O-3 without dependents, nearest stations0 – $5,331 / month
San Francisco$5,331
New York City$5,112
Northern New Jersey$4,938
Santa Clara County$4,860
Nantucket$4,842
Boston$4,815
Long Island$4,644
Maui County$4,608
Hanscom AFB$4,371
Martha's Vineyard$4,371
Youngstown$1,344
Boston is #7 of 338. The spread between
the dearest and cheapest station at this grade is $3,987 a month —
$47,844 a year, untaxed.
Every pay grade at Boston0 – $5,241 / month
E-1$3,258
E-2$3,258
E-3$3,258
E-4$3,258
E-5$3,615
E-6$3,948
E-7$4,365
E-8$4,803
E-9$4,809
W-1$4,191
W-2$4,800
W-3$4,812
W-4$4,833
W-5$4,968
O-1E$4,788
O-2E$4,806
O-3E$4,818
O-1$3,894
O-2$4,644
O-3$4,815
O-4$4,941
O-5$5,019
O-6$5,148
O-7$5,241
Promoting to O-4 here adds $126 a
month. The pay chart moves this allowance far less than the map does.
01
Where you are stationed outweighs what you are paid. Moving from Boston to San Francisco at O-3 is worth $516 a month — about 4 promotions worth of housing allowance, at $126 per grade here.
02
Dependency status is worth 7% here. That is a status your finance office determines, not a box you tick — and it is the single largest lever on this page that is not a change of address.
03
None of it is taxed. $4,815 a month of BAH takes more than $4,815 of basic pay to match, which is why comparing a civilian salary against military base pay alone understates the gap.
Ad slot — in-content, after the answerPlaced below the number, never above it. VA-loan and PCS-move advertisers bid here.
Things the rate table doesn't tell you
01
“With dependents” is a dependency status, not a marital status. A single member paying child support can be authorized BAH-Diff; a married dual-military couple with no children is not automatically the with-dependents rate for both. If your situation is unusual, your finance office decides — not this table.
02
O-8, O-9 and O-10 draw the same BAH as O-7. The table stops there for a reason, not because it is missing rows.
03
This is CONUS BAH only. Overseas is OHA, which works differently — it reimburses actual rent up to a cap, with separate utility and move-in allowances. Alaska and Hawaii are BAH; Germany, Japan and Korea are OHA.