How to Read Your LES (Including the Guard and Reserve Version Nobody Explains)

Your Leave and Earnings Statement (LES) is the receipt for your service. Every dollar you earned, every dollar taken out, and every day of leave you have sits on one page. Most of us glance at the bottom number and close it.

I learned to read mine the hard way. My drill pay came in late once, and the only way I knew something was off was that the money wasn't there. What I'd tell anyone now: the day you notice a problem, talk to your chain of command. Not next drill. That day.

Here's how to read the whole thing, top to bottom, plus the parts that work differently if you're Guard or Reserve.

Where to find it

Your LES lives in myPay, run by the Defense Finance and Accounting Service (DFAS). Log in, pull up the latest one, and keep it open while you read this. The layout below follows the Defense Department's own LES guide. Formats can vary a little by service, but the blocks are the same idea everywhere.

The top: who you are (block 1)

Name, grade, pay date, years of service, ETS, and branch. Active duty sees the period covered. Guard and Reserve see a check date instead.

Check your years of service and your pay date. Base pay is set by rank and years of service, so a wrong date here means wrong pay on every check.

The money in: entitlements (block 2)

This is everything you earned: base pay (or drill pay for Guard and Reserve), allowances like BAH and BAS, and special pays. If you're owed back pay, it shows up here too.

The money out: deductions (block 3)

Federal and state taxes, Social Security and Medicare, SGLI, dental, the Armed Forces Retirement Home (AFRH) fee, your TSP, and mid-month pay if you get paid twice a month.

Your tax withholding depends on the marital status and exemptions on file. If you got married, had a kid, or your taxes came out wrong last April, check those. The IRS has a free withholding estimator.

Allotments (block 4)

An allotment is money sent automatically from your pay to someone else: a bill, a loan, child support, a government debt. Know what each one is, who gets it, and when it ends. Guard and Reserve don't have allotments on their LES.

The bottom line: summary (block 5)

Total entitlements, minus deductions, minus allotments. The end of month (EOM) pay is what actually hits your account. Do the math yourself once. If the numbers don't add up, that's your first clue. Once you know the number, Automate the Money You Don't Trust Yourself to Move shows how to move part of it before you can spend it.

Your retirement plan (blocks 6 and 7)

DIEMS is the date you first entered military service, and it decides which retirement system you're under. If you joined on or after January 1, 2018, or opted in, you're under the Blended Retirement System. If DIEMS is wrong, that's a personnel fix, not finance. Go to your personnel office.

Leave (block 8)

How much leave you brought forward, earned, used, and have now. On active duty you earn 2.5 days a month, and you can't carry more than 60 days into a new fiscal year in most cases. Watch the use/lose number. That's leave you'll lose if you don't take it.

Taxes (blocks 9 to 11)

Federal, FICA (Social Security and Medicare), and state, each with this period and the year to date. Your taxable wages will be lower than your total pay. That's normal: allowances like BAH and BAS aren't taxed. They still have a job, though. Treating them as spending money is first on the list in 9 Things Service Members Do That Keep Them Poor.

Pay data (block 12)

Your housing allowance details live here. The BAH type and dependents come from your dependency status, so make sure every dependent you have is actually on there. If they're missing, your housing pay can be wrong. Army Guard and Reserve also see a training program code (TPC) here.

TSP (blocks 13 and 14)

Your TSP contributions, split into Traditional and Roth. If you're under BRS, you'll also see the Service Automatic (1%) and Matching contributions. Log in to tsp.gov and confirm the amounts match what your LES says went in. Not sure which one to use? See Roth TSP vs. Traditional TSP. For where the TSP fits in a whole plan, see From Broke Sergeant to a Real Wealth-Building Plan.

Remarks (block 15)

The most useful block nobody reads. It explains, in plain words, every start, stop, and change in your pay. If something moved and you don't know why, read the remarks first.

If you're Guard or Reserve

A few things work differently:

• Drill pay is 1/30 of your monthly base pay for each drill period of at least two hours. A drill weekend is several periods, so check the count against the drills you actually did.
• Check date, not period covered, at the top of your LES.
• No allotments.
• The food debt. This one confused me at first. When you're drawing BAS and the government feeds you, like at annual training, you pay for those meals. If it comes out of your pay, it shows up as a collection for a debt, not a cut to your BAS. It's normal. Just make sure the days match the meals you actually got.

What I check every month

Three things, every LES:

1. Did I get paid the right amount? Entitlements match what I did that month.
2. How much tax is coming out? If it jumps, I want to know why before April.
3. Is my TSP coming out? Every check, including the match.

And once in a while: are all my dependents still on there?

Save a copy every month. myPay only keeps so much history, and lenders ask for your LES on a home loan.

When something's wrong

• Pay problem: talk to your chain of command as soon as you see it, then your unit's pay or finance office.
• DIEMS or retirement plan: your personnel office.
• Overpaid? Don't spend it. If extra money shows up, the government will take it back later, often as a deduction on a future check.
• Not sure what you're looking at? Free personal financial counselors on your installation can walk through it with you.

Your LES is the one document that shows whether the military is paying you what you earned. Ten minutes a month is cheap insurance. Once you know what's coming in, put it to work: 7 Things to Do the Moment Your Military Paycheck Hits. For the bigger picture, How to Be Rich in the Military lays out the order, and What It Actually Takes to Hit a Real Savings Milestone shows what moves the number.

Sources and further reading: DoD Office of Financial Readiness, Your Leave and Earnings Statement (LES), March 2026; DoD Financial Management Regulation Vol. 7A, Ch. 25 (BAS); 37 U.S.C. 206 (drill pay); 10 U.S.C. 701 (leave); Military OneSource, LES; Military.com, How to Read a Military LES; AAFMAA, What Is a Military LES; Veterans United, Understanding the Leave and Earnings Statement; checked October 2026.

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Disclaimer: I am not a financial advisor. The information provided here is for educational purposes only and should be verified independently. See the full Disclaimer.