thinQbeyond™ · Clearance & transition planner

When do I start, and in what order?

Everything that has to happen before you separate counts backwards from one date, and that date is yours. Put it in below and this page turns the whole sequence into a calendar — including how many days of SkillBridge your rank and service actually allow, which for most people is no longer 180.

Nothing you type here leaves your browser. There is no account, no save, and no tracking of what you enter. Sources are named on every line.

Read this before you plan anything. This is a planning aid, not authority. Every date it produces is calculated from published policy, and published policy has moved three times in eighteen months — the Army in April 2025, the Air Force and Space Force in March 2026, the Coast Guard in July 2026. Your command can be stricter than the policy, your situation may carry exceptions this page cannot know about, and an approval already in hand may be grandfathered under older rules. Take this to your transition office and your career counselor and have them confirm it. Do not submit a request on the strength of this page alone.

Your dates

Four questions. No name, no email, no unit.

Your separation or retirement date

Your ETS, EAS, EOS or retirement date. An estimate is fine — you can change it.

Is it a retirement?

It matters. A retirement opens transition assistance 24 months out instead of 12.

Service

SkillBridge rules are now different in all six.

Pay grade

This is what decides your SkillBridge days.

The number that moved

SkillBridge, by service and by rank

The Department-wide floor has not changed since 2014: you must have served 180 continuous days, and be expected to discharge within 180 days of starting. What changed is that four services now cap you well below that ceiling, and moved the approval up the chain with it. Only the Coast Guard still allows the full 180 — and it closed the ways around it in the same message.

Army

MILPER Message 25-116, effective 3 April 2025. Source →

Pay grades	Maximum	Who signs
E-1 to E-5	120 days	First field grade commander with UCMJ authority
E-6 to E-7 · W-1 to CW-3 · O-1 to O-3	90 days	First O-6 commander with UCMJ authority
E-8 to E-9 · CW-4 to CW-5 · O-4 to O-6 and above	60 days	First general officer in the chain of command

"No further delegation is authorized" at any tier. Exceptions to policy go to the Deputy Chief of Staff, G-1.

Navy

NAVADMIN 064/23, effective 3 March 2023. Source →

Pay grades	Maximum	Who signs
E-1 to E-5	180 days	Commanding officer
E-6 to E-9	120 days	Commanding officer
W-1 to CW-4 · O-1 to O-4	120 days	Commanding officer
CW-5 · O-5 to O-6 and above	90 days	Commanding officer, plus a positive endorsement from OPNAV N13

Obligated service for funded education, and any retention bonus obligation, must be complete before you start. Officers must first meet the minimum service requirement for their commissioning source.

Marine Corps

MARADMIN 280/24, effective 31 August 2024. Source →

Pay grades	Maximum	Who signs
E-1 to E-5	120 days	Lieutenant colonel or above
E-6 to E-7 · W-1 to CW-3 · O-1 to O-4	90 days	Lieutenant colonel or above
E-8 to E-9 · CW-4 to CW-5 · O-5 to O-6 and above	90 days	General officer

You may apply up to 365 days before your EAS - the longest application runway of any service. Marines in the Integrated Disability Evaluation System stay eligible where the commander assesses separation within 180 days.

Air Force

Department of the Air Force SkillBridge policy, effective 31 March 2026. Source →

Pay grades	Maximum	Who signs
E-1 to E-5 · O-1 to O-3	120 days	First field grade commander
E-6 to E-7 · W-1 to CW-3 · O-4	90 days	First O-6 commander
E-8 to E-9 · CW-4 to CW-5 · O-5	60 days	First O-6 commander
O-6 and above	Not eligible	Not eligible without an approved exception to policy

Applications approved before 31 March 2026 stay under the old rules. Colonels need an approved exception to policy to take part at all.

Space Force

Department of the Air Force SkillBridge policy, effective 31 March 2026. Source →

Pay grades	Maximum	Who signs
E-1 to E-5	120 days	First field grade commander
E-6 to E-8	120 days	First O-6 commander
W-1 to CW-5 · O-1 to O-4	120 days	First O-6 commander
E-9 · O-5 to O-6 and above	90 days	First general officer in the chain of command

Applications approved before 31 March 2026 stay under the old rules. Guardians kept more of the old window than Airmen did.

