In addition to food allowance, Army service members on active duty will also receive a clothing allowance to reimburse for the uniforms they are buying. There are 3 types of clothing allowances in the Army.
- The Initial Clothing Allowance
- The Cash Clothing Replacement Allowance
- The Extra Clothing Allowance
The initial clothing allowance is provided when the service members are signing up for the Air Force, or when starting a position that required a specific set of uniforms. Examples of such include but not limit to, when enlisted members enters the officer training programs, or performing military band duties with uniform different than their own. Army service members usually directly receives his/her package of uniform instead of cash payment, unless the uniform item is currently unavailable.
The cash clothing replacement allowance is provided every 12 month after the initial clothing allowance. It is meant to allow enlisted member to replace their uniform items at a normal wear and tear rate. Those enlisted members who are attending office training programs or academy preparatory schools are not entitled to cash clothing replacement allowance.
Extra clothing allowance is provided when special circumstances calls for enlisted members to wear specific uniforms for their duty or mission. Service members who receive extra clothing allowance are still entitled to initial clothing allowance and cash clothing replacement allowance regularly.
When the military duty requires service member(enlisted and officers) to wear civilian clothing more than 50% of the time, they are entitled to Civilian Clothing Allowance, which is a subset of the extra clothing allowance. However, for officers, those who have a permanent duty station outside of the United States are able to get civilian clothing allowance.
See the following rate table to find out the current rate for different types of clothing allowance in the Air Force, as well as exceptions and specifications.
Table 1: STANDARD INITIAL CLOTHING ALLOWANCES | |||
Value of the Standard Initial Clothing Allowance | |||
male | $1,611.22 | ||
female | $1,924.77 | ||
Table 2: CASH CLOTHING REPLACEMENT ALLOWANCES | |||
Basic Cash Clothing Replacement | |||
male | $335.97 | ||
female | $352.94 | ||
Table 3: CIVILIAN CLOTHING ALLOWANCES FOR OFFICER AND ENLISTED | |||
When an officer or enlisted member is entitled to a Civilian Clothing Allowance for | then the amount of payment is (Notes 1 and 2) | ||
permanent duty initial payment | $1,081.44 | ||
permanent duty annual replacement payment | $360.72 | ||
temporary duty of at least 15 days in a 30-day period (Note 3) | $360.72 | ||
temporary duty of at least 30 days in a 36-month period | $721.08 |
Note: It doesn’t matter whether you have dependents or not. No clothing allowance for any family member.