Navy Height and Weight Standards

The Navy Standard Now

One ratio, assessed twice a year, with a body fat calculation only for Sailors who exceed it.

Waist Chart by Height

Working to the 0.55 ceiling, this is the largest waist that clears it at each height. Every figure is the largest measurement that actually passes, not height multiplied by 0.55 and rounded — at 70 inches that is 38.4 inches, because 38.5 lands on exactly 0.550.

A printable one-page version of this chart is on how to calculate the standard. The arithmetic is identical whichever service you are in; only the consequences differ.

The DoD Memo Behind the Change

This was not a Navy initiative. It came from the Department of Defense and applies to every Military Department.

Two things follow from that. First, each department sets its own policy within the ceiling, so services can differ in detail while sharing the 0.55 figure. Second, body fat percentage was not abolished across DoD — it was moved to a second step. That is where the Navy and the Army diverge, and it is covered below.

How the Two-Step BCA Works

1. Step one — the ratioWaist circumference divided by height. A result below the threshold clears the BCA and nothing further is required.
2. Step two — body fatA Sailor at or above the threshold moves to a body fat calculation rather than failing outright. This is the step that distinguishes the Navy's approach from the Army's.

NAVADMIN 264/25 also notes that the criteria for the High-Performance BCA Exemption Policy have been updated. If you have previously relied on that exemption, the criteria are not the ones you memorised.

Where the Waist Is Measured

This is the detail most comparison pages get wrong, because the services do not all measure at the same place.

Those are genuinely different anatomical sites and they will not give the same number on the same person. If you are self-checking, use the site your own service specifies rather than the one you read on a general fitness page. Measuring technique in general, and the errors that cost half an inch, are covered on how to measure your waist correctly.

One Navy habit worth carrying over: taking two measurements and averaging the two closest, rather than taking the lowest, is a more honest self-check than a single hopeful reading.

The Former Three-Step BCA

Until the change, the Navy ran three gates. Most Navy height and weight chart material online still describes this as current. It is useful for reading an older record and for understanding what was replaced.

The former abdominal circumference maximums

The former weight-for-height table

Note how the male and female columns cross over at the lower heights and diverge sharply higher up — a 6-foot male was screened at 201 pounds against a female Sailor's 185. That sex-based gap is one of the things a single ratio removes.

Navy Body Fat Limits

The Navy's graduated body fat standards are banded by age and sex. Under the old process they were the final gate; under the two-step process body fat is the second evaluation for anyone over the ratio.

Alongside those, the DoD pass limits are 26 percent for men and 36 percent for women. Sailors who exceed the Navy graduated standards are enrolled in the Fitness Enhancement Program — the Navy's equivalent of the Army's body composition programme.

Where the BCA Sits in the PFA

The body composition assessment is one half of the Navy's Physical Fitness Assessment. The other half is the Physical Readiness Test — the strength, aerobic and endurance events. They are separate results recorded together.

This is the same separation the Army draws between its fitness test and body composition, and it trips people up for the same reason: the two are run together and recorded together, so they feel like one assessment. The Army version of that confusion is covered on AFT score and body fat.

Navy vs Army

Both services now screen on the same ratio. What happens next is where they part company.

The Marine Corps went further than either service, setting its screen at 0.52 — see Marine Corps height and weight standards. Every branch side by side is on armed forces weight requirements.

Joining the Navy

Accession standards are set separately from in-service ones, and the Navy publishes its joining requirements on its own recruiting site.

Because the DoD direction removes weight tables from body composition evaluation across the department, any Navy weight requirements chart you find for applicants should be checked against the recruiter rather than taken from a third-party page — including this one. The Navy's own requirements page is the place to confirm it.

Free fitness and nutrition coaching is available to service members and families through Military OneSource.

Frequently Asked Questions

Sources & References

Standards change. Confirm anything career-affecting with your chain of command, your recruiter, or the current publication on Army Publishing Directorate before acting on it.