US General Salary 2026 | Army, Air Force, Marine Corps & Space Force Pay

A four-star general in the Army, Air Force, Marine Corps, or Space Force earns a capped basic pay of $18,999.90 per month in 2026, the legal maximum set by Level II of the Executive Schedule. A newly promoted one-star Brigadier General starts at $11,540.10 per month, with basic pay rising by years of service up to that same statutory ceiling.

US General Salary in 2026 – Introduction

A US General’s salary does not work like most other pay scales in the federal government. Basic pay for generals in the Army, Air Force, Marine Corps, and Space Force rises with rank and years of service like any officer’s pay, but once an officer reaches the one-star grade of Brigadier General, a separate law takes over: the Executive Schedule cap. That cap, not a promotion, is usually what stops a general’s basic pay from rising any further once they’ve served roughly 18 to 20 years in a general officer grade.

This report breaks down exactly how general officer pay works in 2026: the monthly basic pay by grade and years of service, the statutory cap that limits it, how many generals each service is legally allowed to have on active duty, and how the 2026 pay raise and allowances affect total compensation. Every figure below comes from the Defense Finance and Accounting Service (DFAS), the U.S. Code, or the Congressional Research Service, not from an independent estimate.

The distinction between rank and pay grade matters throughout this report. A general’s rank, from Brigadier General to General, determines their authority, responsibilities, and where they sit in the chain of command. Their pay grade, O-7 through O-10, determines their pay under federal law. In nearly every case the two track together, but the Executive Schedule cap means the pay grade stops translating into higher basic pay well before an officer’s career, and often their rank, has topped out.

Interesting Facts About US General Salary 2026

GENERAL OFFICER BASIC PAY BY GRADE, 2026 ($/month)
O-7 Brigadier General, entry       ████████████ $11,540.10
O-7 Brigadier General, 30+ yrs     ██████████████████ $17,242.20
O-8 to O-10 (capped)               ████████████████████ $18,999.90

Source: Defense Finance and Accounting Service, Basic Pay Tables, effective January 1, 2026; Congressional Research Service, “Statutory Framework for Congressional Management of DOD General and Flag Officers,” September 30, 2026.

The $18,999.90 figure is the single most important number in general officer pay: by law, no officer in pay grades O-7 through O-10 can earn more than this in basic pay, regardless of rank or years of service. That means a three-star Lieutenant General and a four-star General with the same years of service earn identical basic pay, a fact that surprises many people expecting each additional star to come with a raise.

At the other end of the scale, a newly promoted Brigadier General starts well below the cap, at $11,540.10 a month, and climbs through the standard officer pay table as years of service accumulate. As of September 30, 2026, the Congressional Research Service counted 848 active-duty general and flag officers across the armed forces, just 9 short of the 857 allowed under current law, a ceiling Congress adjusts periodically through the National Defense Authorization Act.

General Officer Basic Pay Table by Grade 2026

O-7 BRIGADIER GENERAL: BASIC PAY BY YEARS OF SERVICE ($/month)
<2 yrs       ████████████ $11,540.10
8 yrs        █████████████ $13,231.80
16 yrs       ████████████████ $15,735.30
20 yrs       █████████████████ $16,817.70
30+ yrs      ██████████████████ $17,242.20

Source: DFAS, “Basic Pay – Officers Effective January 1, 2026.”

A Brigadier General’s basic pay is the only general officer pay that still climbs meaningfully with years of service, because O-7 is the sole general officer grade whose pay table tops out below the Executive Schedule cap: its highest published rate is $17,242.20 at 30 or more years, still short of the $18,999.90 ceiling that governs O-8 through O-10. That structure means a Brigadier General nearing 30 years of service can, in rare cases, earn close to what a four-star General earns, since both sit near or at the top of what federal law allows any officer to be paid.

Major General (O-8), Lieutenant General (O-9), and General (O-10) pay all converge on the same $18,999.90 figure once an officer has served long enough in those grades, since DFAS notes explicitly that “basic pay is limited to the rate of basic pay for level II of the Executive Schedule,” which for calendar year 2026 is $18,999.90 a month. Officers below O-7, meaning Colonels and everyone junior to them, are governed by a separate, lower cap of $15,408.30, tied to Level V of the Executive Schedule.

Before an officer is promoted into a general officer grade at all, they typically spend two full decades or more climbing through the O-1 to O-6 pay table, and that table is capped separately at $15,408.30 under Level V of the Executive Schedule, a ceiling a senior Colonel with enough years of service can also reach. The practical effect is that many officers hit some form of statutory pay cap well before retirement, whether at the O-6 level or, for the smaller number who make general, at the O-7 through O-10 level.

