Army Height and Weight Standards Are Gone. Here Is What Replaced Them
The Army stopped using height and weight tables on 7 July 2026. If you came here for the chart that let a 5 ft 10 in male soldier aged 28 weigh up to 197 pounds, that chart has been retired. Army Directive 2026-13 replaced the whole screening structure with a single ratio.
The standard, in one line
Measure your waist at the navel. Divide it by your height. If the answer is below 0.55, you pass.
Both measurements use the same unit, so the ratio carries no units of its own and converts perfectly between systems. A 36 inch waist at 70 inches of height gives 0.514. The same soldier in centimetres, 91.4 over 177.8, gives 0.514. Every rounding error you might worry about cancels itself out. The Army body composition calculator runs the division and prints the largest waist that still passes at your height.
Three things disappeared at once
The directive removed three separate steps, which is why soldiers still turn up searching for paperwork that no longer exists.
- The height and weight screening tables. Your weight has left the assessment entirely. Civilian height-based tables carry the same flaw, which is why ideal weight formulas disagree with each other by several kilograms.
- The circumference tape test. The neck measurement is gone, and so is the hip measurement that applied to women. What the Army tape test measured covers why it was retired.
- Supplemental methods. DEXA, the Bod Pod and hydrostatic weighing were the appeal route for soldiers who failed the tape. The appeal went out with the body fat figure it used to argue about.
Who gains and who loses
Weight leaving the equation is the big change. A 230 pound soldier at 6 ft 2 in with a 38 inch waist passes at 0.514 and never steps on a scale. Under the old tables that soldier was over the screening weight and went straight to the tape.
Going the other way, your neck has stopped rescuing you. The old tape equation subtracted neck circumference from waist circumference, so a thick neck bought you room around the middle. That arithmetic is gone, and the waist now has to carry the result by itself.
Height counts for more than most soldiers expect, because it sits in the denominator. An inch of height is worth roughly 0.008 on the ratio at typical adult sizes, which beats half an inch off the waist. Get measured with your shoes off, heels together, standing tall.
Waist limits by height
Every figure below is the height multiplied by 0.55. You pass underneath the threshold, so landing exactly on these numbers puts you on the wrong side of it.
- 5 ft 4 in: 35.2 in
- 5 ft 6 in: 36.3 in
- 5 ft 8 in: 37.4 in
- 5 ft 10 in: 38.5 in
- 6 ft 0 in: 39.6 in
- 6 ft 2 in: 40.7 in
How often, and what a failure costs
Assessment happens twice per calendar year. A reading at or above 0.55 triggers a confirmation measurement the same day, and passing the confirmation ends it. A confirmed failure opens a 180-day validation period, and the directive attaches no separations for body composition to that window.
What the ratio leaves out
Body composition and the Army Fitness Test are separate assessments with separate standards, so you can pass one and fail the other in the same week. The AFT score calculator covers the five events and both scoring standards.
Your ratio sits a long way from a body fat percentage, and no formula converts one into the other. If you want that number for your own tracking, the body fat percentage calculator runs the Navy circumference method, and the waist-to-height ratio guide covers why civilian health guidance draws its line at 0.5 while the Army draws its at 0.55.
A ratio built on one tape measurement is only as good as the tape placement. Half an inch of drift moves the result by about 0.007, which is enough to flip a borderline soldier either way, and plenty of soldiers are borderline.