What civilian salary equals your military pay?

Basic pay is only part of what the military pays you. Set a civilian offer against it alone, and a pay cut can look like a raise.

If you're weighing a civilian job offer, the number you probably hold it up against is your basic pay. That's the wrong comparison. In 2026, the average E-5 draws $49,965 a year in basic pay, but DoD counts the average E-5's pay as $89,148 once housing, food and taxes are included.

The difference is the allowances. Your Leave and Earnings Statement lists BAH and BAS apart from basic pay, and they don't appear in Box 1 of your W-2, so they're easy to forget. They also aren't taxed, while a civilian pays for housing and food out of a taxed salary. That's why analysts compare civilian pay with Regular Military Compensation, or RMC, instead of basic pay.

Against basic pay, a fictional $85,000 offer looks like a 70% raise for that E-5. Against RMC, it's $4,148 short. Below is how RMC works, how to estimate yours, what it leaves out, and how to turn an offer's health coverage, retirement match and time off into numbers you can compare.

What RMC is, and why it's the number to compare

RMC is defined in law. It's the total of four things: basic pay, BAH, BAS, and the federal tax advantage you get because those two allowances aren't subject to federal income tax. DoD's 14th Quadrennial Review of Military Compensation, published in January 2025, uses the same four parts.

DoD has measured military pay against civilian earnings this way since the Gorham Commission in the 1960s, which found that RMC was the right counterpart to a civilian paycheck. The Congressional Research Service notes that analysts typically use RMC, not basic pay, for these comparisons. Basic pay typically makes up over half of RMC, except for the most junior members.

For an E-1, RMC is more than twice basic pay. For an O-6, it's about 1.4 times. No single rule of thumb that adds a fixed share to base pay fits both ends.

How does RMC stack up against civilian pay? DoD's benchmark is the 70th percentile, meaning an average member should earn more than 69 of 100 civilians with similar traits. The 2025 review, using 2021 data, put enlisted RMC at the 83rd percentile for members with up to 20 years of service, and officer RMC at the 76th. It recommended raising the benchmark to the 75th.

Who you're measured against matters. At 20 years of service, enlisted RMC sat at the 59th percentile against civilians with a bachelor's degree and the 85th against those with an associate's degree, again on 2021 data. These are averages. They say nothing about what one employer will offer you.

Your RMC, estimated

You need four numbers, all at 2026 rates, since basic pay, BAH and BAS all change each January.

Basic pay. It comes from the 2026 pay table, set by Executive Order 14368 and effective January 1, 2026, after a 3.8% raise. Your rate depends on your grade and years of service. An E-5 with over 6 years draws $4,110.00 a month, or $49,320 a year. An O-3 with over 4 draws $7,382.70 a month, or $88,592.40.

BAH. It depends on your grade, whether you have dependents and where your duty station is. Each military housing area is defined by ZIP code. Rates come from median rents and utilities in 299 housing areas, minus a cost share of 5% of the national average housing cost for your grade, which ran $93 to $212 a month in 2026. Rates rose an average of 4.2% for 2026. Look yours up in DTMO's BAH Rate Lookup.

BAS. The standard monthly rates are $476.95 a month for enlisted members and $328.48 for officers in 2026. That's $5,723.40 and $3,941.76 a year. It doesn't change if you have dependents.

The tax advantage. BAH and BAS aren't subject to federal income tax, and RMC adds a dollar value for that tax break, which the law calls the federal tax advantage. DoD's grade averages figure it with the standard deduction, 2026 tax rates and the earned income tax credit, which comes to $6,339 for an average E-5. Yours depends on your filing status, family and other income.

DoD publishes an RMC calculator. Gather your grade, years of service, filing status, family size and duty-station ZIP code before using it. If a calculator simply multiplies your allowances by one tax rate, that's a shortcut. DoD's averages use the standard deduction and the 2026 tax brackets instead.

Add the four together and you have your RMC, estimated. Two more checks before you compare it with anything. RMC leaves out special and incentive pays and bonuses, so if you draw any, add them from your LES. And BAH is set for your duty station, not for where the new job is. If the job is somewhere housing costs more, your RMC won't show it.

