An Army officer gives the oath of enlistment to more than new Army recruits on June 13, 2025, at Fort McCoy, Wis. The Army increased its maximum enlistment age to 42, bringing its accession policy closer in line with most of the other U.S. military services. (Scott Sturkol/U.S. Army)
Those in their late 30s and early 40s can now join the U.S. Army.
The Army increased its maximum enlistment age to 42 this month, bringing its accession policy closer in line with most of the United States’ other military services, according to updated service regulation documents published this month.
Individuals up to 42 with or without prior military service can enlist in the Regular Army, the Army National Guard and the Army Reserve, according to the updated Army Regulation 601-210 published March 20. AR 601-210 is the regulation that governs policies and procedures for the Army’s enlistment process.
The Army in recent years had capped the enlistment age at 35, although it did accept some older recruits with waivers, officials said. The policy did not change the Army’s minimum ages for enlisting, which remain 17 with parental permission or 18.
The updated enlistment age brings the Army in line with the Air Force, Space Force and Coast Guard, which all accept recruits up to 42. The Navy accepts recruits up to 41, and the Marine Corps only accepts enlisted recruits up to 28 years old.
It is not the first time the Army has accepted older recruits. The service temporarily increased its maximum enlistment age to 42 in 2006 as it struggled to fill its ranks amid major combat operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. The service dropped its enlistment age back to 35 in 2016.
The Air Force and Space Force were the most recent services to raise their max enlistment age in 2023 when they moved it from 39 to 42 amid a yearslong recruiting slump that saw Air Force recruiters fall short of their enlistment goals for multiple years.
But the Army policy change comes amid a solid recruiting environment in which its recruiters have reached or surpassed their goals in the last year and report being on track to meet their 2026 recruiting aims.
The policy change is meant to better align the service with Defense Department standards, an Army spokesperson said Tuesday.
The updated Army regulation also allows recruits who have a single marijuana possession or drug paraphernalia possession conviction to enlist without a waiver. Such convictions previously would have technically barred potential recruits from enlisting, but those with such convictions were often granted waivers to join the service.
All of the U.S. military services also allow exceptions to their enlistment policies via waivers. The Air Force, for example, recently allowed 51-year-old David Goggins to enlist. Goggins is a storied former Navy SEAL who entered the Air Force as master sergeant and was assigned to the Special Warfare Training Wing, according to an Air Force spokesperson.
In 2023, RAND Corp. analysts suggested the Army raise its maximum enlistment age to help it increase recruiting at a time when the service had just missed its recruiting goals by about 25% in 2022.
In a 2022 study, RAND analysts found that older recruits might perform better. It found recruits between 25 and 35 were about 15% less likely to wash out of initial entry training than younger recruits. That age group was also about 6% more likely to reenlist after their initial contract, RAND found.
The company also found that recruiters believed older recruits were “of higher quality, more focused, and more motivated, as well as being ready to ship to basic training more quickly.”
