Military Travel Restrictions Update

Current as of April 21, 2021

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The Department of Defense continually assesses conditions at each installation to determine personnel movement and travel as the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic continues. While military travel restrictions remain in place in areas where warranted by local conditions, the DOD has issued updated exemptions to these travel restrictions.

Exceptions to the travel restrictions

Check with your supervisor before traveling. Currently military travel restrictions are lifted for:

• Service members involved with recruiting and accessions activities, including accessions, basic training, advanced military individual training and follow-on travel to the first duty station.
• Patients receiving medical care and their authorized escorts, and travel by medical providers to provide medical treatment for DOD personnel and their families.
• Global Force Management scheduled deployments and redeployments.
• Authorized travelers who have initiated travel, who are at intermediate stops in their travel, who are awaiting transportation from or are returning to a permanent duty station after temporary duty travel has ended can continue travel on approved orders.
• Personnel authorized by the commander, U.S. Transportation Command. This includes aircrews, vessel crews and mission-essential personnel on prepare-to-deploy order alert status, air refueling, global patient movement, mortuary affairs support, inland surface, sea and air sustainment missions, support to other federal departments and agencies and moves of personnel and equipment that support USTRANSCOM.
• Retiring or separating service members on transition leave.
• Travelers on ordered departure or on return from safe havens after an ordered or authorized departure has expired.
• Service members traveling to or from professional military education programs.
• Service members on leave outside the local area. This must be approved at a level no lower than the unit commander or equivalent.

Civilian travel restrictions are lifted for:

• Travel associated with formal, entry-level civilian accession programs, such as Government-funded internships and fellowships.
• Travel by civilian employees complying with overseas tour rotation agreement requirements.

Travel waivers

Waivers from military travel restrictions may be granted in writing in cases where travel is:

• Determined to be mission-essential
• Necessary for humanitarian reasons
• Warranted due to extreme hardship

Factors considered for unrestricted travel

Four factors will determine when military travel restrictions will be lifted in a given area:

• Removal of local travel restrictions
• Availability of essential services, such as schools, child care and moving services
• Quality control/assurance capability for household goods packing and moving
• Favorable health protection conditions (below HPCON C)