Coast Guard

ALCOAST 202/26, effective 2 July 2026. Source →

Pay grades	Maximum	Who signs
E-1 to E-9 · W-1 to CW-5 · O-1 to O-6 and above	180 days	Commanding officer or officer in charge, via Direct Access

The only service that still allows the full 180 days for every rank - and the one that most tightly closed the ways round it. Participation is permissive TDY. Your separation date cannot be moved to fit it, leave carry-over waivers will not be approved, and leave taken during the program shortens it day for day.

Grade groupings are printed as a range for readability. Where a service's own message lists warrant officers inside a category with commissioned or enlisted grades, we have kept its grouping rather than tidying it, because the grouping is what the approving authority reads.

While you are still in

Who pays for the certification, and the day they stop

This is the money most often left on the table, because it is the money with the earliest deadline. Two of these six we could not confirm, and those cards say so instead of printing a figure.

Army Credentialing Assistance

Enlisted and warrant officers only · $2,000 per fiscal year

Halved from $4,000 on 19 March 2026, and it comes out of the same $4,500 pot as tuition assistance, so every dollar spent here is a dollar not available for a class. Commissioned officers lost eligibility entirely on the same date. Command approval is now required, and failing or not finishing twice in one fiscal year suspends you for a year.

The deadline. You must be able to finish the credential before your separation date. There is no fixed cutoff - the constraint is time on the calendar, so a long certification path started late simply cannot be funded.

Official page →

Navy COOL

Enlisted, and prior-enlisted officers testing against their old rating · No published per-sailor dollar cap

Pays exam, recertification and maintenance fees. It does not pay for training - that is tuition assistance, a separate program with its own rules. Funding is first come, first served from a fiscal-year pool that resets on 1 October, so late in a fiscal year the answer can be no for reasons that have nothing to do with you.

The deadline. You need at least six months remaining on your service obligation, which makes the real deadline six months before you separate - not the day you leave.

Official page →

Marine Corps COOL

Enlisted and officers · No published per-Marine dollar cap

Pays exam, renewal, maintenance and administrative fees only. It explicitly does not pay for training, study materials or exam preparation, which is the single most common misunderstanding about it.

The deadline. The six-month remaining-service requirement is suspended. Credential funding runs up to 60 days before you separate - the clearest published cutoff any service publishes, and the one to plan against.

Official page →

Air Force COOL

Enlisted · Reported as $4,500 - see the note

We could not confirm this figure. The authoritative source is the DoD COOL portal, which we could not reach when this page was built, and the secondary sources disagree about something that matters a great deal: whether $4,500 is a yearly allowance or a lifetime one. Those are very different plans. Check it on the official page before you build a sequence on it, and tell us if it has moved.

The deadline. No published cutoff found. Treat it like the others: finish before you separate.

Official page →

Space Force COOL

Enlisted · Reported as $4,500 - see the note

The same doubt as the Air Force figure, and for the same reason. We would rather tell you we do not know than print a number you plan around.

The deadline. No published cutoff found. Finish before you separate.

Official page →

Coast Guard Credentialing Assistance

Enlisted and officers - the Coast Guard does not bar officers · $4,500 per fiscal year, last confirmed 2022

The user guide carrying this figure is dated May 2022 and we found nothing confirming it for the current fiscal year. Coast Guard tuition assistance is a genuinely separate program with its own ceiling, which is unlike the Army where the two share one pot.

The deadline. Requests must go in at least 14 days and no more than 90 days before the exam. That window is narrow at both ends - too early is rejected as well as too late.

Official page →

After you are out, and one before

The VA money, which works the other way round

Service money has to be spent before you separate. VA money mostly becomes worth having afterwards — but not for the reason usually given. The Post-9/11 GI Bill can pay tuition while you are still serving; what it will not pay while you are on active duty is the housing allowance and the book stipend, which is where most of its value sits.

