Navy Federal Routing Number for Military Pay: myPay, SF 1199A and Where the Form Goes

Last verified against primary sources: October 9, 2026. Forms retrieved: SF 1199A (Rev. October 2024), FS Form 1200 (February 2020), FS Form 2231 (FastStart), Treasury Green Book Chapter 1 (2023 edition), NFCU 1167e (3-24).

Every kind of military or federal pay that lands in a Navy Federal account uses the same routing number: 256074974. What changes is not the number — it is who you tell it to. Navy Federal’s own direct-deposit booklet sends active-duty, reserve, retired, DoD and DFAS civilian pay to myPay, not to a paper form. Federal benefit pay (Social Security, SSI, VA, civil service retirement, railroad retirement) goes through Standard Form 1199A or Go Direct. And on the federal forms themselves, 256074974 is not one field — the government splits it into eight digits plus a separate check digit box.

The short answer

One number, three channels

Navy Federal’s direct-deposit booklet — Direct Deposits and Allotments, NFCU 1167e (3-24) — is the only official document we found that sorts paychecks by who writes them. It gives the routing number once, then splits employers into three groups:

“All employers will need: Navy Federal Credit Union’s routing number: 256074974; your deposit account number (available in our mobile app or online banking).”

One restriction lives in the booklet’s footnote 5, and it is easy to miss because it applies only to military money: “Allotment of military pay is not allowed for making consumer loan payments directly. If you receive military pay and would like to make recurring payments to your Navy Federal loan account, you should establish recurring payments from your checking or savings account.” In other words the routing number and account number are the same either way — the direction of the instruction is what the rule forbids.

The same nine digits, written four different ways by four official forms

This is the part nobody publishes, because you only see it if you open the forms rather than read about them. All four of these describe the identical number:

So the federal government does not treat 256074974 as a nine-digit string to be typed. It treats it as 25607497, a routing number, plus 4, a check digit that is carried and checked on its own. Navy Federal’s own paper form splits the same digits at different boundaries — 4-4-1 — which happen to fall on the routing symbol, the transit number and the check digit.

What SF 1199A actually is, and what each section asks for

The form is a United States Standard Form, not a Navy Federal document. The GSA forms library lists it as form number SF1199A, current revision date 10/2024, prescribed under Treasury Department Circular 1076, OMB control number 1530-0006, file SF1199A-24.pdf. Treasury’s own Green Book calls the very same document “FS Form 1199A”, and Navy Federal calls it “Standard Form 1199A”. Three official names, one form.

The fillable version of the form carries an accessibility label on that same certification box that cites “31 CFR Parts 240, 209, and 210” — one part number different from the printed text on the page. Worth knowing before you quote either one: in the current Code of Federal Regulations, Title 31 Chapter II lists Parts 206, 208, 210, 211 and 240 — there is no Part 209. The older citation survives on other Treasury paperwork too; FS Form 2231’s Privacy Act statement still reads “authorized under 31 CFR 209 and/or 210”.

Two more things the form tells you on its face, in the directions block:

• “A separate form must be completed for each type of payment to be sent by Direct Deposit.” One form, one payment type — you cannot combine military retirement with a VA payment on a single sheet.
• “Then take or mail this form to the financial institution.” The institution verifies Sections 1 and 2 and completes Section 3; “THE FINANCIAL INSTITUTION SHOULD MAIL THE COMPLETED FORM TO THE GOVERNMENT AGENCY IDENTIFIED ABOVE.”

Where the account number goes, and how long it can be

Section 2’s account-number line is drawn as 17 boxes, and the fillable form’s labels run “E. Enter the first digit of the Depositor Account Number” through “E. Enter the seventeenth digit of the Depositor Account Number.” Treasury’s Green Book explains the sizing: for Box E, “Use only letters A-Z and digits 0-9” and “Up to 17 characters”, adding that “If account numbers are not used, then insert name or other identification in the box.”

A Navy Federal deposit account number is 10 digits — the credit union’s own enrollment form says so twice, in the words “Account No. (10 digits, not Access Number)”. So you fill ten of the seventeen boxes and leave the rest empty. The mismatch is not an error; the federal form was built to accommodate institutions whose account numbers run longer.

The military boxes on a federal form

Standard Form 1199A has military payment types printed on it. Box F, Type of Payment (Check only one), offers: Social Security; Supplemental Security Income; Railroad Retirement; Civil Service Retirement (OPM); VA Compensation or Pension; Fed. Salary/Mil. Civilian Pay; Mil. Active; Mil. Retire.; Mil. Survivor; Other (specify).

Treasury’s Green Book adds the instruction that the form itself only implies: “For military payments, enter the name of the military branch in the blank next to the payment type checked.” It also publishes a Claim/Payroll ID table that tells you what to put in Box C for each military row:

Navy Federal’s booklet sends military pay to myPay; the Standard Form carries military payment-type boxes and the Green Book publishes military claim-number rules for it. Both are official. We did not find an official statement reconciling the two, and we are not going to invent one — see What we could not verify below.

Where a completed military 1199A actually goes

The Green Book’s Chapter 1 contact list is the only official routing table we found for military pay, and it is branch-specific. It opens with a warning that applies to all of it: “Note: As with any listing of this type, contact information will frequently change.”

