Should You Do a PPM in 2026? An Honest Profit Breakdown

Every PCS season the same question goes around the squadron: are you doing a PPM? And every year people answer it with a number they heard from a buddy who "cleared eight grand," instead of running their own math. A personally procured move, the thing the old-timers still call a DITY, really can be one of the best paydays in the military. It can also be a break-even slog that eats your one week of permissive TDY. The whole thing comes down to the details, and almost nobody runs them before they commit.

So here is the framework I use when someone asks me whether their move is worth it. No hype, and no "you are going to get rich." Just the four numbers that actually decide it, and the one tax surprise that gets people every single year.

How a PPM actually pays in 2026

When you move yourself, the government pays you a monetary allowance equal to 100% of the Government Constructive Cost (GCC). That is what it would have paid a commercial carrier to move your household goods the same distance. The rate was temporarily bumped to 130% in the summer of 2025, but for 2026 it is back to the standard 100% (JTR, par. 050905). Whatever the GCC works out to, that is your gross payment. Your job is to move the stuff for less than that and keep the difference.

Your TMO or personal property office gives you the GCC estimate up front. It is built from two things: your authorized weight allowance, and the DTOD distance between your old and new duty stations. Both are worth understanding before you decide.

• Weight is the big one. The GCC scales almost directly with how many pounds you move. An E-6 with dependents is authorized 11,000 lbs. An O-4 is authorized 14,000. The closer you get to your allowance, the bigger the check, which is why a PPM rewards people with a full house and barely moves the needle for someone moving a studio apartment.
• Distance matters, but less than you think. A cross-country move has a high GCC and high costs. A 300-mile move has a low GCC and low costs. What you are really optimizing is the margin between the two, not the raw distance.

The four numbers that decide it

A PPM decision is really just one subtraction with a tax adjustment on the end. Get these four numbers and you have your answer.

1. 1Your payment. 100% of the GCC, which you get from TMO.
2. 2Your real costs. Truck or trailer rental, fuel, moving equipment, paid labor, tolls, lodging and meals on the road, and any storage.
3. 3Your gross profit. Payment minus real costs.
4. 4Your tax. The part of the payment DFAS treats as taxable income, which is the part nobody warns you about. More on that below.

A worked example you can copy

Take a realistic mid-range move. An E-6 with dependents going from Eglin AFB to Joint Base Lewis-McChord, roughly 2,900 miles, moving about 9,000 lbs of household goods (comfortably under the 11,000-lb allowance). The numbers below are illustrative, but the structure is exactly what yours will look like.

That $5,650 is real money, but it is not what lands in your account, because of the part most people miss.

The taxable-incentive trap (and how to shrink it)

Here is the part that surprises people. Your PPM payment is taxable income, and DFAS withholds 22% (the federal supplemental-wage rate) right off the top when it pays you.

But you are not taxed on the whole payment, only on what is left after your claimable expenses. On your PPM packet you will submit a form called the PPM Expense Sheet, where you list every claimable PPM expense. Those expenses offset the taxable portion of your payment. That same total also has to be claimed on your DD Form 1351-2 (the travel voucher) so the expenses are actually accounted for. The costs that count:

• Counts (reduces what you are taxed on): truck and trailer rental, moving equipment (dollies, furniture pads, ramps), packing materials, the gas and oil for the rental, weighing fees, and tolls and parking on the route. Hired moving help counts too, as long as you have a receipt or contract for it.
• Does not count: meals and lodging on the road, any kind of insurance, sales tax, vehicle repairs, and tow bars or dollies for your car. These still cost you real cash. They just do not lower your tax bill, so budget them as costs, not write-offs.

So the move is obvious. Keep a receipt for every claimable expense and put it on the PPM Expense Sheet, and you keep more of the check. Skip it and that cost hits you twice: once when you pay it, and once when DFAS taxes money you could have sheltered.

A reality check on those "I made $8k" stories

Before you bank on a number a buddy quoted, know how those numbers usually get inflated. As military.com points out, when someone tells you they "made $6,000 on their DITY," that figure very often rolls in the standard allowances you would get on *any* PCS: your dislocation allowance, per diem, and mileage. Those are not PPM profit. They show up whether the government moves you or you move yourself.

Your actual PPM profit is only the money left after your real moving costs, and only that incentive portion is what gets taxed. So when you compare your situation to a forum brag, strip out the allowances first. The honest number is almost always smaller than the story, and it is the only one worth deciding on.

When a PPM is clearly worth it, and when it is not

After running this math for a lot of people, the pattern is pretty consistent. A PPM tends to win when:

• You are moving close to your weight allowance, meaning a full house and not just a few rooms.
• You own a truck or can borrow a trailer, or the distance is short enough that rental and fuel stay modest.
• You have labor for free or cheap. A couple of strong friends and a case of beer beats a $1,500 labor bill.
• You would rather control the timeline than wait on a carrier's pack-and-pickup window.

It tends to lose, or barely break even, when:

• You are moving a light load. The GCC is small, so the ceiling on profit is low.
• You have to pay full price for the truck, the fuel, and the labor. Those three together can eat 70% of a mid-range GCC.
• Your time is genuinely scarce and you would rather have the government move pack your kitchen.

The move most people overlook: the partial PPM

You do not have to choose all or nothing. A partial PPM lets the government move the bulk of your household goods while you self-move a slice, like your high-value items, your tools, or the stuff you do not trust to a carrier. You get paid 100% of the GCC for that portion's weight. It is lower risk, lower effort, and still puts a few hundred to a couple thousand dollars in your pocket for moving boxes you were going to move anyway. For a lot of families it is the sweet spot.

The bottom line

A PPM is not a scam and it is not free money. It is a job. You are taking on the work and the risk a carrier would normally take, and getting paid the carrier's rate to do it. Run the four numbers against your real move, remember the 22% is a withholding and not your final tax, and the decision makes itself. Do not let a buddy's "eight grand" make it for you.

When you are ready to put real numbers in, the PPM Profit Calculator does the GCC and tax math for you, and the PPM Decision Engine compares full DITY, partial, and government move side by side.