The Air Force and Space Force have completed the annual review of special duty assignment pay for enlisted members and established new guidelines to support a quadrennial SDAP board process.
The SDAP board has transitioned to having a board every four years, rather than annually. The change is intended to stabilize the budget for Airmen and Guardians receiving the pay and for the Department of the Air Force when projecting for the annual budget. Additionally, this new process will also allow an annual out-of-cycle period to consider new and emerging functional communities.
While conducting the reviews, both Air Force and Space Force boards focused on identifying personnel in extremely demanding positions with unusually challenging responsibilities using a defendable scoring methodology and made decisions agnostic of budgetary funding constraints.
- The Air Force approved 78 specialties to receive SDAP in Fiscal Year 2025. Of those approved, 10 were initial requests that were certified for the first time, 61 were recertified at their current rate, four increased rate and three decreased rate to maintain parity with specialties of similar duties, responsibilities and training.
- The Air Force eliminated eligibility for one functional community because it no longer met the criteria for SDAP and disapproved 18 new requests for the same reason. The changes will take effect Oct. 1, 2024.
- The Space Force recertified eligibility with no changes for nine of the 14 functional communities included in the Fiscal Year 2024 Table, made adjustments to the other five, and certified eligibility for eight additional functional communities.
All functional communities recertified and/or approved during the Fiscal Year 2025 board will maintain SDAP until September 30, 2028. During this timeframe, there will be no decreases, increases or eliminations.
Members currently serving in a functional community that was eliminated during the Fiscal Year 2025 board will continue to receive special duty assignment pay at a rate of one-half of their original SDAP effective October 1, 2024, through September 30, 2025. Eliminated and disapproved functional communities will not be able to reapply for two fiscal years.
Personnel receiving an increase or decrease in SDAP will see it reflected beginning October 1, 2024.
For Airmen, visit here to view the full special duty assignment pay list and program updates.
For Guardians, visit here to view the full special duty assignment pay list and program updates.
