Soldiers assigned to 10th Mountain Division train Oct. 30, 2024, in Getica National Joint Training Center, Romania. The Army will continue to offer service members rotational deployment extension-assignment incentive pay. (David Dumas/U.S. Army)

Soldiers approaching the end of their enlistment contracts in a unit scheduled for a rotational deployment can keep counting on an Army enticement aimed at getting them to stick around.

The service will continue to offer rotational deployment extension-assignment incentive pay, which it originally announced in January.

The purpose is to encourage soldiers to extend their service to remain available to their units for the duration of a deployment, according to an internal Army message issued Nov. 1.  

Soldiers who request the incentive pay can still reenlist if otherwise qualified, but additional service time won’t begin until after the original extension time is complete.  

The Army introduced the incentive pay in a military personnel message in January with an expiration date of a year later, which is common for such messages. The latest message, retroactively effective Oct. 1, aligns with the fiscal year and expires in a year.

The extra money is being offered only to first-term, active-duty soldiers and doesn’t include those in the Army Reserve or National Guard, according to the message.  

To qualify for the incentive pay, soldiers must be on their first contract with an end date that falls between the deployment start and end dates, plus 90 days.

Eligible soldiers can request the incentive pay beginning nine months prior to the unit’s latest arrival deployment date.  

Those who extend between six and nine months before then will receive $500 per month for each full month of extension. Those who opt-in at least 90 days before their service term expires but less than six months in advance of the deployment will receive $250 per month.  

The payment is given as a lump sum and is also tax-free if the deployment is to a combat tax exclusion zone.  

Soldiers may cancel or modify their extension requests, respectively, if the deployment falls through or the dates of it are changed by more than 30 days. 

The Army did not provide answers to questions related to the number of soldiers granted the incentive pay since January, the amount of money paid out or if the extensions contributed to 2024 retention numbers.

This incentive is in addition to the operational deployment pay, announced in October, that soldiers receive for deployments over 60 days.