Leave and Earnings Statement

The Leave and Earnings Statement (LES) is essentially your pay stub. You will get one of these every month from when you start receiving your HPSP stipend throughout your military career. It is extremely important that you understand how to read your LES to be on the lookout for mistakes on your pay.

There are a great number of moving pieces that need to come together to form the lump sum that directly deposits into your checking account twice a month. It is highly unlikely that you will go through an entire Army career without some mistake revealing itself on your LES. If you are missing something you are owed, you should be aware so that you may start the arduous process of reclaiming your missing funds. If the Army overpays you, it is in your best interest to catch and correct it quickly as the Army will always get their money back, sometimes with interest.

The Army has a document (see here) that explains each part of the LES, however, it is rather lacking, bland, and is out of date as it does not have the new sections for the new retirement system. Below, you will find one of my statements with an explanation for each red-numbered section - I find it is easier to understand each section with a real-life example of what yours may look like.

In the interest of brevity, I am omitting the obvious terms.


  1. Basic identifying information

    1. PAY DATE: The date you entered active duty

    2. YRS SVC: Years in service

    3. ETS: Expiration Term of Service (When you are getting out!)

    4. ADSN/DSSN: Disbursing Station Symbol Number used to identified each finance office

  2. Entitlements: All of the money you've earned!

    1. These terms should all look familiar from the Resident/Attending Finances page.

    2. The only new term, here is SAVE PAY. This is synonymous with "Intern pay" - the $1200 bonus you get intern year. This will be $666.66 per month after intern year.

  3. Deductions: Things that take away the money ...

    1. FICA-SOC SECURITY + FICA-MEDICARE

      1. FICA: Federal Insurance Contributions Act

    2. SGLI: Servicemember's Group Life Insurance

    3. ROTH TSP: The amount taken for my TSP contribution

    4. MID-MONTH-PAY: The amount I was already paid two weeks ago is subtracted from the total month's pay and you get what is left.

  4. Allotments: Essentially voluntary deductions

    1. TRICARE DENTAL: I get dental insurance for my wife through Tricare

    2. PRIVATIZED HOUSING: I live on base - goodbye 100% of my BAH...

  5. Summary: Pretty self-explanatory, except:

    1. DIEMS: Date of Initial Entry into Military Service

      1. I cannot emphasize enough how important it is that this date is correct. It controls when the Army will start matching TSP contributions, your pay rate, and various other important Army records.

      2. THIS DATE SHOULD BE THE DATE YOU COMISSIONED INTO THE ARMY.

        1. You will meet people who will tell you incorrect things about this fact. You should not listen to those people because they are incorrect.

    2. RET PLAN: Type of retirement plan you are on.

      1. This shouldn't be an issue for you younger folks, but if it does not say "BLENDE," get that fixed. I am not sure if this applies while you are in medical school/in HPSP.

  6. Leave

    1. The "Leave" portion of the LES.

    2. BF Bal: Brought Forward Balance of leave. The amount of leave left from the start of the fiscal year (October 1st).

    3. Ernd: The amount of leave earned in the current fiscal year. Subtracting the previous number from this one shows you that I have used 5 days of leave since October 1st.

    4. Used: Should be the amount used since the start of the fiscal year (5 in my case). That doesn't look right...

    5. Cr Bal: Current leave balance. All of the leave I have earned but haven't used. I believe the time spent on ADTs during medical school counts toward this number.

    6. ETS Bal: Projected leave balance to your Expiration Term of Service (ETS).

    7. LV PAID/LOST: Number of days of leave paid to date (should be 5) and lost (usually if you have >60 and do not use them)

    8. USE/LOSE: The projected number of days of leave that will be lost if not taken in the current fiscal year.

  7. Federal taxes:

    1. M/S: Married or single

    2. Ex: Number of exemptions used to compute Federal Income Tax Withholding

  8. FICA (Federal Insurance Contributions Act)

    1. Medicare and Social security taxes

  9. State taxes

  10. Pay Data:

    1. BAQ Type: The type of housing allowance you receive

      1. If you're married, it's higher!

    2. BAQ DEPN: Type of dependents you have

    3. VHA ZIP: Variable Housing Allowance adjusted allowance based on ZIP code

    4. Rent Amt: The number of rent allowances paid

    5. Share: The number of people with whom you share housing costs

    6. Stat: VHA (variable housing allowance) status - based upon your pay grade, dependency status and duty station location (not sure what the "R" means).

    7. JFTR: Joint Federal Travel Regulation. A code used to determine your COLA adjustment.

    8. Depns: Number of dependents for VHA purposes.

    9. 2D JFTR: COLA adjustment based on the location of your dependents (if physically separated)

    10. BAS Type: Type of BAS you are receiving - doesn't apply for officers

    11. TPC: Not used for active duty

    12. PACIDN: Unit Identification Code

  11. TRADITIONAL PLAN:

  12. ROTH PLAN:

    1. For these two, it shows the percentage of each of your pays being reserved for the TSP. For example, for the Roth plan, you see "44." That means I am withholding 44% of my base pay to contribute to my Roth TSP (I started late this year and that is the percentage that will get me to $19,500 by December)

  13. CM AGCY CONTR: The amounts that the Army is contributing to your TSP

    1. AGCY-AUTO: This is the automatic 1% contribution you receive when in the Blended Retirement System

    2. AGC-MATCH: This is the additional 4% the Army is matching towards my TSP contribution

  14. CONTRIBUTION TOTALS

    1. It is super important that all of these numbers are correct.

    2. YTD Deductions: The total amount of Traditional and Roth TSP contributions withheld from your pay since January 1st.

    3. YTD TSP Deferred: The amount of TSP contributions that are tax-deferred. If you put all of your money into your Roth TSP (which you should), this number should be 0 - you pay taxes on your money before it is placed into a Roth account. If I had any money in Traditional, it would appear here.

    4. YTD Roth: The amount I have put into my Roth since January first.

    5. YTD TSP AGCY-AUTO: The amount of automatic 1% the Army has put into my TSP since January 1st.

    6. YTD TSP AGCY-AUTO: The amount of matching (up to 5%) the Army added to my TSP since January 1st

  15. Remarks: Various comments about your bank, SGLI coverage, TSP contributions and more.