The taxes RMC doesn't count

RMC counts one tax: federal income tax. BAH and BAS escape three. Military OneSource says they aren't subject to federal or state income tax, or to Social Security and Medicare taxes. Military basic pay is subject to Social Security and Medicare taxes; BAH and BAS are not. A civilian pays both, 6.2% and 1.45%, on the whole salary, up to $184,500 for Social Security in 2026.

So for many people, RMC understates the salary it takes to keep the same take-home pay. Here is this guide's own arithmetic, not DoD's, for the average E-5. It assumes 2026 federal brackets and the standard deduction, 7.65% for Social Security and Medicare, and no state income tax, credits, pre-tax deductions or other income. On those terms, a single E-5 would need a salary of about $94,300 to take home the same amount, about $5,150 more than RMC. About $4,350 of that is Social Security and Medicare tax. The rest comes from how DoD figures its tax advantage: as an average across all E-5s, whatever their filing status and family, including the earned income tax credit. Filing jointly, the figure is about $90,700. Real figures vary by state and household.

State income tax is the other piece. While you serve, the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act means your military pay is generally taxed only by your state of legal residence, wherever you're stationed. Some home states tax it and some don't. That protection covers pay for military service. Once your pay comes from a civilian employer, find out how your new state taxes wages.

The gap can be large. Texas's constitution bars a tax on individuals' net income. Virginia's 2025 rates top out at 5.75%, and the state's own worked example puts the 2025 tax on $90,000 of Virginia taxable income at $4,918. At that top rate, each extra $1,000 of salary costs $57.50 in state tax. These are two examples, not a list, so check your own state's tax agency for its current rates.

Health coverage: compare what you'd pay

RMC puts no value on TRICARE. What coverage is worth depends on your family and how much care you use, so compare what you'd pay. On active duty, you and your family pay no TRICARE enrollment fees.

With an employer plan, you pay part of the premium. In March 2026, private-industry employers paid 80% of the premium for single coverage and 69% for family coverage. Where workers paid a flat amount, they averaged $173.94 a month for single coverage, about $2,087 a year, and $729.72 a month for family coverage, about $8,757. Their employers paid an average of $620.63 and $1,558.37 a month. Not every job comes with this: 71% of private-industry workers had access to a medical plan.

The employer's share is real money even though it never reaches your paycheck. It generally isn't taxed as your wages, and your own share is often taken out before tax through what the IRS calls a cafeteria plan. Premiums aren't the whole cost, either, so ask for the plan's deductible and out-of-pocket maximum too.

If you're separating rather than retiring, there's one more price to know. TRICARE ends, though some kinds of separation come with 180 days of TAMP coverage with no premiums. To keep TRICARE-like coverage after that, the Continued Health Care Benefit Program (CHCBP) costs $2,103 a quarter for an individual and $5,339 for a family in 2026, or $8,412 and $21,356 a year, for up to 18 months. The premiums change each year, so check the current rate before you buy. Set those prices beside the employee shares above to see the difference an employer's share makes.

Retirement money and time off

Under the Blended Retirement System (BRS), the government puts 1% of your basic pay into your Thrift Savings Plan (TSP) after 60 days of service. After two years, it also matches what you put in: dollar for dollar on the first 3% of basic pay and 50 cents on the dollar on the next 2%. Put in 5%, and the government matches 4%, for 5% in all with the automatic 1%. Both stop after 26 years. The match counts basic pay only, and you can't contribute from BAH or BAS.

A 401(k) match is set as a share of your civilian pay. In March 2026, 70% of private-industry workers could join a plan like a 401(k), and 11% had access to a savings plan the employer puts no money into. The latest BLS detail on match formulas, from 2022, put the median maximum employer contribution at 4% of pay for workers in plans with a set match. In that data, only 36% of workers in savings plans were vested right away.

So compare dollars, not percentages. For an average E-5, the government's 5% comes to about $2,498 a year. A 4% match on the fictional $85,000 offer is $3,400. On the military side, the automatic 1% is yours only after two years of service, while matching money and your own contributions are yours at once.

RMC leaves out the value of military retired pay. If you leave before 20 years, there may be no pension to count. Under the legacy system, about 81% of service members leave with no retirement benefit. Under BRS, about 85% will get one, even without qualifying for full retirement.

