Mali army ranks in 2026: the FAMa ladder, gendarmerie and National Guard titles, and who commands
Mali army ranks follow the French model, but the exact ladder is not a matter of opinion: it is fixed in a 2023 ordinance that also governs the gendarmerie, the National Guard, the militarised police and civil protection. This guide sets out every rank of the Malian Armed Forces (FAMa) from Soldat to Général d’armée, shows where the gendarmerie and National Guard use different titles, and lists who sits at the top of the command chain as of 27 October 2026.
Quick answer
Mali’s ranks are fixed by Ordonnance n°2023-015/PT-RM of 21 March 2023 (Journal officiel, 24 March 2023): three categories and four general ranks, from Général de brigade up to Général d’armée. Assimi Goïta was promoted to Général d’armée on 16 October 2024 (VOA Afrique, 17 October 2024). The Chief of Staff is Général de division Élisée Jean Dao (appointed 6 May 2026, government communiqué).
Data as of 27 October 2026. Figures are open-source estimates; see "A note on the numbers".
How Mali’s rank ladder is built
Article 5 of the 2023 statute (the "Statut général des militaires") divides the Armed Forces into three categories in ascending order: militaires du rang (enlisted), sous-officiers (NCOs) and officiers. NCOs are split into junior (subalternes) and senior (supérieurs) grades; officers into junior, field-grade (supérieurs) and general officers. The same text applies to what it calls the "Forces Armées et de Sécurité": the army and air force, the gendarmerie and National Guard, and, since a law of 27 October 2022 militarised them, the national police and civil protection. That is why Mali has one statute but several sets of titles for the same level of authority.
Mali is not a NATO member and publishes no NATO OF/OR codes. The codes in the tables below are DefenceMENA’s mapping by analogy with French practice, which Mali’s structure closely follows; treat them as a reading aid, not an official equivalence.
Officer ranks (officiers)
| Rank (French, as in the statute) | English equivalent | Statutory group | NATO code (DefenceMENA mapping) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Général d’armée | General (highest rank) | Officier général | OF-9 |
| Général de corps d’armée | Lieutenant general | Officier général | OF-8 |
| Général de division | Major general | Officier général | OF-7 |
| Général de brigade | Brigadier general | Officier général | OF-6 |
| Colonel-major | Senior colonel | Officier supérieur | OF-5 |
| Colonel | Colonel | Officier supérieur | OF-5 |
| Lieutenant-colonel | Lieutenant colonel | Officier supérieur | OF-4 |
| Commandant (also Chef de bataillon, Chef d’escadron(s)) | Major | Officier supérieur | OF-3 |
| Capitaine | Captain | Officier subalterne | OF-2 |
| Lieutenant | Lieutenant | Officier subalterne | OF-1 |
| Sous-lieutenant | Second lieutenant | Officier subalterne | OF-1 |
| Aspirant (temporary school status) | Officer cadet | Attribut d’école | OF(D) |
Two points set Mali apart from British-style armies. First, there is no marshal rank in the statute: Général d’armée is the ceiling. Second, Colonel-major exists as a distinct step between Général de brigade and Colonel, but it is not compulsory: Article 85 lets an officer move from Colonel straight to Général de brigade (see below).
Warrant officers and NCOs (sous-officiers)
| Rank (French) | English equivalent | Statutory group | NATO code (DefenceMENA mapping) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Adjudant-chef major | Sergeant major / warrant officer class 1 | Sous-officier supérieur | OR-9 |
| Adjudant-chef | Chief warrant officer | Sous-officier supérieur | OR-8 |
| Adjudant | Warrant officer | Sous-officier supérieur | OR-7 |
| Sergent-chef (or Maréchal des logis-chef) | Staff sergeant | Sous-officier subalterne | OR-6 |
| Sergent (or Maréchal des logis) | Sergeant | Sous-officier subalterne | OR-5 |
| Élève sous-officier (school status) | NCO cadet | Attribut d’école | – |
Enlisted ranks (militaires du rang)
| Rank (French) | English equivalent | NATO code (DefenceMENA mapping) |
|---|---|---|
| Caporal-chef (or Brigadier-chef) | Lance corporal / senior corporal | OR-4 |
| Caporal (or Brigadier) | Corporal | OR-3 |
| Soldat, 1ère classe (employment level) | Private first class | OR-2 |
| Soldat, 2ème classe (employment level) | Private | OR-1 |
The entry title varies by arm or corps. The statute lists Soldat, Canonnier servant, Tireur, Cavalier, Aviateur, Garde, Gendarme auxiliaire and Sapeur as the lowest enlisted titles. Every recruit enters as a second-class private, and first class is awarded "to reward conduct, discipline, performance and turnout" (Article 5). Strictly, the statute treats first and second class as emplois (employment levels) of the lowest grade, not as separate ranks.