Two more official rules govern where not to send it. The Green Book, on Section 2: “Note: Do not send enrollment forms to Fiscal Service. Fiscal Service does not process enrollment forms except for its own employees.” And on automated enrollment: “Department of Defense (DOD) or Black Lung payments cannot be set up through ENR.” The contact it gives for DoD is www.dfas.mil.

How long before direct deposit actually starts

There are two different clocks, and mixing them up is the most common way to misread a military paycheck. One clock is when the enrollment takes effect; the other is what time of day an already-enrolled payment posts. This page is about the first one. Treasury’s Green Book states it as a table:

The Green Book also warns recipients what happens in between: the financial institution “should inform the recipient that they will continue to receive checks or deposits at their current payment address of record until the Direct Deposit enrollment is” in effect. Once enrollment is live, the day-by-day question — which date a military paycheck posts to a Navy Federal account, and who gets it a business day early — is a separate matter, covered in our direct deposit timing guide.

Why the check digit gets a box of its own

The government does not separate the last digit to be difficult. It separates it because the check digit is validated separately, and the failure has its own name. Treasury’s Green Book lists the return reason codes a federal agency can send back on an automated enrollment:

• R42 — Routing Number/Check Digit Error: “The RTN and/or the Check Digit included in Field 3 of the Addenda record is incorrect.”
• R43 — Invalid DFI Account Number: “The receiver’s account number at the DFI is either missing, exceeds 17 positions, or contains invalid characters.”

That is the official version of “you typed it wrong”, and it is why the same Green Book puts “RTN and check digit” on its pre-filing checklist, and says in its opening pages: “Errors in the Direct Deposit enrollment process are the primary cause of misdirected payments. Financial institutions will be held liable for providing incorrect enrollment information and should, therefore, carefully review all Direct Deposit enrollment procedures.”

The same document also shows what the ACH record carries for account type: “Transaction Type: Checking (Type Code 22) Savings (Type Code 32)”. Checking and savings are not a checkbox downstream — they are different transaction codes on the wire-level record.

Form-filler: how your routing number splits on each form

Type a nine-digit routing number and the tool below shows how the same digits are written on each of the official documents described above, and whether the check digit passes the ABA 3-7-1 test.

What we could not verify

• Anything sourced directly from dfas.mil or myPay. Every request we made to www.dfas.mil from this network was refused (HTTP 403 from the Akamai edge) or failed to resolve at all, across multiple addresses, user agents and a real browser; mypay.dfas.mil timed out. So no sentence on this page describes what myPay’s own screens say, what fields it shows, or any deadline it enforces. Where military pay is mentioned, the source is Navy Federal’s booklet or Treasury’s Green Book, and it is attributed as such.
• Whether military pay can be enrolled with an SF 1199A instead of myPay. Navy Federal’s booklet says military pay goes through myPay; the Standard Form and the Green Book both carry military payment types and military claim-number rules. Both are official and we found no official statement that reconciles them. We present both rather than pick one.
• A revision date for FS Form 2231. The form prints “PREVIOUS EDITIONS OBSOLETE” and no date; its PDF carries 1997–2018 file dates. We quote its field labels without assigning it a version.
• The currentness of the Green Book contact list. Chapter 1 is from the 2023 edition (PDF file name Green Book-Full 2023-Final.pdf), and the document itself warns that “contact information will frequently change.” Verify phone numbers and addresses before mailing anything.
• Go Direct as a reachable website. It is named on FS Form 1200, in the Green Book and on Treasury’s FAQ, but requests to godirect.gov did not resolve from here, and Treasury’s own FAQ (last updated April 27, 2026) is the newest official description we could retrieve. Treasury’s enrollment phone line for federal benefits is listed as 1-800-333-1795 (English) / 1-800-333-1792 (Spanish), 8:00 a.m. – 8:00 p.m. ET, Monday through Friday, excluding federal holidays.
• 31 CFR Part 209. It is cited on the fillable SF 1199A and on FS Form 2231, but no Part 209 exists in the current eCFR listing for Title 31, Chapter II. We report the discrepancy rather than treat either citation as current.

Sources

• Standard Form 1199A, Direct Deposit Sign-Up Form (Rev. October 2024); form number SF1199A, OMB No. 1530-0006, prescribed by Treasury Department Circular 1076 — U.S. General Services Administration forms library: gsa.gov
• Green Book, Chapter 1: Enrollment (A Guide to Federal Government ACH Payments), Bureau of the Fiscal Service: fiscal.treasury.gov
• FS Form 1200, Sign-Up Form for Direct Deposit of Federal Benefit Payments (February 2020), OMB No. 1530-0006: fiscal.treasury.gov
• FS Form 2231, FastStart Direct Deposit: fiscal.treasury.gov
• Direct Deposit general FAQ, Bureau of the Fiscal Service (last updated April 27, 2026): fiscal.treasury.gov
• Navy Federal, Direct Deposits and Allotments, NFCU 1167e (3-24), including tear-off form NFCU 97DD (11-20): navyfederal.org
• Navy Federal wire transfer instructions (routing number 256074974, SWIFT/BIC NFCUUS33XXX, Vienna VA address, 6:30 p.m. ET incoming cutoff): navyfederal.org
• eCFR, Title 31, Chapter II current part list (Parts 206, 208, 210, 211, 240 — no Part 209): ecfr.gov