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The Pentagon has revealed that extending the National Guard deployment in Washington, DC, through January 2029 will cost roughly $1.4 billion, according to an estimate provided to Congress.

Getting into it: The figure covers fiscal years 2027 through 2029 and assumes an average of 2,500 Guard members in the city. The Congressional Budget Office had previously estimated about $55 million per month for just under 3,000 troops.

There are currently 4,600 personnel in the city from DC and 23 states and territories, and numbers peaked near 5,000 around the Fourth of July. Troops patrol Metro stations, downtown, and the National Mall. Most are armed, though they cannot make arrests. They also pick up trash, do landscaping, scrub graffiti, and handle snow removal.

Brig. Gen. Leland Blanchard put the Guard’s medical response count in the hundreds, including roughly 325 doses of Narcan. A recent $292 million housing deal moved troops into about 2,000 apartments, which Blanchard said trims roughly $90 million off what the Guard had been paying for hotels.

The math on effectiveness is contested. A Niskanen Center analysis put the cost at roughly $607 per Guard member per day against about $384 for a DC police officer, and found no violent crime benefit from the troop presence, though property crime did fall over the same stretch.

The White House sees it differently. DC homicides are down about 37% this year, and the administration credits Trump directly, pointing to that drop alongside steep declines in Memphis, New Orleans, and Los Angeles.

This all comes as the deployment enters its second year. It started in August 2025 under an emergency order the administration said was about fighting crime, part of a broader push to send Guard members into US cities. The Pentagon set the end date last month at Jan. 20, 2029, “or until terminated by the President.”