How gendarmerie, National Guard and police ranks differ
All of these bodies sit under the same statute, but not all use the army’s words. The table shows the pattern from the Journal officiel. Where the statute gives two names separated by "ou", it does not say which body uses which; the gendarmerie column follows customary French usage, which Mali’s statute reproduces, and should be read as such.
| Army | Gendarmerie / mounted arms | National Guard | National Police (militarised 2022) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Général de brigade to Général d’armée | Same general titles | Same general titles | Commissaire général de Brigade / Division / Corps d’Armée / d’Armée de Police |
| Colonel-major, Colonel, Lieutenant-colonel | Same | Same | Contrôleur général major, Contrôleur général, Contrôleur principal |
| Commandant | Chef d’escadron(s) | Commandant | Commissaire divisionnaire |
| Capitaine, Lieutenant, Sous-lieutenant | Same | Same | Commissaire principal, Commissaire, Sous-commissaire |
| Sergent, Sergent-chef | Maréchal des logis, Maréchal des logis-chef | Sergent, Sergent-chef | Sergent de Police, Sergent-chef de Police |
| Caporal, Caporal-chef | Brigadier, Brigadier-chef | Caporal, Caporal-chef | Brigadier de Police, Brigadier-chef de Police |
| Soldat | Gendarme auxiliaire | Garde | Gardien de paix |
The statute’s Annex 3 gives an explicit concordance between the Armed Forces and the police: a Contrôleur général major of police matches a Colonel-major, an Adjudant-chef major de Police matches an Adjudant-chef major, and a Gardien de paix matches a Soldat. A separate concordance maps civil-protection ranks (for example "Colonel Sapeur-pompier") onto the same ladder.
One practical consequence: the senior officer who now runs the whole army, Général de division Élisée Jean Dao, was promoted and appointed from the Garde nationale, not from the land army. A National Guard general and an army general hold identical rank titles and can command across the services. For the headcount of each body, see the Mali military strength profile.
Insignia
Article 5 leaves the uniform, rank badges and school badges to a ministerial order (arrêté) issued by the minister responsible. We could not find that order or any official public chart of Malian insignia, so this guide does not describe badge designs from memory. Rank titles above are verified from the statute; the physical insignia are not.
How promotion and entry work
The statute sets the rules in outline and delegates the detail:
- Entry conditions (Article 3): exclusively Malian nationality, civic rights, a minimum age of 18, the physical aptitude required, and no final conviction to a serious penalty.
- Initial engagement (Article 43): not less than five years, including a two-year probation.
- Officers (Article 46): recruited through the military officer schools, or by promotion from senior NCOs of at least Adjudant-chef rank holding the required professional certificate.
- Career NCOs (Article 47): recruited through military schools for the gendarmerie, police and civil protection, or promoted from certificate holders; contract NCOs can be admitted as career NCOs after ten years’ service, five of them in the NCO category.
- Enlisted (Article 50): by selection among young Malians who meet the entry conditions.
- Progression (Article 85): promotion normally moves one grade at a time, with three exceptions: Caporal to Sergent, Adjudant-chef to Sous-lieutenant, and Colonel to Général de brigade.
- Who signs (Article 88): general officers are promoted by decree in the Council of Ministers; other officers by presidential decree; NCOs by order of the minister; enlisted by decision of the service chief.
- Retirement ages (Annex 2): general officers 62 (early) to 65 (mandatory); field-grade 59 to 62; junior officers 57 to 60; enlisted 47 to 50.
The statute also allows "exceptional" promotions. In the Council of Ministers of 16 October 2024, Assimi Goïta was promoted Général d’armée, Sadio Camara, Malick Diaw, Ismaël Wagué and Modibo Koné became Généraux de corps d’armée, and Abdoulaye Maïga became Général de division (VOA Afrique). On 6 May 2026 the government promoted Général de brigade Élisée Jean Dao to Général de division "à titre exceptionnel" the same day it named him Chief of the General Staff.
Pay follows the same ladder through an index grid (Annex 1). Mid-career examples: a Sous-lieutenant starts at index 900, a Capitaine runs 1,020 to 1,100, an Adjudant-chef 675 to 775, a Sergent 555 to 655, and a Caporal 367 to 482; second-class privates run 306 to 406. The statute multiplies the index by a public-service point value in francs CFA; APA News reported that value rising from 400 to 470 FCFA on 9 July 2025. DefenceMENA has found no published military pay scale in francs, so no salary figure in FCFA is given here. Our French-language guide to Malian army numbers, grades and recruitment sets out the grid and its limits.
