How Much Does Air Force Pay? Hourly Wages by Role

Air Force pay is set by a federal pay table, not negotiated individually. Your monthly basic pay depends on your pay grade, which is your rank, and your years of service. Airmen of the same rank and length of service are paid the same basic amount, whatever their job.

The figures here come from the 2026 Defense Finance and Accounting Service basic pay table, as reproduced by the sources listed. They apply to every branch, since the Air Force uses the same table as the Army, Navy, Marine Corps, Coast Guard and Space Force. A 3.8 percent raise took effect on January 1, 2026.

Enlisted airmen are paid by grade from E-1 to E-9. The table shows monthly basic pay in the first service bracket, which covers two years of service or less.

An Airman Basic (E-1) is paid $2,407.20/mo, and an Airman First Class (E-3) starts at $2,836.80/mo. A Senior Airman (E-4) starts at $3,142.20/mo, and a Staff Sergeant (E-5) at $3,342.90/mo. Higher grades usually come with more years of service, so their pay rises on both counts. Military.com also lists a Technical Sergeant (E-6) with more than ten years of service at $4,759.50/mo.

The overall enlisted range is $2,226/mo at the bottom, for an E-1 in the first four months of service, to $10,729/mo at the top, for an E-9 with more than 38 years of service.

Officers are paid by grade from O-1 upward, on a separate scale from enlisted airmen. The table shows the first service bracket.

A Second Lieutenant (O-1) starts at $4,150.20/mo, and a First Lieutenant (O-2) at $4,782/mo. A Captain (O-3) is at $5,534.10/mo, a Major (O-4) at $6,294.60/mo and a Lieutenant Colonel (O-5) at $7,295.40/mo in that bracket. A Major with more than ten years of service is paid $9,420/mo, which shows how much pay climbs with time in service.

Within a grade, pay rises at set service milestones. Promotions raise it too. The table above shows only the lowest bracket for each rank, so a person who has served for years will earn more than these entry amounts. Some grades also stop rising at a ceiling, after which pay stays flat until promotion, as the E-1 and E-2 rows show.

Because the Air Force uses the same table as other services, the official DFAS table is the reference for any exact cell. The sources reproduce it, and the rates they list match across sites.

Basic pay is only part of military compensation. Service members commonly also receive tax-free allowances for housing and food, along with special pays that depend on the job, location or qualifications. Those amounts vary by duty station and family status, so they are not part of the figures above. Benefits such as health care and education programs are separate from pay as well. For total compensation, ask a recruiter or check the official military pay calculators.

The pay table is monthly, but many people want an hourly sense of what it means. Military pay is not tied to a set number of hours, because duty hours vary by assignment and deployment. For that reason, a straight conversion to an hourly rate can be misleading, and this page uses monthly figures.

You will see different Air Force pay figures online. Some sources quote only the first bracket, others quote pay after ten or twenty years. Some include housing and food allowances in their totals, and others list basic pay only. Several sources also round to whole dollars, while the official table lists cents. When you compare numbers, check the grade, the years of service and whether allowances are included.