Navy PRT Standards 2026: The Minimum to Pass at Every Age

To pass the Navy PRT in 2026, you need at least 45 points, the Probationary level, in push-ups, the forearm plank and your cardio event. For a man aged 20 to 24 at sea level, that is 37 push-ups, a 1:10 plank and a 13:30 run. The Navy PRT standards did not change a single number this year.

What changed is everything around the test. Two testing cycles a year. A hard line on repeat failures. And a revised rule that lets a strong PRT cancel out a body composition failure, but only if your weakest event clears a bar most sailors never hear about.

Want your own number before reading on? Put your reps and times into the Navy PRT calculator. It scores you off the same Guide-5A tables your command fitness leader uses.

The 2026 Navy PRT Standards by Age and Sex

These are the minimums, the Probationary row of the official Guide-5A scoring tables at sea level. Hit every number in your row and you pass. Miss any one of them, even by a single rep or a single second, and the whole PRT is a failure.

Two things in the full tables look like typos. They aren’t. A man aged 55 to 59 needs 32 push-ups for 65 points but only 16 for 60, the biggest single step in any push-up column. And the women’s run has a cliff at the top: a woman aged 17 to 19 needs 9:29 for 100 points but only 11:15 for 95. Every women’s age group has a 59 to 106 second gap between those two levels, against 25 to 40 seconds for men. Both quirks are printed that way in the official guide, and our calculator reproduces them as printed.

The top of the scale has a ceiling as well. The plank ends at 3:24 for men and 3:14 for women at any age, the 100-point times for the youngest group.

2026 Changed the Rules Around the Test, Not the Test

Plenty of pages put “2026” in the title and imply new standards. So we compared every scoring cell in Guide-5A, dated December 2025, with the January 2025 edition of Guide 5. All 3,168 event values across both tables are identical. Same reps, same plank times, same run, row and swim times, at sea level and at altitude.

The rules around those numbers are a different story. NAVADMIN 264/25 and the Navy’s own fact sheet on the changes set out the 2026 rules:

• Two cycles a year. Cycle 1 runs January 1 to June 30, Cycle 2 runs July 1 to December 31. Active Component sailors test in both; drilling Reserve sailors need at least one.
• A clean slate. PFA failures from before January 1, 2026 were reset to zero for reenlistment, advancement, promotion and continuation decisions.
• Three strikes in four years. Sailors who fail three PFAs within a four-year period are processed for administrative separation, and the fact sheet says those with 18 to 20 years of service are not exempt.
• A two-step body composition check. Step one is a waist-to-height ratio that is the same for everyone. Step two uses the Navy’s own body composition equations, which are sex-normed.
• Your score goes on your eval. Block 29 of fitness reports and evaluations now shows pass or fail, your body composition status, your numerical average from 0 to 100, and your category.
• Combat arms take a different second test. SEALs, EOD, SWCC and Fleet Divers take one PFA and one Combat Fitness Assessment a year instead of two PFAs.

That separation rule moves faster than it sounds. Counting from the cycle dates, three back-to-back failed PFAs can land anywhere from about six to 18 months apart, first to last, depending on when in each cycle your command tests. The four-year window is the limit, not the pace.

One more 2026 document most sailors haven’t seen. DoW Instruction 1308.03, effective August 31, 2026, sets fitness test rules for every service. For non-combat-arms personnel it keeps the service fitness test sex-normed and age-normed, as the Navy tables already are. For combat arms it requires a sex-neutral test on the male standard, with simplified age groups and a 70 percent average across all events. Guide-5A predates that instruction, so if you hold a combat arms rating, watch for a Navy update.

From Reps to a Category: How Your Score Is Built

Navy PRT scores come in fixed steps for each event: 100, 95, 90, 85 and so on down to 45. Twelve steps in all, and under them sits Failure. Guide-5A groups the steps into categories by percentile, which explains the whole system in one line: Outstanding is the top 10 percent of performance, and Failure is the bottom 10 percent.

You only earn a step once you fully reach it. There is no partial credit between rows. A man aged 20 to 24 who does 40 push-ups scores 45 points, not 48, because 42 is the next step up. One more push-up or one second faster can be worth five points. One fewer can be worth nothing at all, or everything, if it drops you under 45.

