What is BAH?
BAH is the allowance that pays toward housing for members of the armed forces. It is paid every month on top of basic pay, and it changes with where you are stationed: the same E-5 gets $1,695 a month at Fort Hood, TX and $3,132 in the Washington, DC Metro Area. The other big allowance, BAS, pays toward food and is a flat amount.
BAH is not taxable income. IRS Publication 3 lists BAH and BAS among the allowances that “aren’t includible in your gross income”, so federal income tax, Social Security and Medicare are worked out on basic pay alone. That is why the take-home pay of a service member is higher than a civilian’s on the same total.
How is BAH set?
Three things decide your BAH, and nothing else:
- Your duty station’s ZIP code. DTMO maps 40,959 ZIP codes to 338 Military Housing Areas. It is the ZIP code of your duty station that counts, not where you choose to live.
- Your pay grade. There are 24 BAH grades: E-1 to E-9, W-1 to W-5, O-1E to O-3E and O-1 to O-7. “O-7” means O-7 and above, so O-8 to O-10 get the O-7 rate.
- Dependents. Each grade in each area has two rates, with dependents and without.
The rates are set for a calendar year. DTMO publishes them as a download and through its own lookup form; the BAH calculator here uses the same 2026 table, loaded one small piece at a time.
How much is BAH in 2026?
For an E-5 and an O-3, a month, in some of the largest housing areas:
| Housing area | E-5 with | E-5 without | O-3 with | O-3 without |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| San Antonio, TX | $1,869 | $1,500 | $2,127 | $2,007 |
| Camp Pendleton, CA | $3,963 | $3,093 | $4,659 | $4,239 |
| Washington, DC Metro Area | $3,132 | $2,832 | $4,020 | $3,531 |
| Fort Hood, TX | $1,695 | $1,530 | $2,340 | $1,833 |
| Honolulu County, HI | $3,663 | $2,856 | $4,428 | $3,819 |
| Anchorage, AK | $2,874 | $2,157 | $3,360 | $2,643 |
Across all 338 areas, an E-5 with dependents gets anything from $1,185 (Anniston/Fort McClellan, AL) to $5,127 (San Francisco, CA); the middle area pays $2,061.
Why did Abilene’s BAH change in the middle of 2026?
Rates normally hold for the whole year, but in 2026 DTMO made one change: it raised the rates for Abilene/Dyess AFB, TX from May 16 to December 31: an E-5 with dependents went from $1,554 to $1,872 a month. DTMO says the new rates end on December 31, 2026, and that the 2027 rates may be different.
What about places with no BAH?
BAH covers the 50 states. Members stationed outside them get the Overseas Housing Allowance instead. In DTMO’s ZIP list, 214 ZIP codes in Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands and American Samoa map to a code with no BAH rate, and the calculators here say so instead of showing a number.
What happens to BAH when I move?
BAH follows your duty station, so new orders to another place change your housing area and your rate. An E-5 with dependents moving from San Antonio, TX to Camp Pendleton, CA goes from $1,869 to $3,963 a month, a difference of $2,094 a month or $25,128 a year. A promotion changes it too: in San Antonio, TX, an O-3 with dependents gets $2,127 against the E-5’s $1,869. The new rates each January can move it up or down as well.
How do I work out my own BAH and take-home pay?
Type your duty station’s ZIP code, grade and dependents into the BAH calculator; it can show a second ZIP code beside the first, which helps when you are moving. For your whole pay, the military pay calculator adds basic pay, BAH and BAS and takes off federal and state tax by your state of legal residence.
The calculators leave out BAH II, partial BAH and BAH-Differential, which apply in particular cases, and rate protection, which lets a member keep a higher rate from an earlier year while stationed in the same place.