Pay and Entitlements
Your drill pay is built straight off the active-duty pay table. Here's the math, the points, and which allowances show up when.
Army Reserve Soldiers train during a drill weekend. U.S. Army Reserve photo by Russell Toof, DVIDS (public domain).
There is no separate reserve pay table. Your drill pay comes straight off the active-duty base pay table, using your grade (rank) and your years of service. To get the rate for one drill period, you take your monthly base pay and divide it by 30.
A standard drill weekend is four drill periods, so it pays 4/30ths of a month of base pay. Annual training works differently and pays more per day, and a normal drill weekend usually does not include full housing or food allowances. The rest of this page walks through the math and the details.
Find your monthly base pay for your grade and years of service, divide by 30 for one drill period, and count your periods. A standard weekend is four of them.
Example (2026)
Worked example: An E-4 with two years or less draws $3,142.20 a month, so one period is about $104.74 and a four-period weekend is roughly $419 gross, before taxes.
No separate reserve pay table. The annual raise (3.8% for 2026) flows into drill pay.
Source: DFAS · figures illustrative
Take the monthly base pay for your grade and years of service from the active-duty table, divide by 30, and that is one drill period. Drill periods are also called MUTAs, which is short for Multiple Unit Training Assembly. One MUTA is one drill period.
A normal monthly drill weekend is two days with two drill periods each, so four periods total, paid as 4/30ths of a month of base pay. A traditional reservist drilling 48 periods a year earns 48/30ths of one month's base pay from drills across the year.
Find your monthly base pay on the table, divide by 30 for one period, and multiply by your number of periods. For a standard four-period weekend, multiply your daily rate, which is 1/30th of monthly base pay, by four.
As an example, say you are an E-4 with two years in or less, using 2026 numbers. Your monthly base pay is $3,142.20, so one drill period pays about $104.74, and a standard four-period weekend puts roughly $419 in your pocket in gross base pay, before taxes and deductions. Your own numbers will depend on your grade and years of service.
Annual training pays like active duty. Annual training, or AT, is your yearly stretch of active-duty orders. For each day on AT orders, you draw the full active-duty daily rate, which is 1/30th of monthly base pay per day, not the drill-period rate. That is the rate jump people forget to budget for.
AT is also where allowances tend to switch on, because you are on a sustained set of active-duty orders rather than a single weekend. The military tracks IDT and AT separately and reports them on different parts of your pay record. IDT stands for inactive-duty training, which is the formal name for your drills.
On a normal drill weekend, generally no. Standard inactive-duty training (drill) weekends do not pay full BAH and BAS. BAH is the Basic Allowance for Housing, and BAS is the Basic Allowance for Subsistence, which is the food allowance.
When you are activated on longer orders, such as annual training or a mobilization, housing and subsistence allowances come into play based on your orders and status. Confirm your exact entitlements against your orders and your LES with finance. Your LES is your Leave and Earnings Statement, the pay stub that shows what you were paid.
A drill weekend pays base pay only. Housing and food allowances show up on longer orders, and your drills quietly build the retirement points that count toward a reserve pension.
Drill weekend: A normal drill weekend generally pays NO full BAH or BAS. Housing and subsistence allowances come in on longer orders (annual training or mobilization), based on your orders.
Know this
Confirm your exact entitlements against your orders and your LES with finance.
Source: DFAS · IRS Pub 3 · figures illustrative
Points are how Reserve and Guard retirement is tracked instead of continuous years. You earn points for drill periods, for annual training days, and for membership, and you need a minimum number of points in a year for it to count toward retirement. Think of points as your reserve retirement currency.
Point totals and the rules around qualifying years and reserve retirement age go beyond pay, so confirm the current specifics with your unit's personnel section and your component's retirement guidance.
Yes. Drill pay is base pay, so it is taxable, the same as active-duty base pay. Allowances you draw on longer orders follow the usual tax-free rules.
No. Both use the same active-duty base pay table and the same 1/30th-per-drill math. Your pay depends on your grade and years of service, not on which component you are in.
After the drill period is processed. Drill and AT pay post on the Reserve Component pay schedule rather than the active-duty 1st-and-15th cycle, so timing can differ. Check your LES on MyPay, the online portal where you view your pay.
What is the quick math for a drill weekend?
Your monthly base pay divided by 30, times your number of drill periods. A standard weekend is four periods, so four times your 1/30th daily rate.
What is a MUTA?
A MUTA is a single drill period, and it pays 1/30th of your monthly base pay. A typical drill weekend is four MUTAs. Some units run six or eight in a busy month.
Does my drill weekend include four days of pay?
In effect, yes. A two-day weekend of four drill periods pays the equivalent of four days of active-duty base pay (4/30ths of a month), even though it is two calendar days.
For anything specific to your pay account, start with your servicing finance or disbursing office, which may be your S-1, admin section, or the base finance office. You can also reach DFAS customer service at 1-888-332-7411, or use askDFAS for pay-record questions. View your LES, tax withholding, allotments, and TSP in MyPay. For free financial counseling, available 24/7 to service members and families, use Military OneSource, or visit your installation's Personal Financial Management program for free in-person help. All resources are linked in Sources below.