Your overall score is the average of your three event scores, and the guide says the PRT is passed only when you reach Probationary or higher on every event. So yes, Satisfactory High passes. So does Satisfactory Medium, and so does Probationary. What doesn’t pass is an average built on top of one failed event. A 100 on the run cannot rescue a plank below the minimum.

How does an average like 89.9 map to a category? Guide-5A does not print a rounding rule. Our calculator does not round up: it gives you the highest level your average fully reaches, so 89.9 stays Excellent High and 90 becomes Outstanding Low.

The Score That Overrides a Body Composition Failure

This is the rule that raises the stakes on your PRT score. Under the 2026 policy, a sailor who is outside body composition standards can still pass the overall PFA, but only by scoring Outstanding Low overall with Excellent Medium or higher in all three events.

Read that twice, because it is two rules, not one. Your average has to reach 90. And every single event has to reach 80 on its own. A brilliant run cannot carry a mediocre plank across this line.

The table shows the Excellent Medium bar for push-ups, the plank and the run, for every age group at sea level. We built it from the 80-point row of the same tables our calculator uses, then ran three of its rows through the live calculator (men 20 to 24, women 45 to 49 and women 65 and over), and each one came back at exactly 80 points in all three events.

Testing on the rower or in the pool? Your bar is the Excellent Medium row for your age group in the full chart near the end of this guide.

The arithmetic gets tight fast. If one event sits right on the 80 floor, the other two must average 95 to lift you to 90.

Two example sailors, run through our calculator

These are example inputs, not real sailors. On October 14, 2026, we entered both into the Navy PRT calculator as a man aged 27, testing below 5,000 feet, running the 1.5 miles.

Example A did 84 push-ups, held the plank for 3:16 and ran 10:52. The calculator returned 91.7 points, Outstanding Low, with 100 on push-ups, 100 on the plank and 75 on the run. Example B did 77 push-ups, held 3:06 and ran 9:38. The calculator returned exactly 90, Outstanding Low, with 90 on all three.

Example A has the higher score and still misses the exemption, because 75 on the run is below the 80 floor. Example B, with the lower score, qualifies. If you are anywhere near a body composition line, stop chasing your best event. Find your weakest one and get it to 80 first. The calculator’s “next level up” box tells you the exact rep count or time for that.

Run, Row, Swim, Bike or Treadmill?

The 1.5-mile run is the standard. Every alternative, the Concept2 rower, the swim, the treadmill and the stationary bike, exists only if your commanding officer authorizes it for that cycle, and commands are strongly encouraged to say so in the 10-week PFA notice.

There is a catch almost nobody mentions. Your command fitness leader must ask whether you have practiced on that specific machine or model. If you haven’t, you won’t test on it, and the entire PRT moves to another day. Practice on the exact equipment you plan to use.

Is the run actually the best measure? A study of 132 active-duty service members and Naval Academy midshipmen compared each option with lab-measured aerobic capacity. The 1.5-mile run correlated best, at r = -0.84; the 2 km row managed only -0.42, and the 12-minute stationary bike just 0.37. The others are permitted, not equivalent.

The bike brings more clicks to our calculator page than any other search we can see in Search Console: seven different versions of “navy prt bike calculator” between July and October 2026. There is no bike table to calculate from. You ride a manual program for exactly 12 minutes, your command fitness leader reads the calories off the console, and the official PFA app converts that into points based on the bike model. Life Fitness bikes also need your weight programmed in. And if you stand up, stop to rest, stop the machine or take your hands off the bars for more than a quick adjustment, PRIMS records your output as just 20 calories.

The treadmill isn’t a separate event at all. You run the same 1.5 miles with the incline locked at 1.0 percent, timed by stopwatch, and you are scored on the run column. Change the incline or hang on the support bar and the event ends.

The row is 2,000 meters on a Concept2 Model D or E. You pick the damper setting before you start and can’t touch it again, and you have to keep moving: if the monitor shuts off from inactivity, the test is graded a failure.

The swim is 500 yards or 450 meters, any stroke, starting in the water with no dive. You can rest on the wall, and goggles and caps are fine, but fins and wetsuits are not. Which distance suits you is answered in the FAQ below.

