The Defense Finance Accounting and Service (DFAS) maintains an archive of historical pay charts dating back to October 1, 1949. You may find it interesting to see how the current military pay compares to what servicemembers made in the past.
The dates below reflect effective dates for the military basic pay rates, which may differ from the effective dates for the various allowances and other pay entitlements. These charts are intended for reference only and are not for official pay purposes. These charts are all in PDF format.
PDFs below require viewer software .
| 1949-1979 | | 1980-1999 | | 2000-Present | |
| Oct 1, 1949
May 1, 1952
Apr 1, 1955
Jun 1, 1958
Oct 1, 1963
Sep 1, 1964
Sep 1, 1965
Jul 1, 1966
Oct 1, 1967
Jul 1, 1968
Jul 1, 1969
Jan 1, 1970
Jan 1, 1971
Oct 1, 1971
Jan 1, 1972
Oct 1, 1972
Oct 1, 1973
Oct 1, 1974
Oct 1, 1975
Oct 1, 1976
Oct 1, 1977
Oct 1, 1978
Oct 1, 1979 | | Oct 1, 1980
Oct 1, 1981
Oct 1, 1982
Jan 1, 1984
Jan 1, 1985
Jan 1, 1987
Jan 1, 1988
Jan 1, 1989
Jan 1, 1990
Jan 1, 1991
Jan 1, 1992
Jan 1, 1993
Jan 1, 1994
Jan 1, 1995
Jan 1, 1996
Jan 1, 1997
Jan 1, 1998
Jan 1, 1999 | | Jan 1, 2000
Jul 1, 2000
Jan 1, 2001
Jul 1, 2001
Jan 1, 2002
Jan 1, 2003
Jan 1, 2004
Jan 1, 2005
Jan 1, 2006
Jan 1, 2007
Apr 1, 2007
Jan 1, 2008
Jan 1, 2009
Jan 1, 2010
Jan 1, 2011 | |
