Partial PPM: How a Split Shipment Is Paid Under the JTR

Two Shipments, One Allowance

A partial PPM is the move where you load what you care about into your own vehicle or a rented truck, hand the rest to the government's carrier, and get paid for the half you carried. The PCS move cost calculator prices it — "Partial PPM" is one of the move types it offers — and this article is the rule behind the number: what the payment is computed from, the two separate ceilings the combined move runs into, and how the weight of your half has to be proved.

The Joint Travel Regulations do not use the words "partial PPM" or "partial DITY." The regulation's name for this is a split shipment, and it gets one short paragraph of three sentences, par. 051503. The short version is that a split shipment is not a special kind of move with a special rate. It is an ordinary personally procured move for the part you carry, an ordinary government move for the part you do not, and a pair of limits that apply to the two of them together. Par. 051503 states both limits in one sentence, and the second of them — a limit on cost rather than on weight — is the easier one to miss.

The rules below are read from the Joint Travel Regulations, edition 08/01/2026, with the paragraph number given for each so any rule here can be checked against the source. Some abbreviations recur: HHG is household goods, PPM is a personally procured move (the old name was DITY, "do it yourself"), GCC is the Government's constructed cost, and PDS is your permanent duty station.

What Is a Partial PPM?

A partial PPM is a PCS move in which some of your household goods travel by government-procured transportation and the rest travel by transportation you arrange and are reimbursed for. JTR par. 051503 authorizes it in a single sentence — "A Service member may ship HHG by Government-procured and personally procured transportation" — and the broader rule at par. 051301-A is more permissive still: a member "can move his or her HHG in as many lots as desired from one or more locations."

A Service member may ship HHG by Government-procured and personally procured transportation. The combined HHG shipments is limited to the Service member's authorized HHG weight allowance and the Government's "Best Value" cost to transport the authorized maximum PCS weight allowance in one lot between authorized places. (JTR par. 051503)

So the structure is not "a partial PPM" as a distinct entitlement. It is two shipping methods used on one set of orders. Par. 051501 defines the first — the government arranges transportation, you turn the goods over, and the government "assumes the responsibility for the HHG and for getting the HHG to the correct destination." Par. 051502 defines the second, where you arrange it yourself and are paid for it. A split shipment is both at once, and each half is governed by its own paragraph.

The practical consequence is that nothing about the self-moved half changes because the government is also moving something. The authorization, the weight certificates, the claim and the payment basis are the same ones a full PPM uses. What changes is the arithmetic on the ceilings.

What Limits a Partial PPM — the Two Ceilings

Par. 051503 imposes two limits on the combined shipments, not one: their weight is limited to your authorized HHG weight allowance, and their cost to the government is limited to what it would cost to move that whole allowance in one lot. The two arrive joined by an "and" in the middle of one sentence, which makes the second easy to read past — and it is a limit on money, so the scale alone will not tell you whether you have hit it.

The weight ceiling. Par. 051401-A says the Table 5-37 figure for your grade and dependency status is "the total combined weight of any HHG shipped, plus any unaccompanied baggage shipped, and any HHG in storage." Your self-moved load, the carrier's load, anything you sent ahead as unaccompanied baggage and anything sitting in storage are four pieces of one number, though par. 051401-A-1 keeps the weight of professional books, papers and equipment (PBP&E), required medical equipment and gun safes out of it. You can look that number up by grade on the weight allowances page.

The cost ceiling. Par. 051301-A states the government's maximum obligation plainly, and in the same breath grants the permission the limit exists to bound:

However, the Government's obligation, and maximum payment, is what the cost would be to transport the Service member's maximum weight allowance between authorized locations in one lot at the Government's "Best Value" cost. (JTR par. 051301-A)

Read together, those two sentences say the regulation does not forbid splitting a move and does not pay extra for it: as many lots as you like, with the government's total capped at what one lot of your whole allowance would have cost. The paragraph does not explain why two shipments might come to more than one would have — that is a question for the tariff rather than the regulation — it simply fixes the government's obligation, and its maximum payment, at the one-lot figure.

Three limits are worth keeping apart, because they are easy to run together. The weight ceiling in par. 051401-A limits what may be shipped at government expense. The cost ceiling in par. 051301-A limits what the government may spend across both shipments. And par. 051502-F sets what your payment is computed on, which is the constructed cost of the weight you moved. They are three different figures, and only the first is measured in pounds.

What Does a Partial PPM Pay?

