Coast Guard Recruits Its Biggest Class Since 1987, But the Surge is Slowing

The Coast Guard signed up 5,445 active-duty enlistees in Fiscal Year 2026, marking the service’s largest enlisted class since 1987 and its third straight year of beating its recruiting goals.

Officials announced the results Wednesday, crediting recruiters and a national willingness to serve. Vice Commandant Adm. Tom Allan thanked recruiters for “continuing to deliver exceptional results.”

This year’s class grew from 5,204 enlistees in FY25 to 4,422 in FY24, and the service also commissioned 346 active-duty officers—a total it calls the second-highest in its recorded history.

“These record-breaking recruitment numbers prove that the call to serve still resonates deeply across our country,” Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin said in the announcement.

About 42,600 active-duty members were serving as of March, according to Defense Manpower Data Center figures.

A Record Pace but a Slowing Engine

Each year of the comeback has been smaller than the last.

Enlisted accessions grew by 1,296 in FY24, by 782 in FY25, and by 241 this year. That constitutes a decrease from 41% in FY24 to under 5% today.

Against the targets that are public, the service beat its FY24 goal by about 5%, and its 2025 goal by 21%. Annual growth in new enlistees has fallen from two years ago, and the number of newly commissioned officers also declined.

Credit: U.S. Coast Guard photo by Petty Officer 3rd Class Ryan Schultz, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Commissions fell from 371 in FY25 to 346 this year—a roughly 7% decline—even as the service highlighted the total as one of its best ever.

The Coast Guard did not respond to a request for comment from Military.com on the target and its year-end personnel figures.

How the Backbone was Built

The Government Accountability Office last year in its own review found that the service raised its maximum enlistment age from 34 to 41, lowered its minimum entrance test score, and loosened its debt limits for applicants.

Enlistment bonuses now reach the statutory cap of $75,000, the marketing budget more than tripled from 2020 levels, and the recruiter force has been rebuilt to 500, nearly doubling its 2021 low.

Credit: Coast Guard, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

The same review found that 82% of the recruits who joined in FY24 needed at least one waiver to enter the service, with medical waiver requests up nearly 280% over two years.

Its Force Design 2028 plan calls for adding at least 15,000 uniformed members by the end of FY28.

In June, GAO testified to House lawmakers that the Coast Guard “has not fully assessed its workforce needs” and lacked a fully defensible baseline for its planned expansion, noting that the service has completed formal manpower requirements determinations for “only about 26 percent of its total workforce.”

New enlistees grow the force only if they outnumber the people leaving, and for years they did not.

GAO found that the Coast Guard lost more enlisted members than it recruited every year, from 2019 through 2023.​​