Deployment Orders: SCRA Protections, USERRA, and Combat Zone Pay

When deployment orders land, they set off a chain of rights and legal protections you have to activate yourself, along with pay changes and paperwork that need to be finished before you go. Federal law caps interest on your pre-service debts at 6%, protects your civilian job, lets you break residential and vehicle leases, and can make your combat zone pay tax-free — but most of these only kick in after you send written notice with a copy of your orders, and some of them run on deadlines that start the day you get home. The steps below cover what to check, what to file, and what to expect from the moment orders arrive through your return.

Read Your Orders Line by Line First

Deployment orders are not TDY or PCS orders, and the type of deployment on the document controls your pay, your entitlements, and which Servicemembers Civil Relief Act (SCRA) protections you can invoke. Read them the day they arrive. Check your name, rank, Social Security Number, reporting date, duty station, and duration against your records.

Errors delay pay, entitlements, and SCRA protections. If anything is wrong, contact your S1 or G1 immediately and request an amendment. Fixing orders after you have already left is far harder, and it can strand you without benefits you are entitled to.

Wills, Powers of Attorney, and Beneficiaries

Military legal assistance offices prepare wills for service members at no cost. Update yours before every deployment, not just the first. Marriage, divorce, a new child, or a property purchase between deployments can make an older will dangerously out of date.

You will also need at least one power of attorney, and most families need two. A general POA gives broad authority over finances and legal matters. A special POA limits authority to one task, such as selling a vehicle or handling a specific account. Refinancing, school enrollment, and insurance changes routinely require a POA on file, and the legal assistance office can draft both types.

Review every beneficiary designation. Servicemembers’ Group Life Insurance (SGLI) automatically covers eligible members at the maximum $500,000 for $30 per month, plus $1 for Traumatic SGLI.¹ If you previously reduced or declined coverage, confirm your current level and raise it if needed. Also check your Thrift Savings Plan, bank accounts, and any civilian policies. Beneficiary designations on SGLI and TSP override your will, and outdated ones are one of the most common problems families face after a loss.

Cap Your Pre-Service Debt Interest at 6%

Any debt you took on before entering active service — or before activation, for Guard and Reserve — cannot carry an interest rate above 6% per year while you are serving. That covers credit cards, auto loans, student loans, and mortgages. For mortgage-type obligations the cap extends for one year after your service ends; for other debts, it lasts through your period of service.²

The excess interest is forgiven, not deferred. Your payment drops by the amount that would have exceeded 6%. To activate the cap, send each creditor written notice with a copy of your orders. You have up to 180 days after release from service to send that notice, but there is no reason to wait. Once a creditor receives notice and orders, the rate reduction applies retroactively to the date you were called to service.²

Ending Leases and Contracts Before You Go

Residential Leases

The SCRA lets you end a residential lease early when deployment requires it. Deliver written notice and a copy of your orders to the landlord. If you pay rent monthly, termination takes effect 30 days after the next rent due date following your notice. For leases that are not month-to-month, termination is effective on the last day of the month after you deliver notice.³

Motor Vehicle Leases

You can terminate a motor vehicle lease if your deployment orders are for 180 days or more, or if you receive a PCS from a location in the continental United States to one outside it. Deliver written notice and orders to the leasing company, then return the vehicle within 15 days of that notice.³

Cell Phone Contracts

Cell phone contracts can also be terminated if your orders relocate you for at least 90 days to a location your current contract does not support, and the contract must have been signed before you received the relocation orders. Send the carrier written or electronic notice, a copy of your orders, and the date you want service to end.⁴

The carrier cannot charge an early termination fee, but can collect any unpaid balance. Prepaid fees must be refunded within 60 days of cancellation, minus the current billing cycle. Family plans can be canceled for everyone accompanying you. If your relocation lasts three years or less and you resubscribe within 90 days of returning, the carrier must let you keep your original phone number.⁴

Pausing Civil Court Cases

If you are named in a civil lawsuit or administrative proceeding while deployed, you can ask the court to pause the case for at least 90 days. The court must grant the stay when you submit two things: a statement explaining how your military duties keep you from appearing and when you expect to be available, and a letter from your commanding officer confirming that your duties prevent attendance and that leave is not authorized.⁵ The same protection is available for 90 days after you leave military service, so you have a window to deal with pending cases once you are home.

Pay and Allowances That Change on Deployment

Your base pay continues, and several special pays and allowances may be added depending on where you go and for how long.

Imminent Danger Pay: up to $225 per month in a designated danger area, prorated at $7.50 per day.⁶
Hostile Fire Pay: a flat $225 per month, not prorated, in a hostile fire area or when actually exposed to hostile fire.⁶
Family Separation Allowance: $300 per month when you are separated from dependents for more than 30 continuous days by deployment or ship duty away from home port.⁷
Basic Allowance for Housing: members with dependents generally continue receiving BAH at the with-dependents rate during deployment to maintain housing back home.

Setting up allotments through DFAS before you leave keeps mortgage, dependent support, insurance, and savings payments moving on their own while you are gone.⁸ Check your Leave and Earnings Statement within the first one or two pay periods after arrival at the deployed location. If a special pay is missing, contact finance right away. Back-pay corrections can take months.

Combat Zone Tax Benefits

Income Exclusion

Pay earned while serving in a designated combat zone is tax-free for enlisted members, with no dollar limit: every dollar of compensation earned during any month you serve in the zone is excluded from gross income.⁹ Even a single day in the zone qualifies the entire month’s pay.