Rank Titles and Insignia for Generals by Branch in 2026

GENERAL OFFICER GRADE STRUCTURE, 2026
O-10  General (4-star)              ████  top grade
O-9   Lieutenant General (3-star)   ███  
O-8   Major General (2-star)        ██  
O-7   Brigadier General (1-star)    █  entry grade

Source: U.S. Code Title 10; service branch rank references.

Every general officer grade in the Army, Air Force, Marine Corps, and Space Force carries the same basic structure, from one star at Brigadier General to four stars at General, even though the abbreviation differs slightly by service (GEN in the Army versus Gen in the Air Force, Marine Corps, and Space Force). All four services use identical pay grades, O-7 through O-10, so a Major General in the Army and a Major General in the Space Force earn precisely the same basic pay for the same years of service.

Neither the Marine Corps nor the Space Force has an officer grade above four-star General; historically, only the Army has held the rare five-star grade of General of the Army, last awarded during and shortly after World War II and not authorized for use since. That makes the four-star General the practical ceiling of an entire military career in these four services, a rank held by a small, statutorily limited number of officers at any given time.

Insignia follows the same one-star-per-grade pattern across every service that uses these titles: a Brigadier General wears a single star, a Major General two, a Lieutenant General three, and a full General four, a visual system that dates back well over a century and makes general officer rank instantly recognizable regardless of which of the four services an officer belongs to. The consistency of both titles and insignia across the Army, Air Force, Marine Corps, and Space Force reflects their shared basis in Title 10 of the U.S. Code, the body of law that governs the armed forces generally, as distinct from the Coast Guard, which typically operates under Title 14.

Statutory Limits on the Number of Generals in 2026

MAXIMUM GENERAL OFFICER POSITIONS BY SERVICE, 2026
Army                 ██████████████████████ 219
Air Force            █████████████████ 168
Navy (flag)          ███████████████ 150
Marine Corps         ██████ 64
Space Force          ██ 24

Source: Congressional Research Service, “Statutory Framework for Congressional Management of DOD General and Flag Officers,” September 30, 2026; 10 U.S.C. § 526.

Congress sets a hard statutory ceiling on how many generals each service can have on active duty at once, and that ceiling has shifted recently: the most recent National Defense Authorization Act increased the Space Force’s maximum from 21 to 24 while reducing the Air Force’s maximum from 171 to 168, reflecting the Space Force’s continued growth as the newest branch. The Army’s cap of 219 remains the largest of any service, consistent with its position as the largest branch by total personnel.

Within these totals, only a fraction of officers may hold three or four stars: by statute, no more than roughly a quarter of a service’s general officers may hold the rank of Major General or above, and the four-star grade specifically is capped at just 8 Army generals, 9 Air Force generals, 2 Marine Corps generals, and 2 Space Force generals at any one time. For the fuller picture of how the Army’s overall force structure and budget compare against these officer limits, the US Army facts report breaks down active-duty strength, National Guard and Reserve components, and the Army’s share of the defense budget in detail.

That pyramid structure, a large base of Brigadier Generals narrowing sharply toward a handful of four-star positions, is deliberate. Congress designed the statutory limits specifically to prevent rank inflation at the top of the officer corps, and the framework includes a separate, smaller pool of positions reserved for joint-duty assignments that span multiple services, such as roles on the Joint Staff or at combatant commands, which don’t count against any single service’s own general officer cap. Some of these authorized general officer positions also go unfilled at any given moment for budgetary, personnel, or operational reasons, which is part of why the actual count of 848 sits below the full 857 ceiling rather than exactly matching it.

2026 Pay Raise and Allowances for Generals

2026 MILITARY PAY RAISE HISTORY (annual %)
2024   ██████████████████████████████ 6.0%
2025   ███████████████████████ 4.5%
2026   ███████████████████ 3.8%

Source: FY2026 National Defense Authorization Act; DFAS 2026 pay and allowance tables.

Every general officer’s basic pay rose 3.8% on January 1, 2026, under the Fiscal Year 2026 National Defense Authorization Act, continuing a run of raises above 3% dating back to 2023. That 3.8% figure follows a 6.0% raise in 2024 and a 4.5% raise in 2025, meaning the pace of military pay growth has slowed somewhat even as it remains well above the historical norm for federal pay adjustments generally.

Beyond basic pay, generals also draw Basic Allowance for Housing (BAH), which rose an average of 4.2% nationally for 2026 and varies by duty station rather than rank alone once an officer reaches the senior pay grades, and Basic Allowance for Subsistence (BAS), a flat monthly food allowance set at $328.48 for officers regardless of rank. Both allowances are tax-free, which means their real value to a general’s total compensation is higher than the raw dollar figure suggests once the tax advantage is factored in. For the government-wide budget context behind these figures, the federal government spending report details how military personnel costs, including the annual pay raise, fit into the broader federal budget picture.

