New Navy Policy Limits Medical Shaving Waivers to One Year
Sailors who cannot shave due to medical reasons now have one year before they could face separation over their inability to go clean shaven, according to a Navy policy released Tuesday. Under the most recent Navy administrative message, the sea service will offer shaving waivers for men who are unable to shave due to a medical condition. The waivers can be granted for 90 days, while commands have the option to offer additional 90-day waivers. The waivers cannot exceed one year total, according to the NAVADMIN. Sailors will be evaluated for administrative separation if they are unable to meet grooming
Hospital Corpsman 1st Class (SCW/SW/FMF) Jerry Roshell from Milwaukee, Wis., assigned to Naval Mobile Construction Battalion (NMCB) 74, shaves during a field training exercise March 21, 2012 at Camp Shelby, Miss. US Navy photo Sailors who cannot shave due to medical reasons now have one year before they could face separation over their inability to go clean shaven, according to a Navy policy released Tuesday.
Under the most recent Navy administrative message, the sea service will offer shaving waivers for men who are unable to shave due to a medical condition. The waivers can be granted for 90 days, while commands have the option to offer additional 90-day waivers. The waivers cannot exceed one year total, according to the NAVADMIN.
Sailors will be evaluated for administrative separation if they are unable to meet grooming standards of a clean shaven face after one year of medical treatment. Sailors do have the option of maintaining a mustache.
The first separations for failure to adhere to grooming standards due to a medical condition will not happen until July 7, 2027, a year from the NAVADMIN’s release.
Men who receive shaving waivers must keep their beards to a quarter inch from their face and be on a treatment plan, according to the policy. Only commanding officers may issue the waivers.
The Navy will evaluate sailors for administrative separation if they have a permanent medical condition preventing them from meeting the grooming standard, under the separation guidelines. Sailors may also be referred to the Disability Evaluation System.
Approximately 6,400 sailors are diagnosed with chronic skin conditions annually, which affect their ability to meet grooming standards, according to an email from Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Daryl Caudle that was obtained by USNI News.
In early June, the Navy also released a policy requiring sailors to resubmit religious accommodation requests for facial hair. The sea service will reevaluate those requests under new standardized procedures, reads the policy.
There are 1,000 facial hair religious accommodations in the Navy that the service must evaluate, according to Caudle’s email. Religious accommodations allow for beards to be a quarter inch at sea and 2 inches ashore, according to the email.
“Don’t make this personal with our sailors, but make it about the requirements for them to look professional as examples of Navy exceptionalism,” reads Caudle’s email.
In April the Marine Corps released its policy announcing that after one year it will evaluate for administrative separation those who cannot meet grooming standards.
There are a number of religions – including branches of Christianity, Islam and Judaism – that call for men to grow beards, as well as multiple medical conditions, like Pseudofolliculitis Barbae, that make it painful to shave. Pseudofolliculitis Barbae (PFB) may affect up to 83 percent of Black men, but it can also affect white and Latino men.
The Navy and the services have balanced religious and medical accommodations with readiness factors, including concerns about a tighter fit with some respirator masks required for naval duties.
“The operational success of the U.S. Navy demands the readiness of all sailors,” reads the most recent NAVADMIN. “Mission accomplishment hinges on stringent compliance with standards and ensuring implementing policies are clear, unambiguous, and compliant with law and regulation. Grooming standards add to sailor and mission safety and ensure the safe and proper utilization of protective equipment in all naval environments and operational conditions.”
In 2023 the Navy conducted a 2023 study on masks and facial hair, but never released the results. A non-Navy 2018 study in the Journal of Occupational and Environmental Hygiene found that beards at an eighth of an inch passed 98 percent of fit tests for respirators.
However, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has led a renewed call for men in the military to go clean shaven. In August 2025, Hegseth put out a memo requiring service members to be clean shaven or be in medical treatment if they could not shave. After a year, the military must separate service members if they could not meet grooming standards, according to Hegseth’s memo.
“I have full confidence in our leaders at all levels to provide an accurate assessment of whether retention is appropriate,” reads the August 2025 memo.
