TRICARE Cost Calculator

Budgeting for military health coverage means looking past the enrollment fee to the copays you will actually pay at each visit. This estimator pulls together the CY2026 enrollment fees and in-network copays for TRICARE Prime, TRICARE Select and TRICARE For Life so military families and retirees can weigh one plan against another before open season closes.

The result starts with two things: your beneficiary cohort and your plan. Cohort matters twice over, because active-duty families pay no enrollment fee on either plan, while retirees pay one that depends on whether the sponsor entered service before January 1, 2018 (Group A) or on or after that date (Group B). For CY2026 TRICARE Prime charges retirees $381.96 per individual and $765 per family in Group A, $462.96 and $927 in Group B; TRICARE Select charges $186.96 and $375 in Group A, $594.96 and $1,191 in Group B. TRICARE For Life carries no enrollment fee at all, though you must hold Medicare Part B and pay its premium. The tool then shows the in-network copays that go with your combination.

Treat the output as a planning baseline rather than a guarantee. It covers the enrollment fee and the per-visit copays, not the annual deductible or the catastrophic cap, which are the other two numbers worth knowing: for CY2026 a Group A retiree family on Select faces a $300 family deductible and a $4,381 catastrophic cap, against $3,000 on Prime, while active-duty families in Group A are capped at $1,000. Network status is where families most often get surprised, because care delivered outside the network is reimbursed at a percentage rather than a flat copay and can inflate what you owe. Confirm that a provider participates in your plan before the appointment, not after the bill arrives.