The proposed fiscal year 2026 National Defense Authorization Act released Sunday includes language that blocks the most recent attempt to gauge whether the grocery industry is interested and able to operate the Defense Department’s stateside stores. (Defense Commissary Agency)

The Pentagon’s exploration of privatizing its commissaries may be thwarted by the annual defense policy bill now moving through Congress.

The proposed fiscal year 2026 National Defense Authorization Act released Sunday includes language that blocks the most recent attempt to gauge whether the grocery industry is interested and able to operate the Defense Department’s stateside stores.

The move from Congress follows the Defense Commissary Agency’s September request for information from commercial grocers to see possible plans to privatize 178 stores in the contiguous United States, Alaska, Hawaii and Puerto Rico. Any private partner would need to preserve the 23.7% average savings that is mandated for commissary shoppers.

The request did not include any overseas stores.

Though interest in privatizing base grocery stores has come and gone over the years, it most recently came up in an April memo from Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth that called on the military’s retail and recreation functions to be prioritized for privatization.

Congress appropriates about $1.4 billion annually to cover commissary operating costs, according to the Military Officers Association of America, a nonprofit organization that advocates on behalf of the military and its officers.

“A private company taking over commissary operations would need to recoup those costs, most likely through higher prices and diluting the very benefit the system is meant to provide,” MOAA officials wrote in a September article.

The legislation must now move for a vote in both chambers before it can head to President Donald Trump to be signed into law.