigns each officer and warrant officer title to a grade for the purpose of computing basic pay. The grade is the same in every service, the title is not: an E-4 is a specialist or a corporal in the Army, a corporal in the Marine Corps, a petty officer third class in the Navy and a senior airman in the Air Force. All draw $3,142.20 a month at the start in 2026.
What is this rank called in another service?
Marine Corps Gunnery Sergeant (GySgt) in the Navy
Chief Petty Officer
| Pay grade | E-7 |
| Group | Chief petty officer |
| Abbreviation | CPO |
Equivalence follows the pay grade, the rule the services use between them.
Ranks and pay tables read by Radif Partners · Editorial policy · Method and sources
Grade and years of service set the pay
Basic pay depends on two things: the pay grade and the cumulative years of service. DFAS publishes one table for each category, with 22 columns from "2 or less" to "over 40" years. Promotion moves a member down the table to a higher row; time moves them across to the right. Some cells are empty because nobody reaches that grade so early: E-8 starts at over eight years, E-9 and O-9 at over ten and over twenty.
| Category | Grades | First 2026 rate | Highest 2026 rate |
|---|---|---|---|
| Enlisted | E-1 to E-9 | $2,225.70 | $10,729.20 |
| Warrant officers | W-1 to W-5 | $4,056.60 | $13,308.30 |
| Commissioned officers | O-1 to O-10 | $4,150.20 | $18,999.90 |
What is a promotion worth in basic pay?
O-3 to O-4, over 10 years
+$1,044.30 / mo
| O-3 | $8,375.70 |
| O-4 | $9,420.00 |
| Over a year | +$12,532 |
Same years of service in both grades, 2026 DFAS table.
When rank and grade part ways
Within a service, two members of the same grade can hold different ranks with different authority. The chart gives the examples: the Army corporal "is expected to fill a leadership role and has a higher rank than a specialist, even though both receive E-4 pay"; the Marine sergeant major outranks the master gunnery sergeant at E-9. Between services, "rank and precedence are determined by paygrade", which is why every equivalence on this site follows the grade.
Each grade has a page
From E-1 to O-10, each pay grade has its own page with the titles of the six services, the insignia and the full 2026 pay row.