With my recent announcement that I will be doing a one year unaccompanied tour, I have been getting quite a few questions on the nature of the assignment, and why exactly someone would choose to do this.

A Special Incentive Post or SIP for short, is any post around the world that due to extraordinary circumstances on the ground, typically related to danger risk, offer extra perks beyond just the basic pay differentials other hardship posts receive. So posts in Iraq, Pakistan, Burma, and a few African posts offer these special incentives.

Well, what are these special incentives you ask? For one, pay. Most SIPs are in places where you get BOTH a hardship differential AND a danger differential. On top of that, you get a SIP differential. This makes certain posts push towards a 90% salary differential, and if you do more than one year in the post, it can push 105% of your base salary. As a simple example, if your base salary is $100K, your salary in Bangui, Central African Republic will jump to $190k for that first year. If the country is expensive in terms of cost of living like Bangui is, you’ll net yourself a hefty sum of tax free cost of living allowance of over $40k.

Another large perk of being in a SIP tour is they come with the same number or MORE R&R breaks than most 2 or 3 year tours do. For example, during one year in Iraq, you will get you 3 R&R trips. You really get to break up the year to it more tolerable.

Additionally, for being away from your family, you get a tax free separate maintenance allowance, essentially a way to offset the cost of maintaining two homes. It’s family size dependent, but boils down to roughly an extra $22K tax free for a family of four.

Finally, for me, the biggest benefit of doing this SIP tour is I will be exiting my first two directed entry level tours a full year early, and will become a midlevel bidder almost immediately. Within the first month of arriving to my next assignment, I will be bidding for and learning my 3rd assignment, where I will have far more options and a lot more say in where I go. This basically assures a 3-4 year assignment in a very desirable location.

Obviously the incentives sound great, but for a family man like myself, come at a great cost. I will essentially be missing a year of my daughter’s lives, where my youngest will only know me through facetime. Yes, I will get home at least 3 times during the tour, but knowing how tough it was during my 3 months of orientation in D.C. has me already dreading the time away. Ultimately, I think the benefits outweigh the costs in the long run, but it won’t make it easy. Hopefully it’ll be a quick year. –Nick