Look up your exact 2026 or 2025 Basic Allowance for Housing by ZIP code or base, pay grade, and dependents — official DoD rates, with rate protection.
Rates are the official DoD BAH figures for the selected year, effective 1 January. BAH is tax-free and set by pay grade, Military Housing Area, and dependency status — not by branch of service. Rate protection is shown as DoD describes it; your servicing finance office confirms what you are actually paid.
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Basic Allowance for Housing (BAH) is a tax-free monthly allowance that helps U.S. service members cover housing when they live off-base. Your rate depends on three things: your pay grade, your duty ZIP code's Military Housing Area (MHA), and whether you have dependents. Enter your ZIP — or pick your base — to look up your exact 2026 or 2025 rate straight from the official DoD tables. If you were already stationed there on 31 December, this calculator also applies rate protection, so the figure you see is what you are actually paid rather than just what the table says.
BAH is a Department of Defense housing benefit for active-duty members who live off the installation. It is non-taxable and set each year from median local rental costs plus average utilities in every Military Housing Area, so two members of the same rank can receive very different amounts depending on where they are stationed. Rates take effect 1 January and are published as calendar-year tables. This tool uses those official tables, so the figures are exact rather than estimates.
Rate Lookup
Look up BAH at a new duty station before a Permanent Change of Station so you can budget housing before you arrive — and see whether the move raises or lowers your allowance.
If your area's published rate fell this year, confirm you are being held at the prior-year rate rather than the lower new one.
Use your BAH as a housing budget so your rent and utilities stay at or below your tax-free allowance.
See how your BAH rises at the next pay grade at your current base.
BAH rates can fall — 15% of the 2026 rate cells are lower than 2025, across a third of all housing areas. If you were already at that duty station, DoD holds you at the higher prior-year rate. Most calculators show the table figure and stop; this one asks whether you are arriving or already there, and answers accordingly.
Every figure comes straight from the DoD's published 2026 and 2025 rate tables — no estimates or national averages. Spot-checked against the official DoD rate lookup, including the temporary increase for Abilene/Dyess AFB.
Enter your duty ZIP code or pick your installation; we match it to the correct Military Housing Area using the official DoD ZIP-to-MHA crosswalk, covering all 338 housing areas.
See both rates side by side and the exact monthly premium that dependents add at your location.
A chart shows BAH across ranks at your Military Housing Area, so you can see what a promotion is worth before it happens.
BAH is not a formula — the DoD sets it each year from local rental and utility surveys. Your exact rate depends on your pay grade, your duty ZIP code's Military Housing Area, and whether you have dependents. The 2026 rates took effect 1 January 2026.
No. BAH does not vary by branch of service. An E-5 with dependents in a given Military Housing Area receives exactly the same rate whether they are Army, Navy, Air Force, Marine Corps, Space Force, or Coast Guard. Only pay grade, location, and dependency status change the amount, so this one calculator answers for every branch.
Rates can go down, and 15% of the 2026 rate cells are lower than their 2025 figure. But you do not lose money if you are already there: DoD authorises the larger of the 1 January rate for your grade and location, or the allowance you were paid on 31 December. Only members arriving at the location, or whose eligibility is interrupted, receive a lower new rate.
Three things end it: a PCS to a different location, a reduction in pay grade (promotions never lower your allowance), or a change in dependency status. In each case your allowance is recomputed from the current published table for your new circumstances.
No. BAH is a non-taxable allowance for active-duty members, which makes it worth more than the same amount of taxable pay. It also does not count as wages for Social Security or Medicare.
It is not designed to. DoD sets BAH so that members absorb a share of housing costs: the published national out-of-pocket amounts are computed as a reduction of five percent of the national mean for each pay grade. In an expensive local market your own gap can be larger, because the rate is tied to the area median rather than to the specific home you rent.
Yes. Rates rise with pay grade because the DoD assumes higher grades rent larger or higher-quality housing. In San Diego, for example, an O-5 with dependents receives far more than an E-4. O-7 and above share a single rate, which is why this calculator lists them as one option, exactly as the official DoD lookup does.
Members with dependents receive a higher rate than those without at the same grade and location. The size of the gap is set locally, not nationally — the calculator shows both rates and the exact monthly difference for your area.
An MHA is a local rental market the DoD prices BAH for. Every U.S. ZIP code maps to one of 338 MHAs; this tool uses the official DoD ZIP-to-MHA crosswalk to find yours. Your MHA is set by your duty station, not by where you choose to live.
Those are non-locality rates, which are not tied to a Military Housing Area and so are not covered here. Partial BAH goes to members in government quarters without dependents; BAH-DIFF applies to members paying child support who live in single-type quarters; BAH RC/T covers reserve component and transient members. DoD publishes them as a separate non-locality rate table.
Locality BAH covers the 50 United States. Overseas assignments use the Overseas Housing Allowance (OHA), which works differently — it reimburses actual rent up to a cap and includes a utility and move-in allowance. If a ZIP does not resolve here, that is usually why.
It is based on BAH but is not the same benefit. The GI Bill monthly housing allowance uses the BAH rate for an E-5 with dependents at the ZIP code of the school, not your own grade or duty station, and it is prorated by rate of pursuit. Use this calculator to find that E-5 with-dependents figure for the school's ZIP, then check the VA for how the proration applies to you.