Carney Boosts CAF Pay, Benefits by $2 Billion

By James Careless

TRENTON, Ontario — On August 8, 2025, Prime Minister Mark Carney visited CFB Trenton to announce $2 billion in annual pay and benefit increases. The new spending is part of the more than $9 billion that Ottawa is adding to the defence budget to meet Canada’s NATO 2% GDP spending commitment.

“As the demands on our Canadian armed forces have increased, their resources and their salaries have not kept pace,” said the Prime Minister, standing inside an RCAF hangar and flanked by many CAF members. “These are the men and women we trust to wear the maple leaf, the Canadian flag, and to risk their lives for it. Their pay, your pay, should reflect the weight of your responsibilities,” he promised.

Here is how Ottawa plans to deliver on that promise.

All regular members of the CAF will see their paycheques increased retroactive to April 1, 2025. Starting regular force aviators, privates and sailors will enjoy a 20% pay boost. Existing regular and reserve force personnel from aviators, privates, and sailors up to the ranks of navy captains and lieutenant-colonels will get a 13% raise. Officers ranked as colonels and above will receive 8% raises annually.

To put these raises in perspective, the starting salary for a Private, Pay Increment 1 (Regular Force) will increase from $3,614 a month ($43,368 yearly) to $4,337 a month ($52,044 yearly).

“We will also introduce a new military service pay benefit specifically tied to time in service so that paychecks honour years in uniform,” the Prime Minister said. According to a Backgrounder released by the Department of National Defence, these annual, pensionable payments will be made as follows:

Years of Service         Regular Force/Reserve Force

5-10 years                   $2,000/$400

11-15 years                 $3,500/$700

16-20 years                 $5,000/$1,000

21+ years                    $6,000/$1,200

The federal government is also going to pay recruitment bonuses to those CAF members who fulfill critical functions that are currently short-staffed, which DND refers to as ‘stressed occupations.’ To attract and retain people in these positions, each one of them will receive $10,000 upon their completion of basic training, $20,000 once they have been qualified in their stressed occupation trade, and $20,000 upon completion of their first contract with the CAF, but only if they sign on for another period of service.

That’s not all. “Behind every member in uniform, there’s a family that serves right alongside them,” declared Carney. “Spouses who pack up the house on short notice, move across the country or around the world and build a new life from scratch.” To help them out, the CAF’s

Posting Frequency Allowance for regular force members will now be based on the number of moves they have to make, instead of their pay scales.

“The current allowance of a month’s pay, or ½ month’s pay for a single member or Imposed Restriction (IR) move, will be replaced with $13,500 for each of the first three moves, $20,050 for moves 4-6, and $27,000 after that,” the Backgrounder explained. “This applies to single members as well, although those on IR will continue to receive half of the new allowance, given the other IR benefits being provided.”

According to the Backgrounder, there are other improvements to CAF benefits being implemented. As quoted from that document, they include:

• Increased Environmental Allowances: CAF members will see more money in their

environmental allowances, such as Land Duty Allowance for field operations and Sea Duty and Submarine Duty Allowance for operations aboard ship. “The current monthly allowance, prorated for the number of years in the environment, will transition back to a daily flat rate of $100/day, and will be received when the member is actually at sea or in the field.”

• Allowances for Domestic and Arctic Operations. “In addition to any environmental allowances being received, members will receive $45/day when deployed on a named domestic operation (e.g. Op LENTUS), and an additional percentage of their land duty (50%) or sea duty (25%) allowance when deployed in the Arctic.”
• Imposed Restriction Benefits: When a CAF regular force member is posted to a new location without the option of taking their family along with them, they can apply for

Imposed Restriction (IR) status and improved associated benefits. These benefits can include a food allowance of approximately $7,000/year, a transportation allowance of $4,200/year, and an incidentals allowance of $2,400/year.

• Allowances for Instructors: Under its new payment policy, CAF members posted to a designated training school will receive an extra $300/month. “Instructors at Canadian Forces Leadership and Recruit School will receive an additional $35/day they instruct up to $12,000/year, while instructors at other establishments will receive an additional $20/day they instruct up to $8,400/year.”

According to the Prime Minister’s Office, this is the largest pay raise for the Canadian Armed Forces members in a generation. Time will tell if the extra money is sufficient to boost recruitment and retention, both of which are ongoing issues for the CAF.