Military Retirement Pay Chart, Dates & COLA for 2026

Military retired pay is deposited once a month, and the 2026 cost-of-living adjustment (COLA) is already baked into every check you've received this year. This page covers when your retired pay actually lands, what the 2026 COLA did to your payment, and why REDUX retirees are seeing a smaller raise than everyone else.

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When Is Military Retirement Pay Deposited in 2026?

Military retired pay is deposited on the first business day of each month, and it always covers the prior month's entitlement — the payment you receive on a given date is being paid in arrears, not in advance. If the 1st of the month falls on a weekend or a federal holiday, DFAS moves the deposit to the last business day of the prior month instead of waiting until after the weekend.

This is different from active-duty pay, which is split into a mid-month and end-of-month payment. Retirees get one deposit per month. Practically, that means a retiree's January payment (covering December's retired pay) can actually land in late December if January 1st is a holiday — which it always is, so retirees should expect their "January" deposit around December 31st every year, not January 1st.

2026 Military Retirement Pay Calendar

Exact 2026 pay dates depend on how weekends and holidays fall each month; DFAS publishes the confirmed calendar on its retiree pay dates page, and that official schedule should be your final word for any month where a holiday might shift the deposit. As a general rule for planning purposes:

The 2026 COLA: What Retirees Actually Received

Retired pay increased 2.8% starting with the payment retirees received in January 2026, covering their December 2025 entitlement. The Social Security Administration announced the 2.8% figure on October 24, 2025, based on the change in the Consumer Price Index for Urban Wage Earners and Clerical Workers (CPI-W) — the same index that sets Social Security's annual COLA, VA disability compensation increases, and military retired pay increases, all in sync. The increase took effect December 1, 2025, and first appeared in the payment retirees saw at the start of January 2026.

Because COLA is applied to your existing retired pay amount, the dollar value of the 2.8% increase varies by rank, years of service, and retirement system — there's no single dollar figure that applies to every retiree. Run your specific numbers through the Military Retirement Calculator to see how the 2026 COLA changed your monthly deposit.

2027 COLA: Not Yet Announced

As of this writing, the 2027 COLA has not been finalized. The Social Security Administration calculates the annual COLA from third-quarter (July–September) CPI-W data and announces the official figure in mid-to-late October — for 2026, that announcement came October 24, 2025. Early 2027 projections from outside groups have ranged roughly from the high-2% to high-3% range, but those are estimates based on partial-year inflation data, not the government's final number. We are not going to guess at a 2027 figure here; check back after the official October 2026 announcement, or watch the Social Security Administration's release directly, for the confirmed rate.

REDUX and CSB: The Reduced COLA Most Retirees Don't Track

Retirees who elected the Career Status Bonus (CSB)/REDUX option — a $30,000 mid-career bonus taken at the 15-year mark in exchange for a smaller retirement multiplier — also receive a permanently reduced COLA. Instead of the full CPI-W-based increase, REDUX retired pay increases by that rate minus one percentage point every year. For 2026, that means REDUX retirees received roughly a 1.8% increase instead of the standard 2.8%.

The part most REDUX retirees underestimate isn't the first year's gap — it's that the shortfall compounds every single year until age 62, not just once. Each year the COLA-minus-1% math applies again to an already-smaller base, so the purchasing-power gap between a REDUX retiree and a High-36 retiree widens annually rather than staying fixed at roughly one point. At age 62, REDUX retired pay gets a one-time recalculation that brings it back in line with what High-36 would have paid, but every year before that catch-up, the compounding gap is real money that a flat "minus 1%" summary undersells.

Factor Standard (High-36 / BRS) CSB/REDUX
2026 COLA applied 2.8% ~1.8% (COLA minus 1 point)
Gap compounds? N/A Yes, every year until age 62
Catch-up N/A One-time reset to High-36 level at age 62

Retirees vs. SBP Annuitants: One Pay-Date Rule Flips

Retirees and Survivor Benefit Plan annuitants both get paid on the first business day of the month, but the holiday-weekend rule works in opposite directions for each group. A retiree whose payment date falls on a weekend or federal holiday gets paid early, on the last business day before it. An SBP annuitant in the same situation gets paid later, on the first business day after the weekend or holiday. This small, rarely-explained difference is why a retiree and a surviving spouse receiving an annuity can see deposits land on different calendar days in the same month, even though both are following DFAS's stated "first business day" rule correctly.

Planning Around Pay Dates and COLA

Two practical takeaways follow from how retired pay dates and COLA actually work. First, because retired pay is paid a month in arrears and can land a day or two before the calendar month it covers, build your budget around the DFAS-confirmed date, not the assumption that "the 1st means the 1st." Second, if you took CSB/REDUX, don't compare your COLA percentage to a High-36 retiree's headline number without accounting for the compounding gap — the true cost of that $30,000 bonus is larger than the flat "minus 1%" framing suggests, especially the further you are from your age-62 catch-up.

For how the COLA-adjusted amount is taxed at the state level, see our Military Retirement Taxes guide.