Command structure: who commands the FAMa
Only publicly stated appointments with a date are listed here.
| Post | Holder | Date and basis | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
| President and Defence portfolio | Général d’armée Assimi Goïta | Took the Ministry of Defence and Veterans on 4 May 2026 after Defence Minister Sadio Camara was killed on 25 April 2026 (France 24; Ledjely) | Reported by several outlets |
| Ministère délégué à la Défense | Général Oumar Diarra, former Chief of the General Staff | Named by decree reported 4 May 2026 | Reported |
| Chef d’État-major général des Armées | Général de division Élisée Jean Dao (Garde nationale) | Presidential decree n°2026-0276/PT-RM, 6 May 2026 (Journal officiel) | Official |
| Directeur général de la Gendarmerie nationale | Général de brigade Moussa Toumani Koné | Appointed 8 February 2023; still named in that role in a July 2025 source; not re-verified for October 2026 | Last confirmed July 2025 |
The statute names the services as armies and bodies "forming corps" (armées et services formant corps). In practice the public-facing components are the land army, the air force, the National Guard and the gendarmerie. We did not verify the current heads of the land army, air force or National Guard, and we omit them rather than rely on outdated lists. Unit locations and regional commands are not covered here.
Rank comparison with neighbours
Mali uses the French-tradition ladder set by the 2023 statute. A side-by-side with Burkina Faso, Senegal, Algeria and the British-style and Arabic-Soviet systems is in the African military ranks comparison, where every column is labelled by how firmly it is sourced; another African army at war is covered in Sudan army ranks.
A note on the numbers
The rank titles, categories, promotion rules, age limits and pay indices come directly from the Journal officiel of 24 March 2023, which we read in full for Article 5 and Annexes 1 to 3. The NATO OF/OR codes are our own mapping; Mali publishes none. Where sources disagree, the statute wins: Wikipedia’s page on Malian ranks lists the senior NCO rank as "Major" and treats first-class and second-class soldiers as ranks, whereas the statute names it Adjudant-chef major and treats the classes as employment levels. Leadership data come from a government communiqué (6 May 2026) and press reports of decrees (October 2024, May 2026); we did not see the original decrees for the 4 May 2026 appointments. The identity of the current Gendarmerie director general is last confirmed in July 2025. The neighbour comparison relies on Wikipedia transcriptions of Burkina Faso, Senegalese and Algerian texts, which we did not check against the primary documents. We could not verify: the physical insignia, any official FCFA salary by rank, and the current heads of the land army, air force and National Guard.
Sources
- Journal officiel de la République du Mali, 24 March 2023: Ordonnance n°2023-015/PT-RM portant Statut général des militaires (accessed 27 October 2026)
- Journal officiel du Mali, décret n°2026-0276/PT-RM du 6 mai 2026 (nomination du chef d’état-major général des armées) (accessed 27 October 2026)
- New Afrique, Mali: communiqué du Conseil des ministres du 6 mai 2026 (CM n°2026-18/SGG) (accessed 27 October 2026)
- VOA Afrique, Le président malien de la transition, Assimi Goïta, et ses alliés promus généraux, 17 October 2024 (accessed 27 October 2026)
- France 24, Mali leader Assimi Goïta assumes role of defence minister after attacks kill previous minister, 4 May 2026 (accessed 27 October 2026)
- Ledjely, Mali: Assimi Goïta désormais président et ministre de la Défense, 5 May 2026 (accessed 27 October 2026)
- France 24, Au Mali, un hommage national rendu au ministre de la Défense Sadio Camara, 30 April 2026 (accessed 27 October 2026)
- Embassy of China in Mali, meeting with the Director General of the Gendarmerie nationale du Mali, 7 July 2025 (accessed 27 October 2026)
- APA News, Mali: la valeur indiciaire relevée à 470 FCFA, July 2025 (accessed 27 October 2026)
- Wikipedia, Military ranks of Mali (pointer only; accessed 27 October 2026)
- Wikipedia, Military ranks of Burkina Faso (pointer only; accessed 27 October 2026)
- Wikipedia, Military ranks of Senegal (pointer only; accessed 27 October 2026)
- Wikipedia, Military ranks of Algeria (pointer only; accessed 27 October 2026)
Related reading
- Mali military strength in 2026
- Mali defence budget
- Mali air force aircraft
- Armée malienne : effectifs, grades et recrutement (FR)
- African military ranks comparison
- Sudan army ranks
- Strongest militaries in West Africa
- Why Mali expanded its drone fleet
