The US military has its own EMC standard: MIL STD 461, "REQUIREMENTS FOR THE CONTROL OF ELECTROMAGNETIC INTERFERENCE CHARACTERISTICS OF SUBSYSTEMS AND EQUIPMENT". At the time of writing issue G is current. As the US military is a large customer of many types of equipment, it is common for other military customers to include compliance to MIL STD 461 rather than writing their own specifications.

The standard is limited to providing complete test requirements, rather than supporting other activities such as EMC management, but it does include a series of explanatory paragraphs for each test in an Appendix. This guidance gives "a rationale for requirements, guidance in applying the requirements, and lessons learned from platform and laboratory experience".

As with the UK's DEF STAN 59-411 it includes a matrix of CE, RE, CS and RS tests which can be selected as required for each project. It also, as with the DEF STAN, specifies limits and levels for particular environments. Although some of the tests are similar between the two, there are some quite significant differences, for instance in frequency ranges and in types of tests, and in the detailed performance of each test. It is not possible to say that one standard is more or less stringent than the other.

Because the individual tests have requirements that can be interpreted and tailored depending on the equipment to be tested, it is necessary for each equipment's test to refer to a test plan which details the tests to be performed, their levels and limits, and the operation and configuration of the equipment under test.

The requirements overview below is from Table IV of the standard.