Rates effective
01 JAN 2026 · CONUS

Basic Allowance for Housing by duty station, pay grade and dependency status. Official DoD rates, no login, no email.

Duty station or MHA

Try Fort Liberty, Cavazos, Moore or a ZIP — old and unofficial names resolve.

Or type your rank

Press Enter to look it up.

Dependents
With $1,563 Without $1,428

E-5 at China Lake draws $1,563 per month with dependents in 2026, $1,428 without

Permalink bahratedesk.com/china-lake-ca/ Excel CSV
China Lake, CA
E-5 · with dependents
$1,563/ month
$18,756 / year
At E-5, this is #270 of 338 stations · high San Francisco $5,127 · low Anniston $1,185
MHA CA021 · ZIPs 92347 93527 93528 93554 93555 93562
Your grade is called ARMYSGTUSMCSgtNAVYPO2USAFSSgt
Untaxed — matching it with taxable pay takes $2,004 / mo gross
Without dependents here $1,428 / mo
In government quarters, no dependents $50.10 / mo partial
PCS compare China Lake · E-5 · $1,563/mo
China Lake $1,563/mo · $18,756/yr
CURRENT

Pick a station below to see what the move is worth a year, before tax. Orders rarely arrive as one option — add several and rank them.

Differences are annual and untaxed. Rate protection is not applied — a PCS resets you to the new location's current-year rate.

China Lake — full sheet Tap a row

What this rate means

E-5 with dependents, nearest stations0 – $5,127 / month
San Francisco $5,127
Bismarck $1,596
Fallon NAS $1,596
County Cost Group 740 $1,590
Holloman AFB $1,590
Camp Lejeune $1,584
Lafayette $1,584
Akron $1,581
Goodfellow AFB $1,578
Fort Rucker $1,572
Peoria $1,572
China Lake $1,563
County Cost Group 730 $1,557
Sioux Falls $1,554
Johnson City $1,548
Minot AFB $1,548
Scott AFB $1,542
Champaign $1,539
County Cost Group 720 $1,536
Lexington $1,536
Sault Ste Marie $1,536
Huntington $1,533
Anniston $1,185

China Lake is #270 of 338. The spread between the dearest and cheapest station at this grade is $3,942 a month — $47,304 a year, untaxed.

Every pay grade at China Lake0 – $2,694 / month
E-1 $1,524
E-2 $1,524
E-3 $1,524
E-4 $1,524
E-5 $1,563
E-6 $1,767
E-7 $1,905
E-8 $2,058
E-9 $2,238
W-1 $1,785
W-2 $1,968
W-3 $2,157
W-4 $2,268
W-5 $2,403
O-1E $1,932
O-2E $2,130
O-3E $2,289
O-1 $1,596
O-2 $1,764
O-3 $2,154
O-4 $2,445
O-5 $2,658
O-6 $2,676
O-7 $2,694

The pay chart moves this allowance far less than the map does.

Moving from China Lake to San Francisco at E-5 is worth $3,564 a month — about 17 promotions at this grade. Where you are stationed outweighs rank, by a lot.

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.

Source: DoD Defense Travel Management Office, effective 01 JAN 2026. How these rates are sourced and checked.