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The Navy maintains submarine readiness through a fleet-wide cycle of crew training and certification, deployments, and scheduled maintenance—not by keeping every submarine at sea. When a boat is out of service, the Navy must repair or retire it safely while coordinating crews, shipyards, materials, and the remaining fleet. The scale of the challenge is significant: a 2026 Government Accountability Office (GAO) report found that only about 11 percent of attack-submarine depot maintenance at public shipyards was completed on time during fiscal years 2016–2025.
What “out of service” means for a submarine
The phrase can describe several situations with different consequences for readiness. A submarine may be undergoing planned depot maintenance, waiting to enter a shipyard, taking longer than planned to complete shipyard work, or waiting for decommissioning and reactor defueling. These conditions are not interchangeable: some affect an active boat’s operating schedule, while others involve a boat that has been designated for retirement and cannot operate.
| Situation | What is happening | Readiness consequence |
|---|---|---|
| Planned depot maintenance | Extensive work such as an overhaul, refit, restoration, alteration, nuclear refueling, or decommissioning. | The boat is unavailable while the work is performed. GAO describes extensive depot periods as potentially lasting 24–36 months; this is a general range, not a schedule for every submarine. |
| Waiting to enter depot maintenance | The boat is awaiting shipyard capacity or other resources before work begins. | A delay can extend the time before the boat returns to operations. If its certification has expired, it may be unable to conduct normal operations while waiting. |
| Depot work taking longer than planned | The boat has entered a shipyard, but maintenance is delayed. | The submarine remains unavailable beyond the planned period, affecting the force-generation schedule. |
| Inactive idle time before decommissioning | A boat designated for decommissioning is waiting for shipyard capacity and reactor defueling. | It cannot operate, but GAO says such boats remain commissioned and crewed while they wait. |
| Intermediate maintenance | Shorter, less complex maintenance than depot work. | It is a separate maintenance category; it should not be confused with an extensive depot period. |
GAO’s August 2026 public report describes the attack-submarine fleet as having 44 boats as of fiscal year 2025: 20 Los Angeles-class and 24 Virginia-class submarines. A long maintenance period therefore affects more than one hull’s schedule: it also adds pressure to the Navy’s effort to generate and sustain submarine operations across the fleet.
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How the Navy generates readiness across the fleet
The Navy’s Optimized Fleet Response Plan is its broader force-generation construct. Attack submarines follow the Fleet Response Training Plan and submarine-specific certification directives. GAO describes a notional cycle with 12 months of training and certification followed by a nominal six-month deployment. A 30-day post-deployment stand-down can make the notional interval between full cycles 19 months.
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These are planning descriptions, not a promise that every submarine follows the same calendar. Maintenance delays, shipyard availability, and a boat’s specific work can disrupt the sequence. The cycle also shows why an outage matters beyond the time a hull spends in a shipyard: it can affect when the boat is ready to train, certify, deploy, and return to maintenance.
Who is responsible for keeping submarines ready
Readiness and maintenance responsibilities are distributed across Navy commands and shipyards rather than resting with a single organization. GAO identifies these principal roles:
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- Fleet commanders oversee force generation and readiness certification.
- Type commanders manage readiness and maintenance for specific platforms.
- Naval Sea Systems Command oversees design, construction, delivery, and maintenance.
- Navy Personnel Command assigns sailors.
- Naval Supply Systems Command oversees ship and submarine supply support.
Four public naval shipyards perform attack-submarine depot maintenance: Portsmouth, Norfolk, Puget Sound, and Pearl Harbor. Two private shipyards that build nuclear-powered vessels—General Dynamics Electric Boat and Huntington Ingalls Industries Newport News Shipbuilding—also perform some attack-submarine depot maintenance. The Navy must coordinate this work within finite shipyard and workforce capacity.
What happens when a boat waits for maintenance or decommissioning
An active boat delayed in maintenance
An active submarine can wait to enter a shipyard or remain in depot maintenance longer than planned. If its certification to conduct normal operations has expired, it may sit pier-side awaiting work rather than carry out normal operations. GAO counted 8,906 days of active idle time across fiscal years 2016–2025. That measure peaked at 1,518 days in fiscal year 2022 and fell to 166 days in fiscal year 2025.
