How much does a military nurse make a year?

Answer 1

Nurses in the military enter at officer rank. Officers do not enlist. They are commissioned, which is a totally different way of entering and being in the service.

Military nurses are paid according to DoD military pay scale based on rank, time in service, whether you are single or have dependents and duty location. If you have a specialty certification (i.e. Critical Care, Emergency, Labor and Delivery) or are an advanced practice nurse (CRNA, Nurse Practitioner) you can also qualify for bonuses. Pay starts as a 0-1 and goes up from there. Also, depending if you rent or by a house on the economy you are paid a housing allowance; again the amount is based on rank.

But lets say you are a civilian nurse with 10 years of experience. The military will give you 1/2 credit for this time, and give you 5 years toward pay. This will make you come in as a 0-3 or a Captain. A CPT (O-3) makes between $60-70K a year.

A MAJ (O-4) makes about $80-90K a year.

If you are fairly recently out of school you will come in as a 0-1 or 2nd Lt. The military will pay for unpaid school tuition up to $36,000. On average a 2LT (O-1) with under 2yrs of service makes about $35-40K a year.

LTCs and COLs (O-5's and O-6's) easily make over a 6 figure salary.

Also, there is an enlistment bonus. I have heard of some bonuses being $5,000 for every year that you enlist. So if you enlist for 4 years you could get $20,000 before taxes.

Also if you took that money and put as much as you can to the military Thrift Saving Plan (TSP) 401K then you could protect the bulk $15,000 from taxes, and only have to pay taxes on $5,000. Hopefully, this small amount would not throw you into another tax bracket.

Except for a initial clothing allowance of around $200. to pay for over $1,000 worth of uniforms...you can take the difference off of your taxes at the end of the year. Officers do not get clothing allowances, so yearly you can take off any uniform expense, whereas enlisted miliatary get a clothing allowance and cannot claim it on their taxes.

Bear in mind this is your standard salary before taxes added to the average housing allowance and substanance allowance (both tax free), and not including any bonuses or hazardous duty pay or tax free exemption you get while serving in combat. You may get more living in one location (like Washington DC, or overseas) vs others (like rural Georgia or Kansas) based off differences in housing allowance.

Answer 2

It depends on the individual. Military salaries are dependent on years of service, rank, housing allowance, etc, but it depends primarily on rank. Both enlisted men/women and officers are paid the same salary regardless of MOS; regardless of whether you are infantry, nurse, or artillery, you are paid by rank.