Post-9/11 GI Bill, exam fee reimbursement

Up to $2,000 per test

It reimburses the exam fee, and it does charge entitlement - but not the way most pages say. For a test taken on or after 1 August 2018 the charge is prorated to the actual fee and rounded to the nearest DAY, with a one-day minimum. Before that date it was rounded to the nearest MONTH with a one-month minimum, which is where the old warning that "a $300 exam burns a whole month" comes from. That warning was true. It has not been true since 2018.

Official page →

VET TEC, second version

4,000 participants a year, nationally

The original pilot expired on 1 April 2024. What exists now was created by Public Law 118-210 in January 2025 and is a different program under a different authority - old certificates of eligibility do not carry across, and you have to apply again. You can apply while still serving if you are within 180 days of separating. It covers programs that BEGIN before 30 September 2027; past that date it needs Congress to act again.

Official page →

Veteran Readiness and Employment, chapter 31

Entitlement kept separate from the GI Bill

The one people miss, because it is filed under disability rather than education. A service-connected rating of 10% or more qualifies a veteran; a pre-discharge rating of 20% or more qualifies someone still serving. Using it does not reduce your GI Bill balance, which makes it the cheapest money in this whole list if you are eligible for it.

Official page →

The thing you carry out of the door

Your clearance, stated correctly

More people damage their own prospects with the wrong sentence about this than with anything else on a transition resume. Two of the six answers below end with us telling you that no government source exists for the advice everyone gives. We would rather say that than dress a convention up as a rule.

Do I keep my clearance when I separate?

No, and yes, and the distinction is the whole thing. ACCESS ends when you leave - it requires a position, a need to know and a signed nondisclosure agreement, and you have none of those the day after. ELIGIBILITY is the favorable determination that was made about you, and that does not evaporate. It sits dormant. What you carry out of the door is a dormant eligibility with a clock on it.

CDSE student guide IS142 · source

How long does that clock run?

Twenty-four months. Past a break of more than 24 months a new investigation is required, and DCSA training material puts it plainly: once access has been inactive for more than 24 months, what follows is treated as an initial clearance rather than a reinstatement. That is a date you can put in a diary, and it is the most valuable date on this page.

DoD Manual 5200.02 - NOT the NISPOM, despite what most of the internet says · source

Can I say I hold an active TS/SCI on my resume?

We could not find a single government source that tells you how to word this, and we looked. So here is the convention, labeled as convention: after you separate you do not hold ACTIVE anything, because access ended with the job. Recruiters in this field know that, and a resume claiming an active clearance reads either as not understanding your own status or as overselling it. The wording that survives contact with a security officer names the level, says eligibility, and gives the date of last access.

Industry convention. No DCSA or DoD source found.

Does my polygraph expire?

There is no published rule. Five years is the figure everybody uses and agencies vary it at will, sooner for some programs, and a counterintelligence polygraph and a full-scope polygraph are not interchangeable. Anyone who quotes you a firm expiry date is quoting a convention as though it were a regulation.

No official DoD or Intelligence Community rule found.

Can a training company get me a clearance?

No. Nobody can, including us. An investigation is initiated by a sponsoring agency or a cleared employer against a specific position with a demonstrated need. There is no application you can file, no fee you can pay, and no course that produces one. Any school implying otherwise is selling you something it cannot deliver, and you should treat everything else it tells you accordingly.

How long will reinstatement actually take?

Longer than the policy suggests. GAO reported in February 2026 that the fastest 90% of initial Top Secret determinations took 206 days against a 114-day goal, that the reform meant to fix this has slipped from FY2026 to FY2028, and that continuous vetting alerts have more than tripled to over 100,000 a quarter. Plan on months, and start the conversation with an employer before you need the answer.

GAO-26-108838, 24 February 2026 · source

Why any of this needs a tool

What has changed under people who were already planning

Red marks the entries that changed a number somebody had already built a plan around.

