France and Belgium took in the first recruits of their new voluntary military service in late summer and September 2026. Nobody is forced to join: France pays volunteers €800 a month, Belgium about €2,000. Germany has gone a step further. Service there is voluntary too, but since the summer 18-year-olds have been called in for medical checks even when they said they did not want to serve.
The three models speak to a question now being argued over in Kazakhstan, where a petition to move to a contract army appeared after 14 service members died in a Caspian Sea exercise (we looked at its chances). Europe's first numbers suggest that pay and invitations alone do not guarantee enough volunteers.
France: 10 months at €800 a month
Recruitment opened on January 12. In the first year France is taking 3,000 volunteers aged 18 to 25: 1,800 for the army and 600 each for the navy and the air force (French Armed Forces Ministry, in French). Service lasts 10 months: one month of training, then nine months in a unit. The pay is €800 a month, with free housing and meals. Volunteers serve only on French territory and cannot be sent abroad (franceinfo, in French).
On September 7, 26 volunteers arrived at the naval base in Toulon. "It's hard right now, because this is the real thing," a 21-year-old volunteer from Brittany told reporters (ici, our translation). France wants 10,000 recruits a year by 2030 and 50,000 by 2035. Emmanuel Macron has said parliament could make the service compulsory in an exceptional crisis (franceinfo, in French).
Belgium: a letter to every 17-year-old
Belgium started with invitations. Some 130,000 17-year-olds received a letter offering a year of service. 3,248 replied, and the military picked 500 aged 18 to 25, including 80 women (VRT). The first volunteers started on August 26 and the rest in September. They earn about €2,000 a month after tax (The Brussels Times).
Do the math and roughly one teenager in 40 answered the letter. Among those who did, there were more than six applicants per place. Few want to serve, but those who do are ready to compete for it.
Germany: voluntary service, mandatory checkups
Since January 1, 2026, a new German law has required every 18-year-old man to fill in a questionnaire about his readiness to serve, while service itself stays voluntary. By mid-June the armed forces had sent out about 298,000 questionnaires. Men, who must answer, returned 96% of them; women, for whom it is optional, returned about 4%. More than one man in five said he was interested, yet only about 530 people signed up for the new service in its first five months (Tagesspiegel, citing the German Defense Ministry, in German).
Since July the military has also been holding compulsory medical checks. About 1,000 young men born in 2008 have already been examined, including some who wrote that they did not want to serve. Nationwide checks for that age group begin on July 1, 2027 (Berliner Zeitung, in German). The idea is for the state to know in advance who could be called up if parliament decides there are not enough volunteers.
The three models side by side
- France: 10 months, €800 a month, 3,000 places in year one, service only at home.
- Belgium: 12 months, about €2,000 a month after tax, 500 places for 130,000 invitations.
- Germany: voluntary service, but the questionnaire and the medical check are mandatory for men; about 530 volunteers in the first five months.
France and Germany both keep a fallback: parliament can bring back compulsory service if too few people volunteer. Whether there would be enough people without the draft is exactly what the Kazakh petition asks the government to work out in advance.
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