Posted on Jul 8, 2021
SPC Fire Support Specialist
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I have been told by multiple of my NCO's that a soldier can sell leave days anytime throughout their career and not only you PCS or when reenlisting, but each of the NCO's that I talked to had no idea how to go about selling them or where to go, just that they know you can. I am trying to avoid going to AER and would prefer to sell my leave days early if possible. I have almost 80 days of leave currently and I ETS in November. I do not plan on taking terminal leave. I am tracking that a maximum of 60 days can be sold when you do sell them. I also understand that most people believe selling leave is a mistake and that I should take terminal leave but financially I believe selling leave would be a better decision even with the leave being taxed.
Posted in these groups: Legal 6 Leave
Edited >1 y ago
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SFC Retention Operations Nco
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You can sell leave when you reenlist, it's one of the questions in the DA 3340 Request for Reenlistment. Technically you can sell leave any time you separate, those are when you ETS, retire, reenlist, and if you sign an extension - the day of your old ETS.

It's not a bad idea to sell leave, only to sell it when it's not worth anything. The total amount you can ever sell in your career is 60 days. I recommend people sell their leave when they go indef, it's a nice chunk of free money. Let's say you're a four to six year E4, your base pay is worth $2580. Your payout after tax, not counting state taxes, is $4025. If you were an E6 at 12 years and going indef your base is $4115 your take home is $6419. But as a combat arms MOS you would most likely go indef over 12 years as you pin on SFC so your take home would be $7425 if you were doing it this year. That's in today's dollars, the total would be much higher with ten years of annual increases.
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SPC Fire Support Specialist
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Appreciate the info!
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SFC Air Traffic Control Equipment Repairer
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You can sell up to 60 days but it will only be base on your base pay and nothing else. So what ever your base pay is times it by two and minus what ever taxes the military takes. So in the long run you lose money doing that because you won’t get any other benefits you would if you just take 80 days of leave. That’s 80 days less you won’t be in the military if you really want to get out
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SSgt Christophe Murphy
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Are you PCSing or ETSing? You said PCS but you also mentioned terminal leave which would mean end of service.

If you are PCSing you can normally take upwards to 30 or 40 days of leave. I would recommend taking time off while in transit. You earned the days.

If you are ETSing you should take terminal leave and sell back the days you can't burn on terminal. But both scenarios should be covered in the briefs you get before you leave your current command whichever applies.
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SPC Fire Support Specialist
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Caught my mistake, appreciate that. Yes I ETS not PCS. So from what I am getting out of what you said about ETSing, leave would only be able to be sold after out processing and not beforehand?
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SSgt Christophe Murphy
SSgt Christophe Murphy
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SPC (Join to see) - You need to look at ETSing like you are cashing out and paying the tab before leaving a bar. You will need to schedule all of this in advance and submit the proper requests. Terminal Leave is still leave and still falls under Commander discretion. It isn't automatically done behind the scenes. If you have a sum of 80 days of leave on the books there is the chance you may not be able to take all 80 on terminal leave. When I was in the Marine Corps anything over 60 days took some extra pushing but it's all just paperwork and there is a way to do it. Which is why you do this in advance so you can plan and account for it. Which means you may have a few days left on the books. You will end up selling back the extra days and that is sorted out at the admin center when everything is done before you ETS. Like others have stated you need to work with Admin and you will have better luck speaking directly to the folks who handle ETSing. Your local S1 may be unfamiliar with all the wickets.
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