The Senate voted 77-20 to pass the final version of the 2026 defense bill on Wednesday. The bill authorizes a record $900 billion in military spending — $8 billion more than initially requested in President Donald Trump’s budget. 

“This year’s National Defense Authorization Act helps advance President Trump and Republicans’ Peace Through Strength Agenda by codifying 15 of President Trump’s executive orders, ending woke ideology at the Pentagon, securing the border, revitalizing the defense industrial base, and restoring the warrior ethos,” House Speaker Mike Johnson, a Republican, said in a statement.

Some Democrats, however, felt that the bill fell short and focused on the wrong priorities. 

“Trump and [Defense Secretary Pete] Hegseth are deploying troops to our streets, carrying out extrajudicial killings, and undermining our military readiness,” Democratic Rep. John Garamendi of California, a senior Armed Services Committee member, said on social media. “Congress must reassert its oversight. We need accountability — not just handouts to Trump.”

The National Defense Authorization Bill (NDAA) establishes priorities and programs, but does not actually provide budget authority or spending for those programs. To provide funding, Congress is supposed to pass 12 appropriations acts each year, including one for the Department of Defense. 

The NDAA has passed year after year for more than six decades, largely because deeply partisan provisions have been kept out. However, reflecting the state of politics, culture war provisions — including diversity, equity and inclusion programs, critical race theory, abortion-related travel, drag queen shows and COVID vaccine and mask mandates — were heatedly debated on the House and Senate floors this year. Compromises shaped different versions of the bill for months. The House first passed a version of the bill on September 10, and the Senate passed its own version on October 9. Then, legislators considered hundreds of amendments and worked to reconcile any differences between the two versions. The House passed its final, compromise version on December 10, followed by the Senate a week later. The 3,086-page bill now awaits the president’s signature. 

The NDAA outlines the military’s values and strategic priorities, which often signal the administration’s broader vision about what might be coming to other federal departments and civilian life. Here are some of its notable provisions:

Reproductive health care

What was included in the final bill:

TRICARE, the health care program for active-duty and retired members of the Armed Services, will only cover fertility services, including in vitro fertilization (IVF), for service members whose infertility was caused by “a serious or severe illness or injury while on active duty.” 

What was removed from the text: 

A provision that would have required TRICARE coverage of fertility services, including IVF, for all service members and their families was removed in final negotiations — despite passing with bipartisan support in both the House and Senate versions of the bill.

Democratic Rep. Sara Jacobs of California, who championed the IVF provision in the House, pointed out that military families face higher rates of infertility than the average population and need extra support overall for family building. 

“I think it’s really important because of the nature of their jobs: demanding schedules, long deployments, frequent relocations, the physical demands of training, exposure to hazardous environments, being separated from their partner,” Jacobs said. 

When Jacobs spoke on the House floor in the final hours of debate, she told the story of an Army wife who tried nine rounds of intrauterine insemination and has been told her husband’s infertility is due to his service. Still, TRICARE wouldn’t cover IVF, so she’s considering getting a divorce so she can find other coverage and give them another opportunity at growing their family. 

“What I hear from so many military families is that they’re basically left with three choices,” Jacobs said. “Either pay tens of thousands of dollars out of pocket for a chance to have a family, leave the military to find a job in the private sector that will cover it or forgo a family altogether.

Jacobs said she was especially disappointed because she and other Democrats were hopeful the provision would make it this year, given Trump’s campaign promises to make IVF more accessible for everyone.

Diversity, equity and inclusion 

What was included in the final bill:

Each of the five military branches will be required to restore service-level women’s initiative teams, some of which were disbanded when Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth called for the end of diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives in the Pentagon. These teams will include servicewomen from different ranks, backgrounds and occupations, and they will be tasked with identifying and addressing issues that hinder women’s service. They will also support recruiting and retention and recommend policy changes that support the needs of women in the military. 

Democratic Rep. Chrissy Houlahan of Pennsylvania, who introduced the provision, said she was grateful to find bipartisan support. 

