The USS Abraham Lincoln will shift its home port from San Diego to Naval Base Kitsap-Bremerton in Washington, according to a recent Navy announcement. The relocation is expected to be completed later this year.

The Navy plans to execute the relocation as a permanent change of station for the aircraft carrier’s crew and their family members. The move has been planned for some time, but uncertainty over its timing left many families waiting for answers.

That uncertainty grew after the USS Abraham Lincoln’s routine six month deployment was extended twice. The extensions followed the joint launch of Operation Epic Fury by the United States and Israel on Feb. 28.

The aircraft carrier ultimately returned to San Diego, California, on Oct. 8. By that point, the ship had spent 322 days at sea, including 265 consecutive days without a port call.

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The prolonged deployment placed additional attention on the carrier’s sailors and their families as they prepared for the looming transfer to Washington. The lack of a clear relocation timeline became a particular concern for family members.

During an August town hall meeting in San Diego, family members raised those concerns with Acting Secretary of the Navy Hung Cao and other senior officials. They expressed frustration with Navy officials about reported food shortages, concerns involving self harm and confusion surrounding the Washington move.

The Navy said the home port change is part of its “strategic dispersal of ships.” The service also connected the transfer with a planned period of maintenance for the carrier.

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“Regularly scheduled depot-level maintenance maximizes the lifespan of our Navy vessels and keeps our fleets lethal, modern, and ready to defend the nation. The work conducted during the maintenance period will maximize the lifespan of Abraham Lincoln and re-establish the carrier at the highest state of material and combat readiness.”

The announcement did not provide a start date for that maintenance period. It did, however, make clear that the work is intended to return the Abraham Lincoln to the Navy’s highest level of material and combat readiness.

Naval Base Kitsap is the Navy’s third largest Fleet Concentration Area, according to the installation’s website. The website also describes Kitsap as the Navy’s most complex multi mission installation.

Once the relocation is completed, the USS Abraham Lincoln will join another Nimitz-class aircraft carrier at Kitsap. The USS Ronald Reagan is already based at the Washington installation.

Image Credit: DoW

The Lincoln’s change of station follows an unusually lengthy period at sea and a combat mission that received recognition at the highest level. On Oct. 7, War Secretary Pete Hegseth announced that the carrier strike group had received the Presidential Unit Citation.

The Presidential Unit Citation is the military’s highest valor award for a unit. Hegseth announced the honor one day before the carrier reached shore while visiting the approximately 5,000 sailors aboard the Lincoln.

Hegseth cited the carrier strike group’s “historic mission” when presenting the recognition. He said the mission included completing “3,693 combat flights, sinking 64 Iranian warships, launching 450 Tomahawk land attack cruise missiles and shooting down 77 one-way aerial attack drones.”

The award highlighted the scale of the operations completed before the carrier’s return to San Diego. The ship’s next major transition will now bring its crew and families north as the Navy prepares for the permanent home port shift and the scheduled maintenance period.

For those families, the Navy’s announcement provides an expected completion window after months of uncertainty surrounding the move. The service still has not identified when the maintenance work will begin, leaving that portion of the carrier’s upcoming schedule unresolved.

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