Home Depot Military Discount: 10% Off, Capped at $400 a Year

The Home Depot military discount takes 10% off eligible items and stops at $400 of discount per calendar year. That means the discount is worth the most on your first $4,000 of eligible spending each year and nothing after it until January 1. Home Depot’s military page and FAQ, checked November 3, 2026, set the rules below: who counts, how ID.me verification works, what is excluded, and what the discount cannot be combined with.

The bigger dollar question for many readers is the card in the wallet, not the coupon at the register. A Home Depot card balance you owed before active duty can be limited to 6% under federal law, and that can be worth more than $400 a year by itself. That section is further down.

Home Depot and Lowe’s, side by side

Both stores sell the same 10% and both verify through ID.me. The cap is where they split. Terms below are from each company’s own military page, both checked November 3, 2026.

Two differences decide where a big project goes. Home Depot caps the dollars; Lowe’s does not, but Lowe’s refuses the discount on anything already on sale. If most of your list is full price and over $4,000, Lowe’s terms win on paper. The card side of Lowe’s is on the Lowe’s card SCRA page.

Who Home Depot counts, and who it leaves out

Home Depot’s FAQ names active and reservist members, veterans and retirees of nine services: the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marine Corps, Coast Guard, Space Force, NOAA, the U.S. Public Health Service Commissioned Corps and the National Guard. No orders requirement appears anywhere on the page. A drilling reservist or Guard member qualifies the same as someone on active duty, which is a looser line than the federal Guard and Reserve rules that decide when the SCRA reaches you.

Spouses are in, with limits. The discount covers the current spouse of an eligible member and Gold Star spouses. A spouse needs a separate personal Home Depot account and verifies with their own first name, last name and account email plus the service member’s required information. One shared account does not work; Home Depot says each person enrolls separately.

The excluded list is short and specific: non-spousal dependents (so a college-age child with a dependent ID is out), dishonorably discharged veterans, auxiliary members, civilian employees of the military, and anyone else who is not a member. Veterans with any discharge other than dishonorable are not singled out, so the page reads as covering them. The military spouses and families guide covers which legal protections reach a spouse, a separate question from store eligibility.

Verification and checkout

You verify once. Home Depot says it uses ID.me to confirm military status, that the check typically takes a few minutes, and that the status stays on your account after that. Start from the Military Discount Benefit page on homedepot.com or in The Home Depot app, sign in or create a personal account, and select Get Started.

At checkout the paths differ:

• Online: sign in to the verified account and the discount applies to eligible items in the cart automatically.
• In store: scan the Virtual ID from The Home Depot app at the register, or enter the phone number registered to the account.

Some older guides say the discount runs through SheerID and that the app’s QR code is the only way to get it in a store. Home Depot’s own page, checked November 3, 2026, names ID.me and offers the phone-number option.

What the $400 cap does to a real project

Say you are finishing a basement over one calendar year with $5,500 of eligible, in-stock, full-price items: paint, fixtures, tools and trim. All figures are illustrative.

The cap resets on the calendar, not on your enrollment date. A project that straddles New Year’s Day can use two years of cap. If you already spent $3,000 of eligible items in the spring, only $100 of discount is left for the rest of the year. Home Depot’s public page does not say where to see how much of the $400 you have used, so keep your receipts and add up the discount lines yourself.

Stacking with the Home Depot card

The new-card coupon does not stack. Home Depot’s credit center, checked November 3, 2026, offers new consumer accounts $25 off a purchase of $25 to $299, $50 off $300 to $999, or $100 off $1,000 or more, within 30 days of opening, through January 27, 2027. Its fine print says the offer “cannot be combined with other discounts.” On a $1,500 purchase, the military 10% is $150 and the coupon is $100, so the military discount is the better pick unless your $400 is nearly used up.

The six-month financing is a separate question. Home Depot offers no interest if paid in full within six months on card purchases of $299 or more. Neither the military terms nor the credit center say whether that financing is a “promotion” that blocks the 10%. Ask the cashier before you pay.

Read the financing terms before you count the savings. Interest is charged from the purchase date if the balance, including optional credit insurance premiums, is not paid in full within six months, at an APR Home Depot prints as 17.99% to 29.99%. On a $1,500 purchase at 29.99%, six months of back interest is about $224 (simple interest, illustrative). That erases the $150 discount and then some. The full deferred-interest mechanics are on the Home Depot card SCRA page.

When the card is worth more than the discount

The most a Home Depot military discount can save you is $400 a year. A card balance can cost more than that in interest, and two federal laws change what Citibank, N.A., the card’s issuer, can charge.

Balance from before active duty: the SCRA 6% limit. Under 50 U.S.C. § 3937, debt you incurred before military service is limited to 6% a year during service, and interest above 6% is forgiven, not deferred. Take a $3,000 Home Depot card balance at 29.99%. That is about $900 a year in interest; at 6% it is $180, so roughly $720 a year comes off. You must send the creditor written notice and a copy of your orders no later than 180 days after release from service. Citi’s process is on the Citi SCRA guide, and the SCRA savings calculator runs your own balance.

Account opened while on active duty: the MLA 36% limit. Citi’s card agreement, version 100-THD-PL-US 0226 and downloaded November 3, 2026, says the cost of consumer credit to covered members and dependents may not exceed an APR of 36%, and that the rate must include credit insurance premiums and fees for ancillary products. You are a Covered Borrower if, when the account opens, Citi determines you are on active duty, “including active Guard and Reserve duty,” or a dependent of someone who is. The agreement’s arbitration section does not apply to a Covered Borrower at account opening. How the Military APR is built is on the MAPR explainer, and the split between the two laws is on MLA vs SCRA.

The 36% cap sits above the card’s printed 29.99% top rate, so it matters mainly when insurance premiums or fees push the total cost up.

Appliances go through the exchange

Appliances are where the 10% does not reach. Home Depot’s FAQ says most in-store and online appliances are excluded and points to its partnership with the Army and Air Force Exchange Service and the Navy Exchange. Its exchange page lists tax-free shopping, military pricing and free delivery on major appliances. The exchange route also covers people the discount leaves out: Home Depot names dependents and Department of Defense civilians as eligible there. At an illustrative 6% sales tax, that is $120 saved on a $2,000 refrigerator, so price the exchange before you buy one at the store. If the purchase is part of a move, the PCS money moves guide covers the rest of the budget.

Get the most from the Home Depot military discount

1. Verify once through ID.me from the Military Discount Benefit page or the app. A spouse enrolls in a separate account.
2. Total your eligible, full-price list. Over $4,000 in one year, either split the purchase across January 1 or price the full-price items at Lowe’s, which publishes no cap.
3. Pull appliances out of the list and price them through the AAFES or NEX Home Depot storefront for tax-free pricing.
4. Pick the military 10% or the new-card coupon, not both. Ask before paying whether six-month financing blocks the 10%.
5. If you use the card’s financing, set payments that clear the full balance before month six.
6. If your card balance predates active duty, send Citi your orders for the 6% limit. Check the refund guide if the credit comes back short.

The law behind this: 50 U.S.C. § 3937

Interest ceiling on obligations from before service: read the statute , or read § 3937 in plain English, with its enforcement record .