Overview
- The Pentagon released its FY2025 annual report on Friday, Aug. 21, 2026, and found both the confidential survey estimates and official reports of sexual assault declined from 2023 to 2025.
- The department estimates 20,492 active-duty service members experienced unwanted sexual contact in the year before the 2025 survey and recorded 7,998 official sexual-assault reports in 2025.
- An estimated one in three victims filed formal reports in FY2025, up from about one in four in FY2023, and the biennial Workplace Experiences Survey showed declines in assault and harassment for both women and men.
- The report highlights specific reforms such as the creation of the Office of Special Trial Counsel and standardized prevention and response reviews at commands and joint bases as drivers of change.
- Advocacy groups and the survey point to continued problems with retaliation, uneven trust in privacy and fairness, and service-level differences, which could affect survivors’ access to investigations, prosecutions, and care.