Pentagon Doubles Hostile-Fire Pay for the First Time Since 2002

The Pentagon on Thursday raised hostile-fire pay and imminent-danger pay for U.S. troops for the first time since 2002, doubling the hostile-fire rate as the war with Iran continues.

Tim Dill, assistant secretary of war for manpower and reserve affairs, issued the memorandum. Monthly hostile-fire pay goes from $225 to $450. Imminent-danger pay rises to $275 a month. Both changes are effective immediately. Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell posted the increase on social media Thursday. The Washington Post reported that, before the change, the maximum for either category was $225 a month.

Anthony Tata, undersecretary of war for personnel and readiness, said troops who face combat should be paid in line with the risk. “Those who face combat deserve higher compensation that reflects the risks that they willingly undertake on behalf of our nation,” Tata said. “Raising imminent danger and hostile fire pays for the first time in two decades is a step toward recognizing that sacrifice.”

Department rules entitle a service member to the hostile-fire payment for duty in a hostile-fire area, exposure to a hostile-fire event, duty during a month in an area where a hostile event placed the member in grave danger of physical injury, or death, injury, or wounding by hostile fire. Imminent-danger pay applies when a member is subject to the threat of physical harm from civil insurrection, civil war, terrorism, or wartime conditions in a designated foreign area. Section 37 of Title 10 allows the department to set the rates at the new levels.

The $225 ceiling had sat in place through the later Iraq and Afghanistan years, the Islamic State campaign, and the opening months of the current war. A private or a petty officer exposed to hostile fire in 2003 and one exposed in September 2026 drew the same statutory special pay until Thursday’s memorandum. The new hostile-fire rate is still a few hundred dollars a month, not a retention bonus. For troops rotating through strike zones, it is the first formal recognition in 24 years that the old number had not moved.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has spent the same week on force structure, including a “State of the Force” address at Quantico and authorized cuts in the top ranks of generals and admirals. The pay memorandum is the narrower action. It is written to manpower and reserve affairs, it cites existing statute, and it takes effect without a new appropriation fight. Whether Congress treats the higher rates as a permanent baseline in the next defense bill is a separate question. For October, the rate Dill signed is the rate on the leave-and-earnings statement.