U.S. Marine Corps
MCO 6110.3 / MARADMIN 066/26
Data updated: 2026-08-19 (verified vs primary service regulations)
How the screen works
Effective January 1, 2026, the Marine Corps replaced height-and-weight tables with a Waist-to-Height Ratio screen set tighter than the DoD baseline at 0.52 (waist measured at the navel ÷ height). Exceeding 0.52 triggers a body-fat evaluation (multi-site tape or BIA). Body-fat standards remain sex- and age-normed.
| Initial screen | Threshold | Result |
|---|---|---|
| Waist-to-Height Ratio (WHtR) | must be < 0.52 | Below passes with no tape test; at or above → secondary body-fat evaluation |
Maximum allowable body-fat % (age / sex)
| Age group | Men (max %) | Women (max %) |
|---|---|---|
| 17–26 | 18% | 26% |
| 27–39 | 19% | 27% |
| 40–45 | 20% | 28% |
| 46+ | 21% | 29% |
Reading the age-normed ladder
The table above is a ladder rather than a single number, and the width of that ladder is worth knowing before you compare yourself against a colleague. Across the 4 bands listed for Marine Corps, the men's ceiling spans 3 percentage points and the women's spans 3. That spread reflects how body composition shifts with age, and it is the reason a measured value can fail against one band and pass against another without the measurement itself changing at all.
The Waist-to-Height Ratio gate of 0.52 is 0.03 below the DoD baseline of 0.55, which makes the initial screen here measurably stricter than the joint standard. A WHtR is waist divided by height, so the arithmetic has a concrete consequence: at 70 inches tall, the DoD baseline of 0.55 tolerates a waist of up to 38.5 inches while the gate applied here tolerates 36.4 inches.
DoD Instruction 1308.03 also sets an outer corridor: no branch may be stricter than 18% (men) / 26% (women), and none may be looser than 26% (men) / 36% (women). For Marine Corps the tightest men's band is 18% and the most permissive is 21%, with women's bands running from 26% to 29%. At least one band here reaches the strictest point the corridor permits, which is why this service is often described as one of the more demanding on body composition.
Check your measurements
Run your numbers against the Marine Corps standard in the multi-branch go/no-go checker.
Open checker →Printable scorecard
Take a clean one-page summary of this branch's screen to your weigh-in.
Get scorecard →Source & verification
- Primary: MCO 6110.3; MARADMIN 066/26 (dvidshub.net)
- Retrieved and verified: 2026-08-19. Standards change — confirm with the official regulation or your command before any official assessment.