Just two years after missing its active-duty recruiting goal, the U.S. Navy is celebrating the largest group of new accessions in nearly a quarter-century.
In a roundtable discussion with reporters Monday prior to the end of the fiscal year, Rear Adm. James Waters, head of Navy recruiting command, revealed that the service had achieved surpluses in every recruiting category, including officers, enlisted and Reserve — with enough in the Delayed Entry Program to make up about one-fourth of the recruiting mission for fiscal 2026.
The numbers were the best the service had seen since the early 2000s, Waters said.
He credited efforts to plus-up recruiters and cut back administrative frustrations as a major component for success, specifically citing work to streamline the tattoo approval process for recruits.
In total, the Navy brought in 44,096 future sailors in fiscal 2025, the service announced on Wednesday — nearly 3,500 more than its target of 40,600. That’s more than any year since 2002.
“We maintained high standards and met all Department of Defense quality metrics,” Waters said. ” … And we’ve built a strong pipeline. We built momentum.”
Rear Adm. James Waters, head of Navy recruiting command, right, speaks with sailors assigned to Navy Recruiting Station Denton, Texas, on Sept. 25, 2025. During the visit, Waters recognized the efforts of frontline recruiters. (Mass Communication Specialist 1st Class Benjamin K. Kittleson/Navy)
Last year, the Navy narrowly made its mission, exceeding its goal of 40,600 sailors by a few hundred. But it received scrutiny for how it achieved that end.
Recruiting officials acknowledged last year that about 17% of new accessions had scored 30% or below on the Armed Forces Qualification Test, using waiver authority to bring in a greater proportion of these low-scoring applicants. In addition, the Department of Defense Inspector General faulted the Navy earlier this year for improperly documenting changes that streamlined medical waiver approval for recruits, resulting in another 5,845 accessions, or 13.5% of last year’s recruit pool.
While Waters said streamlining administrative processes and tripling the staff tasked with receiving medical waivers played a significant role in this year’s success, he also revealed that the service was no longer looking to low-scoring recruits to build out numbers.
The Navy, he said, was now only bringing in recruits with AFQT scores of 26 and above, at levels below the non-waivered limit of 4% of the total enlistment pool.
The “small numbers” of those scoring 26-30%, also known as Category 4s, are being brought in, he indicated, as part of the Navy’s vision for itself, rather than due to a need for numbers. Before boot camp, they head to the Navy’s three-week Future Sailor Preparatory Course, which last year saw 66% of low-scoring enlistees leave the course with a score of 31% or higher, Waters said.
“Many times, these young people that are scoring [lower] were disadvantaged in how they were educated and developed and come from difficult personal situations,” Waters said. “It’s important to me and it’s important to the recruiters, more importantly, that we continue to provide this opportunity for young people.”
Waters attributed this year’s recruiting successes to increasing recruiter manning and removing obstacles that limited their effectiveness in the past.
“We’ve listened to those line recruiters and done the things that they indicated were the most important to them, and that has changed the game,” Waters said. ” … We would not be where we are without every line recruiter doing that hard work, day in and day out, the thousands of things that they do that I will never know to go the extra mile — that has been the difference.”
The Navy, Waters, said, had “listened and made changes” in response to frustrations voiced by recruiters about the difficulty of closing the deal on recruits. In particular, he cited red tape around approving prospective enlistees’ tattoos.
“Young people today are much more inked than they were even a few years ago,” he said.
Recruits at the Navy’s boot camp at Great Lakes, Illinois. (MC2 Christopher M. O’Grady/Navy)
While last year it took an average of 30 days to get approval for tattoos, today it takes 2.7, Waters said. Other improvements that supported recruiters’ work, he said, included increasing their input in local advertising and looking to reduce complexity for recruiters in new recruit paperwork.
“When we make changes, we are thinking about it from the perspective of the recruiter receiving it in that recruiting station of two or three recruiters, you know, out in the middle of America, and thinking, ‘How are they going to take that? How are they going to use that?’” Waters said.
Waters did not address the impact of the current political climate on recruiting. Reporters were told he would not respond to any questions on that subject nor the recent reinstatement of troops processed out for declining the COVID-19 vaccine, due to the Navy’s nonpartisan status.
All the services reported meeting or exceeding their recruiting goals this year, and the Pentagon has confirmed a recruiting upswing dating to November 2024.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who has stressed a macho, lethality-focused vision for the military, has credited the surge to President Donald Trump. Hegseth also stood up a 12-month recruiting task force in June to clear the waiver backlog and remove administrative obstacles.
Waters also acknowledged that the economy and a declining civilian hiring rate played a role in driving interest toward the military, but also said that ads and marketing appeared successful, increasing the conversion rate of leads to contracts in all districts. In particular, he said, ads focused on Naval special operations appeared to resonate.
“Those ads really approach Gen Z in a way that is more relatable and has generated a lot of those leads,” he said.
Looking forward, Waters said the Navy needs to fine-tune the recruiting of skilled medical professionals, including doctors, dentists and psychologists.
The service, he said, has already partnered with a commercial medical recruiting organization to leverage its medical talent network and identify best practices. One, he said, is centralizing a Navy medical talent acquisition group, which has already proven effective at helping the service meet its goals.
“We’re going to grow that centralized group, because of how successful it was, to drive further into the medical recruiting market, which you can imagine, is just extremely competitive,” Waters said.