Pentagon budget 2026: Appropriations budget proposal seeks higher spending than White House

A comparison of proposed FY 2026 spending for military personnel with FY 2025 funding. (Janes)

The House Appropriations Committee (HAC) released its draft fiscal year (FY) 2026 defence bill on 9 June. The bill provides a total discretionary allocation of USD831.5 billion, which the committee said was flat to the FY 2025 enacted level, while seeking more overall spending than a technical annex to the president's FY 2026 budget released by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) earlier in June.

On 10 June the House Committee on Appropriations defence subcommittee approved the bill, the committee said in a statement.

The proposed bill would increase total defence spending in FY 2026 to more than USD1 trillion, Representative Ken Calvert, a California Republican and chairman of the House Committee on Appropriations defence subcommittee, said in the statement. This figure likely includes another USD150 billion from a budget reconciliation bill that has not yet been voted through Congress.

Personnel, O&M

The draft bill includes USD189 billion for military personnel, USD6.6 billion above the FY 2025 enacted level of USD182.8 billion, according to the committee. This includes a 3.8% increase in basic pay for all personnel, effective 1 January 2026, and additional increases for junior enlisted personnel, the committee said. In FY 2025 junior enlisted personnel received an additional 10% pay increase. The White House proposed USD181.6 billion for personnel in its FY 2026 budget annex.

The full White House budget request had not been publicly revealed at the time of publication.

Another USD283 billion would be appropriated for operations and maintenance (O&M) support, about USD11 billion less than the White House proposal of USD294 million. The latter is a slight increase on FY 2025 enacted funding of USD292 billion.