Military Travel Advance: Eligibility, Amounts, and Settlement

A military travel advance is government money paid to you before a Permanent Change of Station move or Temporary Duty trip so you aren’t fronting official travel costs from your own account. Whether you qualify depends mostly on whether you hold a Government Travel Charge Card, and the amount depends on the allowance involved. Every advance is a temporary debt that you clear by filing a final travel voucher after the trip.

Who Can Get an Advance

Your eligibility turns on the Government Travel Charge Card. DoD policy requires GTCC holders to use the card for authorized travel expenses, so if you have one, you generally will not receive a separate cash advance for most costs.{¹}

The exceptions are where most advances actually happen:

GTCC holders on PCS orders can still get an advance for Dislocation Allowance, since that lump-sum payment sits outside normal card usage.{}²
Members without a GTCC can receive advances for PCS entitlements as long as their orders do not specifically prohibit them.
Accession and separation moves are exempt from mandatory card use, so new service members reporting to a first duty station and those separating can typically receive cash advances for allowable PCS costs.{}²
For TDY, advances are limited to situations where the GTCC cannot be used or you lack access to electronic payment methods.

Members authorized dependent travel and transportation allowances can include those added costs in the advance.{¹}

Reserve and National Guard Members

Reserve Component members performing Inactive Duty Training at their normal drill location generally do not receive travel or transportation allowances at all, so there is nothing to advance.{¹} Once you are activated for extended TDY or receive PCS orders, the standard active-duty advance rules apply, including the GTCC requirements.

How Much You Can Receive

The Joint Travel Regulations do not set a single universal percentage cap. The amount tracks the type of allowance and your travel situation. For dependent transportation tied to a separation or relief from active duty, the advance is capped at 75 percent of the Monetary Allowance in Lieu of Transportation.{¹} For other PCS entitlements, the advance generally covers the estimated cost of your authorized allowances.

In 2026, the MALT rate is $0.205 per mile per authorized vehicle, calculated from the official distance between duty stations.{³}

Documents You Need

The central document is DD Form 1351-2, the standard DoD travel voucher.{⁴} You enter your estimated costs, including mileage from the Defense Table of Official Distances and per diem for your destination. Along with the form itself, attach:

Complete PCS or TDY orders, including all amendments.
DD Form 2278, if you are requesting an advance for a Personally Procured Move (DITY).
DD Form 1610, for TDY-enroute advances when TDY details are not in your PCS orders.
Your bank routing and account numbers for direct deposit.

These attachments come from the DFAS SmartVoucher processing system.{⁵} Accuracy is not optional. Submitting false information on a travel voucher can lead to prosecution under the Uniform Code of Military Justice for false official statements or fraudulent claims against the United States.{⁶}

How to Submit the Request

For TDY travel, most requests run through the Defense Travel System, DoD’s authorized online travel system.{⁷} When you create your authorization in DTS, select “Request Advance” if you do not have a GTCC or are exempt from using it.{⁸} You digitally sign and it routes through your approving official before reaching finance.

For PCS advances, use the DFAS SmartVoucher application. You log in, select “Travel Advance Request,” and enter your PCS order number, order issue date, and sign-out date. After entering travel details and uploading your documents as PDFs or images (2 MB per file), you sign and submit for DFAS review.{⁵}

Timing

For DTS non-ATM advances, your approving official needs to approve the request at least 10 days before your scheduled departure so the funds can reach your bank by electronic transfer. Approvals within that 10-day window still process, but only after the associated obligation transactions clear, which can push the deposit uncomfortably close to your travel date.{⁷} Submit as early as your orders allow.

Settling the Advance After Travel

Every advance creates a temporary debt that you clear by filing your final travel voucher. You have five working days after completing your travel to submit it.{⁹} The finance office totals your earned entitlements and subtracts the advance you already received. If your entitlements are larger, you get a final payment for the difference. If the advance was larger, the leftover balance is a debt you owe the government.

When there is a debt, the Defense Travel Management Office sends a notification, and you have 30 days to pay in full, set up a payroll deduction, or submit a waiver request. If you do nothing, involuntary payroll deduction begins.{¹⁰}

What Involuntary Collection Looks Like

Under federal law, involuntary deductions from a service member’s pay to recover an overpayment cannot exceed 15 percent of your pay for that month.{¹¹} For debts that go further into delinquency, federal agencies can garnish up to 15 percent of disposable earnings under the Debt Collection Improvement Act, with a higher percentage allowed only with your written consent.{¹²}

Debts that remain unresolved past 120 days get referred to the Treasury Department for government-wide administrative offset, which can intercept tax refunds and other federal payments.{¹³} Gather receipts during the trip rather than after, and file the voucher inside the five-working-day window.

A Note on Taxes

The advance itself is not a taxable event because it is a prepayment against an allowance you will settle later. On the PCS side, qualified moving expense reimbursements and the value of government-provided moving services are excluded from income, along with Dislocation Allowance, Temporary Lodging Expense, Temporary Lodging Allowance, and Move-In Housing Allowance.{¹⁴} If the government reimburses you more than your actual moving costs, the excess is included in your wages on your W-2.

1
Defense Travel Management Office. Joint Travel Regulations
2
Defense Finance and Accounting Service. PCS Advance Information
3
Defense Travel Management Office. Mileage Rates
4
Defense Finance and Accounting Service. Travel Voucher Forms
5
Defense Finance and Accounting Service. SmartVoucher Military PCS User Guide
6
GovInfo. 10 USC 932 – Art. 132. Frauds Against the United States
7
Defense Travel Management Office. Defense Travel System Regulations
8
11th Airborne Division. Creating an Authorization Traveler Guide
9
Defense Travel Management Office. DoD Travel Allowance Guidance
10
Defense Travel Management Office. Understanding a Travel Debt
11
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 37 USC 1007 – Deductions From Pay
12
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 31 USC 3720D – Garnishment
13
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 31 USC 3716 – Administrative Offset
14
Internal Revenue Service. Publication 3 – Armed Forces Tax Guide