How PCS Travel Days Are Calculated

When you move to a new duty station under a permanent change of station, the Joint Travel Regulations, or JTR, allow travel time based on distance. The standard rule authorizes one travel day for every 350 miles of official distance between your old and new locations. This is the time built in for you to actually drive to your next assignment when traveling by privately owned vehicle.

The rule is designed around a reasonable daily driving distance rather than the fastest possible trip. It is not meant to reward speeding across the country in marathon sessions, and it is not the same as leave. Travel days are their own category, separate from any ordinary leave you take in conjunction with the move.

Distances rarely land on a clean multiple of 350 miles, so the calculation almost always produces a fraction. The JTR handles this by rounding up: any remaining distance beyond a full multiple of 350 miles earns another whole travel day. A move of 351 miles and a move of 700 miles are treated differently, because that single mile over the threshold rounds up to a second day.

This rounding is why a short-seeming leftover distance still counts. If your official distance is 800 miles, that is two full 350-mile days plus a remainder, which rounds up to three authorized travel days. Always carry the remainder up to the next whole day rather than dropping it.

The PCS Travel Days Calculator turns your official distance into an authorized travel-day estimate using the one-day-per-350-miles rule and the round-up convention. It runs entirely in your browser, so you can sketch out a move without sharing your locations with anyone.

Travel days cover the time to physically move between stations. Many service members also take ordinary leave alongside the move, often called leave in conjunction with a PCS, to visit family or settle household matters. These are counted separately: travel days come from the distance calculation, while leave comes out of your leave balance and is subject to the normal accrual and use-or-lose rules.

Because the exact authorized distance and any exceptions live in your official travel orders and the current JTR, treat this estimate as a planning number. Fuel stops, weather, and required en route processing can all shape how you actually use the days, but the authorized count itself comes straight from the distance and the round-up rule.