There are no female Navy SEALs. Since the Pentagon opened all combat jobs to women in 2015, only four women have entered the SEAL training pipeline, and none have finished. One woman has earned a Naval Special Warfare operator pin, but she graduated from the separate combatant-craft crewman course, not from BUD/S.
How Many Women Have Tried
The count is small. Data compiled for the Defense Advisory Committee on Women in the Services shows four women entered the SEAL training pipeline in the eight years after the 2015 policy change. Two enlisted women received SEAL contracts in 2019 and 2020 and left early. One more woman entered training between 2022 and 2023. None advanced far enough to earn a SEAL Trident.
The neighboring pipeline tells a different story. Nine women entered training for Naval Special Warfare’s other operator role, the Special Warfare Combatant-craft Crewman (SWCC) program, over the same span. Two graduated and now serve on boat teams.
The First Woman to Earn a Naval Special Warfare Pin
In July 2021, a female sailor graduated from the 37-week SWCC training course, becoming the first woman to earn a Naval Special Warfare operator pin. She was one of 17 graduates in her class. The Navy did not publicly identify her, following standard practice for special operations personnel.
SWCC operators are not SEALs. They crew the high-speed boats that insert and extract SEAL teams and run their own classified maritime missions. Their pipeline runs through Basic Crewman Selection, Basic Crewman Training, and Crewman Qualification Training, with a washout rate near 65%. It is a hard course for a different job, not a substitute for BUD/S.
When the SEAL Job Opened to Women
In December 2015, Defense Secretary Ash Carter announced that every military occupation would be open to women starting in January 2016, with no exceptions. The announcement specifically named Navy SEALs, Army Rangers, Green Berets, Marine Corps infantry, and Air Force parajumpers.1U.S. Department of War. Carter Opens All Military Occupations, Positions to Women
The policy required women to meet the same standards as men. No separate female standards were created for special operations roles.
Why the Number Stays at Zero
The SEAL pipeline’s attrition rate has hovered around 70% for decades, long before women were eligible. Roughly three of every four candidates who start BUD/S do not finish. About 57% of each entering class drops during First Phase alone, and most of those drops are voluntary. Candidates ring the bell and quit.
The full pipeline runs about 18 months: a preparatory conditioning phase, then the 24-week Basic Underwater Demolition/SEAL course, then three weeks of jump school, then 26 weeks of SEAL Qualification Training. The Trident comes only after SQT. Hell Week, five and a half days on fewer than four total hours of sleep, sits inside the first seven weeks of BUD/S and produces most of the voluntary dropouts.
Physical fitness matters, but instructors describe BUD/S primarily as a mental selection process. Strong athletes ring out during Hell Week; smaller candidates finish. The training is engineered to identify who keeps going when every rational impulse says stop, and that filter has produced the same washout rate whether the candidate pool is all male or nearly all male.
The Standards Women Have to Meet
To enter the pipeline, candidates pass the Physical Screening Test: a 500-yard swim, two minutes of push-ups, two minutes of curl-ups, maximum pull-ups, and a 1.5-mile timed run.2MyNavyHR. MILPERSMAN 1220-410 – Physical Screening Testing Standards and Procedures Enlisted candidates must be U.S. citizens under 29; officers must commission before age 42. Candidates also clear ASVAB scoring, medical screening, background checks, and psychological evaluations.3USAGov. Requirements to Join the U.S. Military Meeting the minimums is not competitive. Recruiters advise candidates to far exceed them.
Starting in 2026, the Navy is rolling out a new Combat Fitness Test for combat arms personnel, including SEALs and SWCC operators. The format shifts to weighted exercises meant to mirror operational loads:
- An 800-meter swim with fins, replacing the 500-yard swim
- Two minutes of push-ups in a 20-pound vest or plate carrier
- Maximum pull-ups in a 20-pound vest, no time limit
- A one-mile run carrying a 20-pound rucksack or vest
For candidates aged 17 to 29, top-tier scores require the swim in under 11 minutes 20 seconds, 54 weighted push-ups, 21 weighted pull-ups, and a mile in eight minutes or under. Failing any single event fails the whole test. The scoring is sex-neutral and age-adjusted: men and women at the same age face identical numbers.
Women in Other Special Operations Jobs
SEALs are the outlier. Women have finished other special operations pipelines, and some of those milestones came before the formal 2015 policy change:
- Army Ranger School graduated its first two women in August 2015. As of January 2025, 154 women had earned the Ranger tab. Ranger School is a leadership course, so graduating does not automatically assign a soldier to the 75th Ranger Regiment.
- Roughly 10 women have completed the Special Forces Qualification Course and earned the Green Beret.
- Air Force Special Warfare, as of early 2024, counted one female special tactics officer, two female tactical air control party airmen, and one female special reconnaissance airman: five operators in total.
- Two women serve as Naval Special Warfare combatant-craft crewmen.
Across U.S. Special Operations Command, women make up less than 10% of personnel, compared with about 19% of the broader military.4U.S. Government Accountability Office. Women in Special Operations: Improvements to Policy, Data, and Oversight Needed Most serve in support and enabling roles rather than as operators.
The 2026 Pentagon Review
In January 2026, the Pentagon opened a six-month review of women in ground combat positions, examining whether integration since 2015 has affected operational effectiveness in infantry, armor, artillery, and special operations units. The review, run through the Institute for Defense Analyses, requires the Army and Marine Corps to provide data on readiness, training performance, casualties, and unit climate.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth publicly stated before his nomination that women should not serve in combat roles. At his confirmation hearing he said women would keep access to combat jobs provided physical standards remained high. Directing the review, he said any position where standards were altered after 2015 to help women qualify must return to the original standard, adding: “If that means no women qualify for some combat jobs, so be it.”5The White House. Prioritizing Military Excellence and Readiness
For the SEAL community, the practical effect may be limited. Naval Special Warfare has said its standards were never lowered for integration, and BUD/S attrition has not meaningfully shifted since 2015. The new sex-neutral Combat Fitness Test reinforces that position. The review is expected to conclude by mid-2026. Its findings could still affect recruiting messaging, funding for female candidate preparation, and the political environment around women in special operations, but they do not change what happens inside the pipeline. So far, no woman has finished it.