“These protections strengthen our force, our families, and our national security, and are vital under an Administration working to sideline women and erase their contributions,” Houlahan said in a statement. 

The secretary of defense is prohibited from maintaining a DEI office, employing a chief diversity officer, maintaining an employee resource group or affinity group, developing any strategic plans or reports related to DEI and developing any training courses related to DEI, critical race theory or intersectionality.

Service academies are now prohibited from considering race, sex, color, ethnicity, national origin or religion in admissions decisions.

What was removed from the text: 

The final version repealed existing DEI mandates, removing statutory requirements for diversity initiatives and other efforts to promote equal opportunity. The move is a reflection of Hegseth’s leadership and vision to shift the military’s culture away from what he called “woke garbage” to a “warrior ethos.” 

LGBTQ+ care and participation

What was included in the final bill:

Transgender women enrolled at U.S. service academies can no longer participate in athletic programs designated for women. 

What was removed from the text: 

The final version did not include many anti-LGBTQ+ provisions that were added in early versions, like a ban on Defense Department funding for gender-affirming surgeries, which had passed in previous versions of both the House and Senate bills. It also dropped a provision that would have required all people to use single-sex facilities, including restrooms, locker rooms and changing rooms, at military installations based on their “reproductive system.” 

“While we’re grateful that most anti-LGBTQI+ provisions were removed, the GOP kept one anti-trans provision in the final bill — and that’s one too many,” the Congressional Equality Caucus, a House caucus committed to advocating for LGBTQ+ rights, said in a statement. “We’re committed to repealing it.” 

Previous versions of the bill also had provisions that said TRICARE would not cover or furnish “gender-related medical treatment,” which includes puberty blockers, hormone therapy and surgeries for transgender people. Some versions also expanded the existing ban on covering gender dysphoria treatments for children by also banning mental health care. These provisions are not found in the final version. TRICARE currently only covers hormone therapy and psychological counseling for gender dysphoria. It does not cover surgery.

An earlier version also said that the secretary of defense would be prohibited from collecting information about gender identity on any form or survey — which will now only include “male” and “female” as gender options. The amendment was dropped. 

An amendment included in the 2024 NDAA allowed military leaders or certain civilian leaders to approve the display of Pride flags; however, that provision has been removed.

Support for military families

What was included in the final bill:

All branches of the military will be required to set clear policies exempting service members from performance evaluations during parental leave, which they will now be allowed to take within two years of a child’s birth or adoption instead of one. In the past several years, the military made significant progress in expanding parental leave options to up to 12 weeks of paid leave for primary and secondary caregivers. The latest provision seeks to provide more consistency across the services and ensure that no one is at a disadvantage. 

Republican Rep. Stephanie Bice of Oklahoma, who championed the provision, called it a “victory for parents and for the strength of our national defense.” 

In an effort to improve service members’ quality of life, the bill includes a 3.8 percent pay increase across the board and reauthorizes and expands military bonuses. It also brings a 4.2 percent average increase to housing allowances. According to a 2024 survey, half of military service members say their compensation is a top stressor, followed closely by housing concerns. The rising cost of housing is outpacing the military’s housing allowances: Only 37 percent of families said their allowances covered the cost of housing. 

More than $491 million is authorized for the construction of new child care centers and more than $200 million for new schools for service members’ children and dependents. Finding child care is a common struggle for military families. According to the National Military Family Association, nearly 40 percent of the more than 1 million active-duty service members have children, and 70 percent of these children are under the age of 12. 

What was absent from the text: 

Notably, there were no amendments in this year’s bill that explicitly addressed the high military spouse unemployment rate. In previous years, the NDAA extended the Defense Department’s authority to fill open civilian positions with qualified military spouses, help those in licensed or credentialed professions more easily work after relocating across state lines and increase reimbursement rates for spouses’ business costs. The unemployment rate among military spouses — more than 90 percent of them are women — was 20 percent or higher for the last decade, according to Pentagon survey data. This is five times the national civilian unemployment rate. 

Orion Rummler contributed reporting.