What Is a DONSA? Army Day of No Scheduled Activity

A DONSA in the Army is a commander-directed Day of No Scheduled Activity — an extra day off, usually tacked onto a federal holiday or weekend, that does not count against your 30 days of annual leave. The Army uses DONSAs to build four-day weekends for soldiers around holidays like Memorial Day, Thanksgiving, and Independence Day, giving people time to rest, travel, or handle personal business without burning leave.

It is not a federal holiday, and it is not the same as taking leave. It is an additional non-duty day that your unit adds to the training schedule. On a DONSA you skip formations, PT, and normal duty, but you remain on pass status rather than on leave.

Who Decides When a DONSA Happens

The authority to declare a DONSA rests with unit commanders and higher headquarters. Subordinate commanders can also designate their own training holidays or reduced manning days based on the unit’s mission.¹ Most installations publish a fiscal-year calendar listing planned DONSAs next to federal holidays so soldiers can plan trips and travel in advance.

The pattern is easy to spot once you know the rules. When a federal holiday falls on a Monday, the preceding Friday typically becomes the DONSA. When a holiday falls on a Thursday or Friday, the adjacent weekday gets designated. Either way, the aim is a four-day block. Fort Campbell’s published FY2026 calendar shows the usual pairing: a DONSA on Friday, November 28 after Thanksgiving, and a DONSA on Friday, May 22 before Memorial Day, each producing a four-day weekend.²

Every installation and major command publishes its own calendar, so exact dates vary by a day or two. The I Corps schedule at Joint Base Lewis-McChord follows a similar pattern but may pick different adjacent days depending on local training cycles.³ Confirm your unit’s dates with your chain of command rather than assuming they match the installation next door.

These schedules are plans, not guarantees. Training exercises, deployments, and urgent operational needs override any DONSA. Units cannot conduct weekend or holiday training without prior written approval from the first general officer in the chain of command, but once that approval is granted the DONSA goes away.³

Why a DONSA Doesn’t Cost You Leave

Under AR 600-8-10, a DONSA falls under the Army’s “pass” category, not “leave.” Passes are non-chargeable, so they cost you zero of your 30 annual leave days.⁴ Minimum manning days, which is another term for DONSAs and similar reduced-activity days, are treated as pass time even if no one formally submits an absence request.⁵

There is a cap. No pass can exceed four consecutive days under any circumstances, and DONSA days count toward that ceiling.⁵ A four-day regular pass is not authorized when a federal holiday falls on a Monday, so a DONSA-Friday plus Monday-holiday weekend is technically a special pass — a commander-granted absence of up to four days that must include at least two consecutive non-duty days.⁴ If a commander declines to authorize the special pass, the four-day weekend shrinks back to the standard three-day regular pass covering Saturday through Monday.

What You Can and Can’t Do on a DONSA

A DONSA gives you the day off, but you are on pass status, not leave, and a few practical rules follow from that.

AR 600-8-10 does not set a specific mileage limit for soldiers on pass, but your commander can establish a local distance or commuting-time restriction based on safety and recall requirements.⁵ Some units require you to stay within a four-hour drive. Others are looser. Read your unit’s pass policy letter before you plan a long trip, because violating the local limit is a quick way to lose future pass privileges.

You can also be recalled. If your unit gets a short-notice tasking or an emergency, the DONSA disappears and you report for duty. Recall on pass status is faster and less formal than recall from leave.

Not every soldier automatically gets the day. The Army Reserve Command states that supervisors may deny reduced manning days to soldiers who are overdue on mandatory readiness items, including periodic health assessments, dental and vision exams, immunizations, the fitness test (unless you’re on a valid profile), and height/weight screening.¹ That guidance came from USARC, but the principle is common across commands: if you’re red on readiness, expect the DONSA to become a workday.

Privilege, Not Entitlement

The Army Reserve Command puts it plainly: “Reduced manning days are a privilege, not an entitlement.”¹ That framing runs across all Army components, and it’s the single most important thing to understand about DONSAs.

Commanders weigh soldier welfare against the mission, and the mission wins. Even during the Christmas and New Year’s block leave window, staff sections must stay operational, and either the chief or the deputy has to be available each workday.¹ During other DONSAs, commanders may authorize minimum staffing, meaning someone in your section could still draw duty. Good commanders rotate who gets stuck.

DONSAs also can’t be banked. If yours gets canceled because of a field problem or deployment prep, you don’t get a replacement day later. The only way to recover the time is through regular leave or a future DONSA that survives the schedule.

One last note on terminology. Neither AR 600-8-10 nor AR 350-1 uses the word “DONSA.”⁴⁶ It’s informal Army shorthand that maps onto the formal concepts of training holidays, reduced manning days, and special passes. Chapter 7 of AR 600-8-10 is where the mechanics live if you want to read the actual rules.

1
United States Army Reserve. USARC Fiscal Year 2025 Holiday Observances and Events
2
Fort Campbell MWR. FY26 Training Holiday and DONSA Calendar
3
Joint Base Lewis-McChord Army MWR. I Corps FY25 Training Holiday and DONSA Schedule
4
Department of the Army. Army Regulation 600-8-10 – Leaves and Passes
5
U.S. Army Human Resources Command. Absences Leaves and Passes AR 600-8-10
6
Department of the Army. Army Regulation 350-1 – Army Training and Leader Development