What Changes Above 5,000 Feet

Only cardio. Guide-5A defines increased elevation as more than 5,000 feet above sea level, and comparing all 528 rows of the two tables, we found the push-up and plank standards identical at every age, sex and score level. Your run, row and swim times are what get more room.

How much room? Subtract the sea-level minimum from the altitude minimum and the extra time grows with age, from 55 seconds on the run for men aged 17 to 19 to 125 seconds for women 65 and older.

Guide-5A also says the PRT should be held at the nearest suitable site with lower or equal elevation, and that procedures are not modified for altitude. The extra time is based on research that assumes about 30 days of acclimatization, which is worth knowing if you have just arrived at a high-altitude duty station. One oddity worth knowing: at altitude, women aged 35 to 39 get 16:22 for a passing 450-meter swim but only 15:58 for the 500 yards, even though the 450 meters is the shorter distance. It is printed that way, and the calculator follows it.

Points People Lose on Test Day

A lot of points are lost to the rulebook, not the stopwatch. All of these come straight from Guide-5A.

• Resting in the wrong place. During push-ups you may rest only in the up position. Touch the deck with a knee, or lift a hand or foot, and your count ends there.
• Shallow reps. Your arms must bend to at least 90 degrees. Reps that don’t reach it simply aren’t counted.
• The third plank correction. You get two corrections on form. On the third, the timekeeper stops you and that time is your score.
• Clasped hands. Fists or flat palms are both fine, and you can switch between them, but your hands can’t be locked together.
• An unfinished run. Cut the course short or stop for any reason other than injury, and the cardio portion is scored 59:59 in PRIMS, which is a failed test.
• An expired health assessment. Before the test your command fitness leader asks pre-physical activity questions. Without a current Periodic Health Assessment, you can’t test that day. A recent illness, or new tightness or discomfort in your chest, arms or neck during exercise, also keeps you out, and new symptoms mean a referral to medical for clearance.

Your events run in a fixed order on the same day: push-ups, then the plank, then cardio, with 5 to 15 minutes between each.

Why the Tables Change With Age and Sex

Because bodies do. In a registry of 22,379 lab fitness tests on healthy adults, aerobic capacity fell about 13.5 percent per decade on the treadmill, and it was higher in men at every age. An American College of Sports Medicine consensus statement puts the typical male performance edge at 10 to 30 percent, depending on the event.

Percentile-based standards are the Navy’s answer to that. A 45-year-old woman and a 19-year-old man are each scored against people like themselves, which is why the same 13:30 run is a pass for one and a fail for the other. The August 2026 DoW instruction keeps it that way for everyone outside combat arms.

Training Toward Your Number

Training only for test week has a name. Interviews with 32 enlisted sailors found many changed how they ate just to pass, which the researchers described as a culture of getting ready rather than staying ready. Two cycles a year make cramming a much worse plan.

If your training time is limited, put it into running. Among 781 new West Point cadets, aerobic fitness was the only factor that predicted injury once everything else was accounted for, and the cadets who got hurt also had lower push-up and plank scores. Push-ups earn respect beyond the test, too: in a 10-year study of male firefighters, those who could do more than 40 had far fewer cardiovascular events than those who managed fewer than 10, though the authors call for larger, more diverse studies.

Your waist and your PRT are linked as well. In 2,153 active-duty Marines, fitness scores fell as waist-to-height ratio rose, with a clear drop between about 0.48 and 0.50. That is also the measurement the Navy’s body composition check now starts with, and you can see where you stand with the Navy body fat calculator.

When you’re ready to check yourself, put your latest reps and times into the PRT score calculator and look at the “next level up” line. It tells you exactly how many reps or seconds stand between you and the next five points. Training for another branch too? The Air Force PT test calculator and the Army height and weight guide cover the 2026 rules there.

The Full Navy PRT Chart for Every Age

Every level from Probationary to Outstanding High, for every age group at sea level: this is Table 4-1 of Guide-5A, the same data the calculator scores you with. Open your age group to see what each next five points costs. Above 5,000 feet, the calculator switches to the altitude cardio table for you.

This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute medical advice or diagnosis. Your official PRT score is the one your command fitness leader records in PRIMS. Always consult a qualified healthcare professional before starting a new training program.

Frequently Asked Questions