Ranks and insignia of NATO

Ranks and insignia of NATO are combined military insignia used by the member countries of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.

The rank scale is used for specifying posts within NATO.

Definitions

NATO maintains a "standard rank scale" in an attempt to match every member country's military rank to corresponding ranks used by the other members. The rank categories were established, in 1978, in the document STANAG 2116, formally titled NATO Codes for Grades of Military Personnel. There are two scales, though not all member countries use all the points on the NATO scales and some have more than one rank at some points (e.g. many forces have two ranks at OF-1, usually lieutenants):

Officer ranks

• OF1–OF10 (bottom to top) are used for commissioned officers ("officer / officier").[1]

Warrant officers

• Most countries do not have an intermediate tier of ranks between Officers and Other Ranks (see below). The exception is the United States, and the NATO warrant officer grades of WO1–WO5 (bottom to top) are used only for warrant officer ranks of the US military. In other countries with "Warrant Officer" ranks, they are considered part of Other Ranks. (For example a British Army WO1 has the NATO code OR-9.)

Other ranks

• OR1–OR9 (bottom to top) are used for all Other Ranks ("other ranks/sous-officiers et militaires du rang"),[2] including non-commissioned officers and privates.

Comparison to other systems

The numbers in the system broadly correspond to the US military pay grade system, with OR-x replacing E-x and WO-x replacing W-x. The main difference is in the commissioned officer ranks, where the US system recognises two ranks at OF-1 level (O-1 and O-2), meaning that all O-x numbers after O-1 are one point higher on the US scale than they are on the NATO scale (e.g. a major is OF-3 on the NATO scale and O-4 on the US scale).

Officer

NATO code	OF-10		OF-9		OF-8		OF-7		OF-6		OF-5		OF-4		OF-3		OF-2		OF-1						OF(D)						Student officer
US DoD Pay Grade	Special		O-10		O-9		O-8		O-7		O-6		O-5		O-4		O-3		O-2	O-1

Enlisted

NATO Code	OR-9						OR-8		OR-7		OR-6						OR-5						OR-4				OR-3		OR-2						OR-1
US DoD Pay Grade	E-9						E-8		E-7		E-6						E-5						E-4				E-3		E-2						E-1

Ranks and insignia

Army

• Ranks and insignia of NATO armies officers
• Ranks and insignia of NATO armies enlisted

Air Force

• Ranks and insignia of NATO air forces officers
• Ranks and insignia of NATO air forces enlisted

Navy

• Ranks and insignia of NATO navies officers
• Ranks and insignia of NATO navies enlisted

See also

• Comparative military ranks

References

Citations

1. NATO glossary of abbreviations used in NATO documents and publications / Glossaire OTAN des abréviations utilisées dans les documents et publications OTAN (PDF). 2010. p. 235.
2. NATO glossary of abbreviations used in NATO documents and publications / Glossaire OTAN des abréviations utilisées dans les documents et publications OTAN (PDF). 2010. p. 238.

Sources

• "NATO CODES FOR GRADES OF MILITARY PERSONNEL. STANAG 2116. (Edition No. 4) NAVY/ARMY/AIR" (PDF). Royal Navy. Retrieved 2017-11-08.
• "STANAG 2116 (Edition 5)". Latvian National Armed Forces. Retrieved 2017-11-08.
• "person-type-rank-code". Multilateral Interoperability Programme. 13 December 2007. Archived from the original on 2011-07-27. Retrieved 2015-05-13.
• "NATO Rank Comparison". Canadian Forces. Retrieved 2009-06-24.