Between 2001 and the end of U.S. operations in Afghanistan in 2021, roughly 2,450–2,460 U.S. troops were killed in the conflict.

Key numbers at a glance

  • About 2,459–2,465 U.S. service members died in and directly supporting the Afghanistan war, depending on how support operations and locations are counted.
  • Of these, around 1,920+ were killed in combat or other hostile action; the rest died from non‑hostile causes such as accidents, illness, or other incidents.
  • More than 20,000 U.S. troops were wounded in action during the war.

Why different totals exist

  • The U.S. Department of Defense lists about 2,465 deaths tied to Operation Enduring Freedom and Operation Freedom’s Sentinel, including some who died while supporting Afghanistan operations from outside the country.
  • Other tallies that focus strictly on deaths in Afghanistan itself or exclude certain support missions give totals closer to 2,400–2,456.
  • Independent databases and later analyses use slightly different inclusion rules (for example, whether to count intelligence personnel or all contractors), which creates small variations in the headline number.

Broader human cost (context)

While your question is specifically about U.S. troops, the war’s full toll was far larger.

  • Thousands of allied (non‑U.S.) soldiers from NATO and partner countries were killed.
  • Research estimates tens of thousands of Afghan civilians and tens of thousands of Afghan security forces were killed over the course of the war.

Simple takeaway

If you’re looking for a single, widely cited figure people use in news and discussions, it is that about 2,460 U.S. troops died in the Afghanistan war between 2001 and 2021.

Information gathered from public forums or data available on the internet and portrayed here.