A moral waiver is an action by United States armed forces officials to accept, for induction into one of the military services, a recruit who is in one or more of a list of otherwise disqualifying situations.

The mechanism dates from at least the mid-1960s, and was by no later than 1969 part of Army Regulation 601-270. There are cases when the use of large amount of moral waivers is for the purpose of meeting recruitment goals. As of 2009, the "major revision" effective in March 2007 and titled "Military Entrance Processing Station (MEPS)" remains in effect; in that revision, Chapter 9 ("Processing of Selective Service System Registrants"), Section III ("Determination of Moral Qualifications and Waivers") is primarily concerned with moral waiver.

Each disqualifying situation involves at least convictions for multiple minor traffic offenses, or conviction of a more serious charge. The waiver-granting official would be either the commanding officer of the induction center, or the commander of the national induction-center system; the regulations permit even partial discretion as to which of the two applies only in the case of serious juvenile offenses: for adverse juvenile adjudication for one or more juvenile "felonies" (where the quotation marks are part of the regulation), the induction center commander may either reject the inductee on that commander's own authority, or submit the case for consideration of a moral waiver by the national commander. A single adult felony conviction could be subject to moral waiver, at the discretion of the national commander, but multiple ones are completely disqualifying. While those convicted or were found guilty of offenses are deemed unacceptable for service, the Armed Forces Moral Waiver Determination Board can still issue an exemption and render such disqualification waivered.