The U.S. Defense Department will no longer allow military service members to claim around 180 different religious traditions in their personnel records, leaving only 31 to choose from, and 22 of them are Christian denominations.

Military.com said on June 4, it has learned that the Department of Defense, for the first time in almost 10 years, has dramatically reduced its number of recognized religious faiths and belief systems by around 180.

The change was the first revison of the list since the issuing of a memo on March 27, 2017, and it decreases the total number of recognized faiths from 211 to its new number of 31.

The changes were laid out in a May 20, 2026, memorandum issued by the Under Secretary of War and signed by Anthony Tata, under secretary of defense for personnel and readiness of the United States.

The revision to the faith codes came at the direction of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, according to the Tata-signed memo, done to "streamline the DoW collection of religious preferences collection for service members to enhance the delivery of targeted religious support from the Chaplaincy."

It calls for the previously instituted faith and belief codes to be revised within 60-days from the issuance of the memorandum.

"The new list will provide chaplains with clear, readily available information that will better enable them to anticipate the religious support needs of service members and to provide religious support activities that align with service members' personal faith and practices," Tata wrote.

He said that members will not be limited to the list of "religious affiliation codes" when selecting information for their dog tags, which identify them.

The revised list includes Agnostics, Buddhists, Hindus, Islam (Muslims), Judaism, Sikh, and a range of Christian-based groups such as Baptists, Catholics, Lutherans and Methodists.

Besides Christian faiths, the new "religious affiliation codes" will allow U.S. soldiers, sailors, airmen, Marines, and Coast Guard and Space Force personnel to identify in their records as agnostic, Baha'i, Buddhist, Hindu, Muslim, Jewish or Sikh.

Among those removed from the list were: Wicca, paganism, humanism and atheism.

The statement was posted to social media by Sean Parnell, a Pentagon spokesman, who called it "a long overdue move" The New York Times reported.

Parnell portrayed the change as a largely administrative exercise, intended to simplify data collection for military leaders and chaplains.

The change is "not designed to make any claims on the legitimacy of any faith or religious belief, nor is it intended to provide a list of 'officially approved' religions," said Parnell.

"Rather, it is designed to allow chaplains to quickly look at the religious composition of their units and determine how they structure resources to best provide for war-fighters of all faith groups."