You are paid a monetary allowance equal to 100% of the Government's constructed "Best Value" cost for the weight you actually moved, up to your maximum authorized weight allowance. That is par. 051502-C-2, and it is the same rate a full PPM is paid at. What differs is that the weight entering the computation is your half rather than everything you own, and that par. 051503 counts the government's half against the same allowance.

Tender of service (ToS) rates: For PPMs commenced under this method, the Service member or next of kin, as appropriate, receives payment of a monetary allowance equal to 100% of the Government's constructed "Best Value" cost for the actual HHG weight transported up to the Service member's maximum authorized weight allowance. (JTR par. 051502-C-2)

Par. 051502-F settles how the final figure is reached: "Final settlement for reimbursement of personally procured transportation, regardless of the transportation method, is based on the GCC of the actual weight moved, limited to the authorized PCS weight allowance." Two phrases in that sentence matter on a split shipment. Regardless of the transportation method means it makes no difference whether you rented a truck, towed a trailer or filled the back of the car. The actual weight moved means your payment tracks the weight of your own load as par. 051502-D establishes it, not what the government's half weighed, and not your allowance.

Par. 051502-A adds a limit on whose money counts, inside a paragraph that scopes itself: it binds the member "who personally arranges for HHG transportation without going through a Government transportation office", and par. 051502-A-3 makes that member responsible for "HHG transportation costs paid by a third party. The Service member or next of kin is not reimbursed for costs paid by a third party." So where that paragraph applies, a cost that a relocation package, an employer or anyone else paid is not yours to claim.

Where the "130%" figure comes from, and why it does not apply

Par. 051502-C lists two rate methods, not one, and the first is dated. Par. 051502-C-1 authorizes, for PPMs commenced under the Global Household Goods Contract method, "a monetary allowance equal to 130% of the current Global Household Goods Contract (GHC) rates" and then bounds it in the next sentence: "This rate will apply from May 15, 2025, until September 30, 2025." That window has closed. The 08/01/2026 edition still prints the paragraph, and par. 051502-G-3 carries both figures again when it sets the advance — this time with 100% of the constructed cost stated first, and 130% confined to "From May 15, 2025, through September 30, 2025".

So a 130% figure quoted for a PPM is a real rule, but a lapsed one: it covered PPMs commenced under the GHC method in that 2025 window. The rate that applies to a move today is 100% of the constructed cost — par. 051502-C-2's tender of service rate, and the rate par. 051502-G-3 states with no date attached.

There is no published rate per pound

A partial PPM rate per pound is a common thing to go looking for, and it is not a figure anyone publishes. Payment is not your weight multiplied by a national rate. It is the constructed cost, which par. 051502-E-1 builds from the "Best Value" methodology for your specific channel — your origin and destination pair — applied to your actual weight. For a domestic shipment, which par. 051502-E-1-a defines as one within the CONUS, between the CONUS and Alaska, or within Alaska, the GCC includes these "Best Value" charges:

• Line haul, packing, and unpacking.
• Line haul factor charges at the origin and destination.
• Short-haul charges for shipments moving 800 or fewer miles.

Par. 051502-E-1-c points to DTR 4500.9-R, Part IV, Chapter 403 for how "Best Value" costs are determined, and the same paragraph limits accessorial charges to those that "would have been authorized during a Government-arranged move". For an international shipment, including anything to or from Hawaii or a U.S. territory, par. 051502-E-1-b uses the "Best Value" "Surface" Single Factor Rate instead.

The underlying tariff is public — USTRANSCOM publishes the 400NG rates the domestic computation runs on — but the discount a carrier has filed against those rates is not, and it is part of the figure. So two members of the same grade moving the same weight between different places can be paid different amounts, and no published table gives either of them the figure in advance. The figure that governs your move is the constructed cost your transportation office produces. An estimate from this site or any other is a planning number; the methodology page sets out which tariff edition and which assumptions produce the one here.

How Do You Prove the Weight of Your Half?

With certified weight certificates. Par. 051502-D sets the method and the arithmetic: the weight of HHG transported "is normally established with certified weight certificates from a public weigh master or Government scales", and "The net weight, or the Service member's authorized weight allowance, whichever is less, is used to determine the Government's constructed cost." Net weight is what you are paid on, and your allowance caps it.

How that net weight is produced for a vehicle — an empty ticket before loading, a loaded ticket after, one pair per vehicle — is transportation office and Service claim procedure rather than a JTR paragraph, and the filing guide covers it. Par. 051502-D does name the official behind the certificate: "The public weigh master is the person who issues the weight certificates."

