How to read your LES

Your LES has three money columns: what you earned, what came out, and what you set aside yourself. Read it top to bottom once and the rest of your paycheck stops being a mystery.

At a glance

  • Entitlements are what you earn: basic pay, BAH, BAS and any special pays.
  • Deductions are what comes out: taxes, SGLI, TSP. Allotments are what you chose to send somewhere.
  • BAH and BAS are not taxed, which is why they are missing from your taxable wages.
  • Spouses: have access before a deployment, and keep a current copy where you both can reach it.

Who this is for: A young sailor seeing a full LES for the first time, and a spouse who needs to understand the household's pay without a translator.

A sample LES, section by section

Tap a numbered section to open its explanation. This is a sample with made-up amounts, not anyone's real pay.

SAMPLE, NOT REAL PAY
Entitlements
BASE PAYfrom the DFAS pay table
BAH$2,139
BAS$476.95
Deductions
FEDERAL TAXES214.00 (sample)
FICA-SOC SECURITY198.00 (sample)
FICA-MEDICARE46.00 (sample)
SGLIpremium, see the VA rate table
TSP TRADITIONAL160.00 (sample)
TSP ROTH160.00 (sample)
Allotments
SAVINGS ALLOTMENT200.00 (sample)
Summary
+AMT FWD0.00
+TOT ENTsee entitlements
-TOT DEDsee deductions
-TOT ALMT200.00 (sample)
=NET AMTsample
Leave
BF BAL22.5 (sample)
ERND15.0 (sample)
USED8.0 (sample)
CR BAL29.5 (sample)
USE/LOSE0.0 (sample)
Taxable wages
WAGE PERIODsample
WAGE YTDsample
TAX YTDsample
Remarks
REMARKSBAH RATE CHANGE EFFECTIVE (sample)
TSP ROTH ELECTION (sample)

1. Entitlements: what you earned this month

Basic pay is the taxable part, set by the DFAS pay table for your paygrade and years of service. BAH is your housing allowance for your duty station and dependency status. BAS is the food allowance. Special and incentive pays, such as sea pay or flight pay, show here too.

The sample shows basic pay as a label because this page quotes no pay figure until the firm's DFAS check is done; BAH and BAS in the sample are the verified figures: BAH for an E-5 with dependents at NAS Lemoore, and the enlisted BAS rate.

basic pay taxable; BAH and BAS not taxable

2. Deductions: what came out

Federal and state tax withholding comes out of basic pay and taxable special pays, because BAH and BAS are not taxable. FICA is Social Security and Medicare. SGLI and, if you are married, FSGLI are your life insurance premiums. TSP shows what you put in, traditional and Roth on separate lines if you split them.

The sample uses made-up amounts for the deductions.

reduces your take-home, not your taxable wages

3. Allotments: money you chose to send somewhere

An allotment is a standing instruction to send part of your pay to a bank account, a loan or a bill before it reaches your main account. It is your money and your choice; it is not a tax or a deduction.

Review them once a year. Old allotments outlive the reason they were set up.

your money, not taxable or deductible

4. Summary: the bottom line

Entitlements minus deductions minus allotments is your net pay, split across the mid-month and end-of-month deposits. If a figure here surprises you, the answer is almost always in the remarks block below.

net pay

5. Leave balance

Leave shows what you carried in, what you earned this year, what you used, and what is left. The use-or-lose figure is the amount above the carryover cap that you will forfeit if you do not take it by the end of the fiscal year. Leave sold at separation is paid on basic pay only, not on BAH or BAS.

sold leave is taxable

6. Taxable wages: why they are lower than your pay

Your federal taxable wages are basic pay and taxable special pays, minus traditional TSP contributions. BAH and BAS never appear here because they are excluded from income tax. This is the number your W-2 is built from, and it is why a plan built from the W-2 alone undercounts what you actually bring home.

the taxable base

7. Remarks: the fine print that explains the rest

The remarks block carries the notes that explain changes: a new BAH rate after a move, a TSP election change, a debt being collected, a bonus installment. When a number moved and you do not know why, read this block first.

notes, not money

Reviewed by Theron Morgan, CEO and founder, Avidity Capital Inc., a registered investment adviser, on 2026-10-07.

The three columns, in plain words

Entitlements are what the Navy owes you this month. Deductions are what the government and your elections take out before you see it. Allotments are what you told DFAS to send somewhere else. Net pay is what is left, paid in two deposits.

Two of your biggest entitlements, BAH and BAS, are not taxed and do not appear in your taxable wages. That is why your W-2 looks smaller than your pay, and why any plan built only from the W-2 gets a sailor's budget wrong.

For spouses

Get access before a deployment, not during one. A new lease, a car loan or a mortgage application can ask for a current LES, and the person who can log in may be at sea. Set up myPay access, or a power of attorney that covers it, while you are both home.

Keep a current copy where both of you can reach it. The Avidity Journey vault, on the Self-serve plan, is one place to do that: documents you upload are encrypted in your browser before they are stored, both of you can reach a shared vault, and you choose how long originals are kept.

Read the remarks block together once. Most of the surprises a spouse hits on a deployment are explained there.

What Avidity Journey does with your LES

When you upload an LES to the reader, the app reads it in memory and pulls out only the pay fields: dates, codes as printed, and the amounts for entitlements, deductions, allotments and your TSP elections. The reader refuses names, Social Security numbers, DoD ID numbers, account and routing numbers and addresses, and it never stores the file. What it keeps is the pay picture, which fills your plan and is explained in plain words.

If you want a copy of the document itself kept, that is the vault, which is a separate, encrypted place you choose to put documents in.

Questions people ask

Why is my taxable wage lower than my total pay?

Because BAH and BAS are not taxed and traditional TSP contributions come out before tax. Only basic pay and taxable special pays, less traditional TSP, count as taxable wages.

What is an allotment?

A standing instruction to send part of your pay somewhere before it reaches your account. It is your money and your choice, and it is worth reviewing once a year.

What does use-or-lose mean on the leave line?

Leave above the carryover cap that you forfeit if you do not take it by the end of the fiscal year.

Can my spouse see my LES?

Only if you set that up: through myPay access, a power of attorney that covers it, or by keeping a current copy where you both can reach it, such as the Avidity Journey vault.

Does the app keep my LES file?

The LES reader does not. It reads the document in memory, keeps only the pay fields, refuses personal identifiers, and never stores the file. The vault is a separate, encrypted place where you can choose to keep documents.

Next step

See your own numbers first. The free reality-check needs no account and no card.

Hanford PD: run the free reality-check NAS Lemoore: run the free reality-check

This page is education, not individualized investment, tax, legal or insurance advice. It names no products, funds or allocations and carries no client stories. Where a document or a policy is needed, an estate attorney or a licensed insurance agent is the person who prepares it. Avidity Capital Inc. drafts no legal documents and receives no commission or referral fee from insurance, estate attorneys, mortgage lenders or real estate agents. Its compensation is the member's subscription and, for members who choose it, an advisory fee for managing assets; see Form CRS and Form ADV Part 2A. Avidity Capital Inc. is a registered investment adviser.