The tax treatment of BAH and BAS is often the single most overlooked part of a general officer’s total compensation package. Because neither allowance counts as taxable income, a general effectively receives the equivalent of a higher pretax salary than their basic pay figure alone would suggest, an advantage that grows in dollar terms at higher-cost duty stations where BAH rates run well above the national average. This tax-free structure applies at every officer pay grade, not just to generals, but it becomes more financially significant in absolute terms at the senior ranks simply because BAH itself scales up with rank.

General Officer Retirement Pay and Total Compensation in 2026

RETIREMENT PAY MULTIPLIER BY YEARS OF SERVICE (High-3 system)
20 years      ██████████ 50% of high-3 average
30 years      ███████████████ 75% of high-3 average
40 years      ████████████████████ 100% of high-3 average (statutory max)

Source: DoD Blended Retirement System and Legacy High-3 retirement statutes.

A general’s retirement pay is calculated as a percentage of their highest 36 months of basic pay, a figure that, for most four-star generals, sits at or near the $18,999.90 cap itself. Under the legacy High-3 system, which still applies to officers who entered service before 2018, each year of service adds 2.5% to that multiplier, so a general retiring at 30 years receives 75% of their high-three average as an annual pension, tax-advantaged and paid for life.

Officers who entered service in 2018 or later fall under the newer Blended Retirement System, which uses a smaller 2.0% multiplier per year but adds employer matching contributions to a Thrift Savings Plan account, a defined-contribution supplement layered on top of the reduced pension. Because general officers typically serve well past the 20-year minimum, often 30 years or more before reaching four-star rank, most draw retirement pay at or near the higher end of either system’s scale, on top of whatever total compensation, basic pay, BAH, and BAS combined, they earned during their final years on active duty. For a broader view of how general officer pay and end strength fit into total U.S. military spending, the US combat operations statistics report breaks down the FY2026 defense budget by personnel, procurement, and operational category.

Because a general’s pension is based on their highest 36 months of basic pay rather than their final month alone, an officer who spends several years at the $18,999.90 cap before retiring will see that capped rate, not any earlier, lower-paying period of their career, drive their pension calculation. In practice, this means most four-star generals retire with a pension based on a high-three average sitting at or extremely close to the statutory maximum monthly rate, since by the time an officer reaches four stars they have typically already spent years at grades where the Executive Schedule cap applies.

US General Salary FAQs

How much does a 4-star general make in 2026?

$18,999.90 per month in basic pay, the legal maximum set by Level II of the Executive Schedule for 2026.

What is the starting salary for a Brigadier General?

$11,540.10 per month in basic pay for an O-7 with less than 2 years in that grade.

Do all four-star generals earn the same pay?

Yes. Because basic pay for O-7 through O-10 is capped at $18,999.90 a month, a three-star Lieutenant General and a four-star General with enough years of service earn identical basic pay.

How many generals can the US military have at once?

The statutory maximum across the Army, Air Force, Marine Corps, and Space Force is 475 general officer positions, plus additional joint-duty and Navy flag officer positions bringing the total ceiling to 857.

How many four-star generals are allowed?

8 in the Army, 9 in the Air Force, 2 in the Marine Corps, and 2 in the Space Force.

What was the 2026 military pay raise?

3.8%, effective January 1, 2026, under the Fiscal Year 2026 National Defense Authorization Act.

Is there a rank above 4-star General?

Only the Army has ever held the five-star grade of General of the Army, last used during and shortly after World War II; it is not in current use.

How much housing allowance do generals receive?

BAH varies by duty station and rose an average of 4.2% nationally for 2026, on top of basic pay.

What is the food allowance for a general officer?

$328.48 per month, the flat 2026 officer rate for Basic Allowance for Subsistence.

How is a general’s retirement pay calculated?

As a percentage of their highest 36 months of basic pay; under the legacy High-3 system, that’s 2.5% per year of service, reaching 75% at 30 years.

How many active-duty generals and flag officers are there in 2026?

848, as of September 30, 2026, against a maximum authorized strength of 857.

Disclaimer: This research report is compiled from publicly available sources. While reasonable efforts have been made to ensure accuracy, no representation or warranty, express or implied, is given as to the completeness or reliability of the information. We accept no liability for any errors, omissions, losses, or damages of any kind arising from the use of this report.

Email ID:

Please enable JavaScript in your browser to complete this form.

Email

Email *

SUBSCRIBE