Count time off in days, since the salary already pays for them. You earn 2½ days of leave a month, or 30 a year. In March 2026, private-industry workers with paid vacation averaged 11 days after one year, 16 after five, 18 after ten and 20 after twenty. Workers with paid holidays averaged 8. Half of workers with paid vacation got their time off through a single PTO bank, which averaged 14 days after one year.

Life insurance is smaller money but worth a line. For $500,000 of SGLI, the monthly deduction is $26: $25 for life insurance plus $1 for traumatic injury protection (TSGLI). In March 2026, 59% of private-industry workers had access to employer life insurance, and 97% of those covered paid nothing for it. Where the benefit was a multiple of pay, the median was one year's earnings.

If you're retiring

If you retire, BAH stops before your retirement date, but retired pay starts. Retired pay is figured from basic pay only: your High-3, the average of your highest 36 months of basic pay, times 2½% for each year of service under the legacy system (less if you took the Career Status Bonus, under REDUX), or 2% under BRS. RMC is the wrong base for that math.

Retired pay based on length of service is taxable, so it goes on the same federal return as your salary. VA disability compensation isn't taxable. States differ. Virginia, for example, lets you subtract up to $40,000 of military benefits from tax year 2025 on, but TSP withdrawals don't count.

You keep TRICARE as a retiree, but you pay for it. In 2026, retiree enrollment fees run from $186.96 a year for an individual on TRICARE Select in Group A to $1,191 for a family on Select in Group B. You're in Group A if your first enlistment or appointment came before January 1, 2018.

If you also join an employer's plan, it pays first and TRICARE pays second. An employer with 20 or more employees must let you join its plan on the same terms as similar workers, can't give you incentives to stay off it, and joining doesn't end your TRICARE eligibility. Rules on retired pay for retirees who take civilian jobs, including federal jobs, are outside this guide.

One example, start to finish

Example (fictional) Tanya Reyes is a Navy petty officer second class (E-5). She's single, under BRS and well past her second year of service. She's leaving at the end of her contract, her legal residence is Texas, and she has an offer for a maintenance planner job in Houston at $85,000 a year. To keep the math checkable, this example uses DoD's 2026 average for an E-5 instead of her own pay. For her own comparison she would use her pay and allowance figures and confirm the tax advantage with a financial counselor.

Her RMC, estimated. $49,965 in basic pay, $27,121 in BAH, $5,723 in BAS and a $6,339 tax advantage come to $89,148. She draws no special pays.

The offer, in full. The salary is $85,000. For single coverage, the employer pays $650 a month toward the premium, or $7,800 a year, and she pays $180 a month, or $2,160. Both are close to the March 2026 averages. The 401(k) matches 100% of what she puts in up to 4% of salary, which is $3,400. She gets 15 days of PTO and 8 paid holidays. On paper the offer is worth $96,200 a year, plus 23 paid days off.

What changes for her, in dollars. RMC leaves out TRICARE and the TSP, so she sets the salary against RMC and compares the rest one line at a time. The employer's $7,800 pays for coverage she already had in uniform with no premium, so she doesn't count it as a gain. She assumes she puts in enough to get the full match on both sides: 5% of basic pay in the TSP and 4% of salary in the 401(k).

Texas has no individual income tax, and it's her home state both in uniform and after, so state tax doesn't enter on either side. But RMC also ignores the Social Security and Medicare tax her allowances escaped. On this guide's take-home arithmetic for a single E-5, she'd need about $94,300 in salary to keep the same take-home pay, so the offer's salary is about $9,300 short on that measure, before the health and retirement lines. Her leave drops from 30 days a year to 15 days of PTO. The offer adds 8 paid holidays, which this comparison doesn't set against holidays in uniform.

Those numbers don't decide anything for her. A field she wants, a raise schedule or a city she'd pick anyway may count for more. But she now knows the gap in dollars, and she has one open question, the plan's deductible, to ask before she answers.

This is general information, not financial or tax advice for your situation, and it can't tell you whether to take an offer. For free one-on-one help, talk to a financial counselor through your installation or call Military OneSource at 800-342-9647. Its financial counseling and tax consultation are open to you until 365 days after you retire or are honorably discharged.