When weight certificates are not available, par. 051502-D-1 allows a constructed weight of 7 pounds per cubic foot, authorized or approved through the Secretarial Process, for one of two stated reasons: a public or government scale was not available, or the goods moved commercially and the carrier was paid on a basis other than weight. Par. 051502-D-2 lets the Service challenge a carrier's constructed weight — if it "is unreasonable, then the Service may base reimbursement on a reasonable weight." Table 5-39, method 8, gives the same 7-pounds-per-cubic-foot figure for HHG whose weight is unobtainable.

The government's half is weighed by the carrier, and Table 5-39 converts that to net weight: where the goods were weighed with their internal packing and the unpacked weight is not known, method 3 subtracts 10% of the net weight shown on the shipping documents. Both halves end up as net weights, and par. 051401-A adds them against one allowance.

What Happens If You Have No Weight Tickets?

The claim does not die — it converts. Par. 051502-C-5 provides the fallback directly: when weight certificates or approval to use a constructed weight are not provided, you are reimbursed for listed actual costs, up to the Government's constructed cost, instead of being paid a monetary allowance.

If weight certificates, or approval to use constructed weight, is not provided, then reimbursement is authorized for a rental vehicle and equipment, packing materials, plus fuel, tolls and any storage in transit, up to the Government's constructed cost. (JTR par. 051502-C-5)

It is worth knowing before the move rather than after, because the two are different payments. The monetary allowance under par. 051502-C-2 is 100% of the constructed cost for the weight you moved, whatever you actually spent. The fallback under par. 051502-C-5 reimburses only the expenses it lists — the rental vehicle and equipment, packing materials, fuel, tolls and any storage in transit — and only "up to the Government's constructed cost". A member without weight certificates is not left with nothing, but is reimbursed for those expenses instead of being paid an allowance on weight.

Two other situations pay actual costs rather than a monetary allowance. Par. 051502-C-4 covers shipping by small package service: if you mail or courier part of your goods, "a monetary allowance is not authorized", though the shipment costs on the receipts may be reimbursed up to the GCC for that weight, "not to exceed the maximum authorized weight allowance for all shipments under the current orders." Par. 051502-C-3 covers storage: actual storage expenses may be reimbursed, limited to the government's constructed cost for the weight stored, and "A monetary allowance is not paid when storage costs are not incurred."

What If the Combined Weight Goes Over the Allowance?

You pay for the excess, and on a split shipment the regulation computes that charge in the way that costs you least. Par. 051306-A-2 states the obligation: a member "must repay the Service for the cost of transporting his or her HHG in excess of the specified weight allowance, unless there is specific authorization for an increased weight allowance, limited to 18,000 pounds."

How the bill is calculated depends on how many shipments there were, and Table 5-36 draws the distinction in four rows. The first two cover a move "to or from an area with no administrative weight restrictions", which covers a move between two CONUS duty stations: par. 051402-A-1 provides for administrative weight restrictions at a PDS OCONUS. A single shipment with nothing in non-temporary storage is row 1, where "The cost of excess net weight is prorated based on the cost of total net weight transported." A split shipment is row 2 — HHG "shipped in multiple shipments with excess weight involved" — and the instruction there is different:

compute the excess cost on the shipment so that it results in the lowest cost to the Service member. (JTR Table 5-36, row 2)

Rows 3 and 4 are the restricted-area pair, for a move to or from an administratively weight-restricted area. Row 3 covers weight over the administrative allowance moved to or from the area OCONUS, and computes the excess on the overseas and transoceanic portions of the transportation, again "so that it results in the lowest cost to the Service member." Row 4 gives the same instruction as row 2 where each shipment is individually within the administrative allowance but the shipments together exceed the member's authorized allowance. Only row 1 prorates; the other three compute the excess the way that costs the member least, and the table states it as an instruction, not an option.

Two things to be clear about. Par. 051306-A-3 counts everything: "All transportation costs are included in determining excess costs, such as storage, accessorial services, and any other costs that the Government paid to move the HHG." And par. 051306-A-1 forecloses one line of appeal: "Erroneous advice, or lack of advice, by a Government agent does not create an entitlement to reimbursement of, or shipment of HHG in excess of the weight allowed by statute." Par. 051306-A-4 applies that where a transportation officer did not warn the member, citing CBCA 2076-RELO (October 5, 2010).

The weight allowances page carries an estimator for what going over would cost on your own channel.

A Worked Example of the Weight Ceiling

An E-6 with dependents has a Table 5-37 allowance of 11,000 pounds. Suppose the carrier picks up 8,600 pounds and the member's own truck weighs in at a net 3,000 pounds. The combined figure is 11,600 pounds, which is 600 pounds over.