24 JAN 2014 SkillBridge gets its instruction
DoD Instruction 1322.29 sets the two conditions that still govern everything: 180 continuous days served, and discharge expected within 180 days of starting. Everything a service has done since narrows this - nothing widens it.
26 SEP 2019 TAP rewritten under the 2019 NDAA
DoDI 1332.35 sets the modern shape: counseling begins no later than 365 days out, 24 months for a retirement, Capstone no later than 90 days out, and at least three counseling pathways.
1 APR 2024 The original VET TEC expires
The five-year pilot ends. For most of 2024 there is no VET TEC. A great deal of advice written before this date is still online and still says it exists in its old form.
17 JUN 2024 Marine Corps sets rank categories
MARADMIN 280/24, effective 31 August 2024. 120 days for E-1 to E-5, 90 for everybody else, and a general officer signs for the most senior category.
2 JAN 2025 VET TEC comes back as a different program
Public Law 118-210 creates what is now 38 U.S.C. 3699C. New authority, new applications, and old certificates of eligibility do not carry over. It is capped at 4,000 people a year nationally and covers programs beginning before 30 September 2027.
3 APR 2025 Army cuts SkillBridge by rank
MILPER 25-116 replaces a flat 120 days for everyone with three categories: 120, 90 and 60 days. Approval moves up with rank, to a general officer for the most senior, and "no further delegation is authorized".
24 FEB 2026 GAO reports the vetting reform is four years late
Trusted Workforce 2.0 full implementation slips from the end of FY2026 to the end of FY2028. Continuous vetting alerts have gone from about 30,000 a quarter to over 100,000. The fastest 90% of initial Top Secret cases took 206 days against a 114-day goal.
19 MAR 2026 Army halves Credentialing Assistance and bars officers
AR 621-5 cuts the annual cap from $4,000 to $2,000, drawn from the same $4,500 tuition pool, and makes commissioned officers ineligible outright. Command approval becomes mandatory, and failing to finish twice in a year costs you the program for a year.
31 MAR 2026 Air Force and Space Force cut SkillBridge by rank
The flat 180-day window becomes rank categories. An Air Force E-8 or O-5 drops to 60 days. Applications approved before this date keep the old rules - which is why two people in the same squadron can be on different policies.
19 MAY 2026 Periodic reinvestigations abolished for cleared contractors
DCSA replaces them with continuous vetting plus a questionnaire refresh every five years. Good news for timelines, and it moves the burden onto prompt self-reporting.
2 JUL 2026 Coast Guard rewrites SkillBridge
ALCOAST 202/26 keeps the full 180 days - the only service that still does - but closes the workarounds. Separation dates cannot be moved for it, leave carry-over waivers will not be approved, and any leave taken during the program comes off the program day for day.

Things we would rather you knew

Five corrections, and what each one costs us

Every tool on this site carries these, and the rule is the same: if it does not cost us anything to say, it does not belong here.

Do not buy training for a certification you cannot finish before you separate.

Credentialing Assistance stops at your separation date, and in the Marine Corps it stops 60 days before it. A course that runs past the line is a course your service will not pay for, which means you pay for it twice - once in time you did not have and once in money that was sitting there unclaimed.

What it costs us. This is us telling people not to book a class. It is the most direct sale we talk ourselves out of on this page.

No training company can get you a clearance. Including this one.

A clearance is sponsored by an employer or agency against a real position. There is no course that produces one and no fee that buys one.

What it costs us. Cleared work is where the money is, and implying a route to it sells cyber training. We will not do it.

Your service will pay for the exam. Ask them before you ask us.

COOL and Credentialing Assistance exist and are underused, and the Navy and Marine Corps versions pay exam fees directly. If you are still in, that money is yours and it expires.

What it costs us. Every exam fee a service pays is one we did not invoice.

The old warning about the GI Bill and a $300 exam is out of date.

It was true before 1 August 2018, when reimbursement was charged to the nearest whole month. It has been charged to the nearest day since. Repeating the old version scares people away from money they are entitled to.

What it costs us. Nothing. This one is here because it is the correction we most often see repeated by people who mean well.

SkillBridge is not an entitlement, and your command can simply say no.

The Navy says so in its own message. Three services have cut the days by rank since April 2025, and approval has moved up to O-6 and general officer level. Building a transition plan that assumes 180 days is how people end up with sixty.

What it costs us. It is easier to sell a training plan against a comfortable six-month runway than against a real one.

If you would rather talk it through

Book a free transition planning session

No obligation and nothing to buy. Bring the plan this page built you and we will tell you which parts of it we think are wrong, which is generally the useful half of the conversation.