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A boat waiting for decommissioning
Inactive idle time is different. It applies to a submarine designated for decommissioning that is waiting for shipyard capacity and reactor defueling. GAO counted 3,287 days of inactive idle time across fiscal years 2016–2025, including 1,260 days in fiscal year 2025. In its August 2026 audit, GAO reported that USS Pasadena entered inactive idle status on January 1, 2025, and was not expected to enter Norfolk Naval Shipyard for decommissioning until November 15, 2028. GAO said the boat remained fully crewed despite being unable to operate because its dive certification had expired. The expected shipyard date was a projection reported in that audit, not a completed event.
What delayed maintenance has cost
GAO estimated more than 15,000 operational days lost over the 10-year period it studied. It estimated $3.4 billion in costs for maintenance delays and active idle time. A separate, broader total in GAO’s table includes inactive idle time as well: about $4.17 billion in estimated operating and support costs for delayed and idle attack submarines in fiscal years 2016–2025, expressed in calendar-year 2025 dollars.
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| Cost category | GAO estimate, FY2016–FY2025 |
|---|---|
| Active idle time | $1.98 billion |
| Inactive idle time | $722 million |
| Depot maintenance delay | $1.46 billion |
| Total, including all three categories | About $4.17 billion |
The component estimates and table total are GAO estimates based on Navy operating-and-support cost data. They describe costs of supporting boats without operational capability, not equipment-purchase costs. The $3.4 billion figure covers maintenance delays and active idle time; it does not include the $722 million inactive-idle estimate shown separately above.
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Active idle time fell from its fiscal year 2022 peak to 166 days in fiscal year 2025, but the broader maintenance challenge has not gone away. GAO reported that about 11 percent of attack-submarine depot maintenance at public shipyards was completed on time across fiscal years 2016–2025. It also identified projected inactive idle time tied to upcoming decommissionings as a continuing concern.
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Without mitigation, GAO projected that 15 submarines would enter inactive idle time during fiscal years 2026–2030, with more than 14,000 associated days and $3.1 billion in costs. These are projections in the August 2026 report, not observed future outcomes. GAO also said the Navy had not fully evaluated alternatives for more efficient decommissioning or established a plan with implementation steps and timelines to reduce inactive idle time.
Among the approaches GAO discussed were pier-side defueling, reduced crewing under an Alternate Inactivation Construct, and service-life extensions. They should be understood as potential approaches, not as measures all adopted or approved. GAO reported that, as of November 2025, two attack submarines had been decommissioned using the reduced-crewing construct.
Can one early maintenance completion solve the fleet problem?
It can show that a particular availability can finish ahead of schedule, but one boat is not evidence that fleetwide delays have been resolved. The Navy reported that USS Colorado completed its scheduled maintenance period 29 days ahead of schedule on June 10, 2026. The Navy credited coordination between the shipyard and the submarine’s crew. That example illustrates a successful individual maintenance period; it does not establish a fleetwide trend.
Can public information show whether the Navy will meet its 2027 readiness goal?
No. The August 2026 GAO report is a public version of a classified report and omits operational-availability details and comparison of U.S. force generation with strategic competitors. It notes the Chief of Naval Operations’ 2024 Navigation Plan goal of 80 percent attack-submarine operational availability by 2027, but the public report does not say whether the Navy is positioned to meet it. Maintenance statistics alone cannot answer that question.
Quick Recap
Sources
- U.S. Government Accountability Office, Navy Readiness: Actions Needed to Address Costly Attack Submarine Maintenance Challenges, GAO-26-109256, August 27, 2026.
- U.S. Government Accountability Office, Navy Readiness: Actions Needed to Address Costly Maintenance Delays Facing the Attack Submarine Fleet, GAO-19-229, November 19, 2018.
- U.S. Navy, “USS Colorado Returns to Fleet from Maintenance Ahead of Schedule, Accelerating Pacific Readiness,” June 11, 2026.
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