Commissioned officers face a cap: the exclusion is limited to the highest enlisted basic pay rate plus any imminent danger or hostile fire pay for that month. Anything above that stays taxable.⁹ The exclusion also applies while you are hospitalized as a result of wounds or injuries from combat zone service, for up to two years after combatant activities end in that zone.

Filing and Payment Extensions

The IRS automatically extends deadlines for filing returns and paying taxes while you are in a combat zone. The extension covers your entire service in the zone plus 180 days after you leave, and you get credit for the number of days that were still remaining before the original deadline when you entered the zone.¹⁰ If you entered on March 1 with 46 days left before an April 15 deadline, you get your time in the zone, plus 180 days, plus those 46 days.¹¹ The extension covers filing, paying, and claiming refunds.

TSP Contributions

Tax-exempt combat zone pay contributed to your Thrift Savings Plan is not subject to the normal elective deferral limit. Contributions are instead limited only by the higher annual additions cap, which counts your money, matching, and automatic contributions together.¹² Catch-up contributions from tax-exempt combat zone pay must be designated as Roth.

Your Civilian Job Is Protected by USERRA

The Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act (USERRA) protects the civilian job you leave for military service. It matters most for Guard and Reserve members, but it covers anyone leaving civilian work for service. To qualify, you have to give your employer advance notice — written or verbal — before leaving, and your total military absences with that employer cannot exceed five years.¹³ Many involuntary call-ups, including national emergency activations, do not count toward that cap.

Reporting Back to Work

How fast you must return depends on how long you served:

Under 31 days: report at the start of the next regular work period after travel home, with at least eight hours of rest.
31 to 180 days: apply for reemployment within 14 days.
Over 180 days: apply for reemployment within 90 days.¹³

You are entitled to the position you would have held if you had never left, including promotions and raises you would have earned. If your deployment lasted more than 90 days, the employer must place you in that escalator position or one with equivalent seniority, status, and pay.¹⁴ After reemployment, your employer cannot fire you without cause for one year if your service lasted more than 180 days, or for 180 days if your service was between 31 and 180 days.¹⁵

Retirement Plan Makeup Contributions

Your employer must treat your military absence as a leave of absence, not a termination. That means the employer is required to fund contributions you missed. Makeup contributions are calculated on the pay you would have earned, or if that is uncertain, your average compensation during the 12 months before you left.¹⁶ For employer contributions that do not depend on your elective deferrals, the employer has until 90 days after your reemployment date or the normal plan deadline, whichever is later. You have up to three times the length of your military service, capped at five years, to make up your own missed employee contributions.

Dependent Healthcare Through TRICARE

Dependents keep TRICARE eligibility while you are deployed. For active-duty families, coverage continues as before. Guard and Reserve members activated for more than 30 consecutive days give their dependents access to TRICARE Prime, TRICARE Select, or other options based on location and preference.¹⁷ Every dependent must be registered in the Defense Enrollment Eligibility Reporting System (DEERS) to use any TRICARE benefit. Verify DEERS enrollment before you leave. An expired record can create a coverage gap at the worst possible moment.

Household Goods, Mail, and Family Care Plan

Household goods shipments and storage are handled through your local Transportation Office. Bring a complete copy of your orders and any amendments for each type of shipment, and schedule appointments as early as you can. Set up official mail forwarding through your unit or installation post office too. Court notices, tax forms, and insurance correspondence do not stop while you are deployed, and a missed deadline is much harder to fix from overseas.

If you have dependents, a formal Family Care Plan (FCP) may be required and must be approved by your commander. It applies to single parents with custody, dual-military couples with children, and anyone responsible for an adult family member who cannot manage alone.¹⁸ The FCP names a guardian for your dependents and documents the arrangements for their health, safety, and education. An incomplete or unapproved FCP can make you non-deployable.

Build the plan early. Give your designated guardian copies of medical records, school enrollment paperwork, and the POA they will need to act. Brief them on the practical details of running your household, and confirm how you will handle official email, phone, and video calls from the deployed location before you leave.

1
Department of Veterans Affairs. SGLI Increase to $500,000 FAQs
2
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 50 USC 3937 – Maximum Rate of Interest on Debts Incurred Before Military Service
3
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 50 USC 3955 – Termination of Residential or Motor Vehicle Leases
4
Federal Communications Commission. Military Service Members and Wireless Phone Service
5
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 50 USC 3932 – Stay of Proceedings When Servicemember Has Notice
6
MilitaryPay. Hostile Fire/Imminent Danger Pay
7
MilitaryPay. Family Separation Allowance
8
Defense Finance and Accounting Service. Military Allotments
9
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 26 USC 112 – Certain Combat Zone Compensation of Members of the Armed Forces
10
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 26 USC 7508 – Time for Performing Certain Acts Postponed by Reason of Service in Combat Zone
11
Internal Revenue Service. Extension of Deadlines – Combat Zone Service
12
Thrift Savings Plan. Contribution Limits
13
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 38 USC 4312 – Reemployment Rights of Persons Who Serve in the Uniformed Services
14
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 38 USC 4313 – Reemployment Positions
15
GovInfo. 38 USC 4316 – Rights, Benefits, and Obligations of Persons Absent From Employment
16
Internal Revenue Service. Retirement Plans FAQs Regarding USERRA and SSCRA
17
TRICARE. Family Members of National Guard or Reserve Members
18
MyNavyHR. Family Care Plan