Par. 051503 caps the two shipments together at the allowance, so the government's obligation covers 11,000 of those pounds, and the cost of moving the other 600 is the member's under par. 051306-A-2, however the weight is divided between the two. Assuming an ordinary move, neither end of it administratively weight-restricted, Table 5-36 row 2 is the row: multiple shipments with excess weight involved, so the excess cost is computed on whichever of the two shipments results in the lowest cost to the member, rather than prorated across both. Had the same 11,600 pounds moved as one shipment with nothing in storage, row 1 would have prorated the excess across the whole load instead.

Can You Get an Advance Before the Move?

Yes — par. 051502-G-3 authorizes an advance of "An amount equal to 60% of the PPM monetary allowance when the Service member chooses the PPM monetary allowance." That is money before you move, against the payment you expect after, and on a partial PPM it is 60% of the allowance for your half.

Par. 051502-G lists two other advances for different situations: the constructed expenses where government-procured transportation or non-temporary storage was not available (par. 051502-G-1), and the constructed expenses limited to the government's maximum obligation where it was available but the member personally procured the transportation (par. 051502-G-2). Which of the three applies follows from the type of move — par. 051502-G says advance payment is authorized "depending on the type of move the Service member chooses" — so the question for the transportation office is which method your move is being processed under.

An advance is money paid against a claim not yet settled, and an advance that is never squared up can be recouped from your pay. The turn-in window commonly applied is 45 days from the date the move is complete; it comes from Service PPM guidance rather than from the JTR or the DTR, so confirm the window your transportation office applies. The filing guide walks through the claim itself.

Driving Your Own Vehicle on a Split Shipment

If you load household goods into the same car you drive to the new duty station, you are paid for both, separately. Par. 051502-F is explicit: "Service members or dependents using the same POV for traveling and PPM are authorized both a PPM monetary allowance and MALT Plus as separate allowances." The travel allowance is not reduced because the car was also carrying freight, and the PPM allowance is not reduced because the car was also carrying you.

A carload can be a split shipment too. A member with a government-arranged shipment who also fills a car and a trailer has shipped HHG by both methods, which is what par. 051503 describes, whether or not anyone called it that. Getting it paid is mostly a procedural question rather than a JTR one: the counseling, the authorization and the DD Form 2278 are transportation office and Service claim process, and the regulation's own requirement is in par. 051502-F: "Submit certified weight certificates or an acceptable constructed HHG weight with the claim for reimbursement." The PCS per diem calculator prices the travel side, and the trailer article covers the weight a towed trailer adds and the tickets that have to back it.

Three Rules That Catch People Out

Each of these is a sentence in Chapter 5 that decides a question a split shipment raises and the split-shipment paragraph itself does not answer.

Goods the government has already moved cannot be moved again. Par. 051301-C: "Once the Government has transported HHG, no further transportation of that HHG is authorized under the same order for a Service member's convenience." Once the government's carrier has moved a load, that order will not pay to move any of it again for your convenience — not as a PPM, and not by carrier.

The remainder of your allowance can travel later. Par. 051301-D: if you do not move your full allowance to the new PDS, "the remainder of the weight allowance can be transported at a later date" — provided the goods were in your possession before the effective date of the order from the PDS where they stayed, and the government's cost is still "limited to the cost to transport the PCS weight allowance in one lot from the old to the new PDS." The same one-lot ceiling, applied across time rather than across two trucks.

Moving before orders are issued needs three documents. Par. 051302-B-1 authorizes it if the request is "supported by all of the following": a statement from "the AO or designated representative" — par. 010201-B calls the AO the "Authorizing or Approving Official" — that you were advised before the order was issued that it would be issued, a signed agreement to pay any added cost if the new PDS turns out different from the one named, and a signed agreement to pay the entire cost if no order is later issued. Par. 051302-B-4 then rules out the weaker thing that might look like such advice: general information about an expected rotation date or a retirement eligibility date "is not advice that the order is to be issued".

Moving Part of It Yourself to or from Overseas

A personally procured move OCONUS is permitted, and par. 051502-A says what you take on by arranging one. The paragraph binds the member "who personally arranges for HHG transportation without going through a Government transportation office", and makes that member responsible for all issues and costs related to the Status of Forces Agreement where the transportation is to or from a location OCONUS (par. 051502-A-1), and for "The use of U.S. flag carriers, import and export processes, tariffs, customs, and, if Service regulations require their use, any available Voluntary Inter-modal Sealift Agreement ship carriers" (par. 051502-A-2).

Where that paragraph applies, a customs or flag-carrier problem on your half is yours to solve and yours to pay for, and par. 051502-E-1-b prices international shipments on the Single Factor Rate rather than the domestic components, which is a different computation again. This site's calculator prices an OCONUS move as a government move because it models none of those costs, so an estimate of the self-moved half would be confidently wrong. If an overseas split shipment is what you are considering, the transportation office or personal property shipping office is the place to start, not an estimate. The OCONUS move guide covers what else changes.

One nearby rule is easy to mistake for this one. Par. 051502-B covers the case where you moved yourself because there was no transportation office available, or because a transportation officer instructed you in writing to arrange it at personal expense. That is reimbursement of actual cost — par. 051502-B-1 authorizes "The actual cost of shipment up to 100% of the maximum allowable weight allowance" — and not the monetary allowance method at all. The distinction is whether government transportation was available, and par. 051502-C is the paragraph that applies when it was.

Where This Leaves a Partial Move

A split shipment suits a move where there is a specific reason to carry specific things: the instruments, the tools, the computers, the boxes you do not want to see on a claim form. It is paid at the same 100% of constructed cost a full PPM is paid at, on the weight you prove, and it leaves the carrier packing, hauling and answering for everything else — which matters if anything arrives broken, because the two halves are not claimed the same way.

What it is not is free money for splitting a move in half. The weight ceiling is shared, the cost ceiling is shared, and par. 051301-A's one-lot limit means the government will not pay more in total than moving your whole allowance in one lot would have cost. Run your own weight and channel through the PCS move cost calculator, then take the figure your transportation office produces as the one that governs.

Sources

Every rule above is read from the Joint Travel Regulations, edition 08/01/2026, published by the Per Diem, Travel, and Transportation Allowance Committee. Pages 5C-14 through 5C-17, which carry par. 051501 through par. 051504, and page 5C-6, which carries Table 5-36, were extracted from the PDF's text layer and then confirmed a second time from those pages rendered as images, because a misread word in a payment rule is money. Every quotation of the regulation above was checked back against its text word for word.

The paragraphs cited, in the order they appear: par. 051503 for the split shipment itself; par. 051301-A for the government's maximum obligation and the one-lot cost ceiling; par. 051501 for government-procured transportation; par. 051502 throughout for the personally procured half — -A for OCONUS responsibilities and third-party costs, -B for the no-transportation-office case, -C for the two rate methods and the three situations that pay actual cost instead, -D for weight determination, -E for the constructed cost's components, -F for final settlement, the weight certificates submitted with the claim and the POV rule, and -G for advances; par. 051401-A for what the weight allowance comprises and what it leaves out; par. 051404 with Table 5-39 for net weight; par. 051306 with Table 5-36 for excess costs, with par. 051402-A-1 for where administrative weight restrictions apply; and par. 051301-C, par. 051301-D and par. 051302-B, with par. 010201-B for the AO, for the three rules in that section.

No dollar figure appears in this article, and that is deliberate. The payment is the Government's constructed cost for one specific channel and weight, computed under DTR 4500.9-R, Part IV, Chapter 403, and the discount a carrier has filed against the published tariff is not public — so there is no national figure to quote and no rate per pound to look up. The weights named here are the regulation's own, except in the worked example above: the 3,000- and 8,600-pound loads are illustrations, and the 11,600 and the 600 are their total and its excess over the 11,000-pound allowance.

One source was not read directly: DTR 4500.9-R, Part IV, Chapter 403 — the Defense Transportation Regulation chapter the JTR points to for how "Best Value" costs are determined, and the document behind every constructed cost. USTRANSCOM publishes the Defense Transportation Regulation and the 400NG tariff that prices domestic shipments, and the JTR's own enumeration of what a constructed cost contains is quoted above from the regulation itself. For the figure that governs your move, the transportation office remains the source.

Related Articles

• DITY Move vs. Government Move — the decision a partial move sits between
• How to File a PPM/DITY Claim: DD Form 2278 — DD Form 2278, the weight tickets, and the turn-in window
• Weight allowances by rank, and what going over costs — the Table 5-37 figure both shipments share
• Adding a trailer to your weight allowance — the weight a towed trailer adds, and the tickets behind it
• Unaccompanied baggage and your HHG allowance — the third piece that comes out of the same number
• PCS storage options and what the government pays for — SIT, NTS, and personally procured storage
• PCS Taxes: What Is and Isn't Taxable — how the part of a PPM payment above your costs is taxed
• How this site constructs a GCC — the tariff and the assumptions behind the estimate