W-3 without dependents, nearest stations0 – $5,301 / month
San Francisco$5,301
Fort Drum$1,899
Lansing$1,899
Little Rock$1,893
Auburn$1,881
Grand Forks$1,875
Johnson City$1,860
Fort Benning$1,854
County Cost Group 760$1,851
Robins AFB$1,839
Youngstown$1,341
Grand Forks is #242 of 338. The spread between
the dearest and cheapest station at this grade is $3,960 a month —
$47,520 a year, untaxed.
Every pay grade at Grand Forks0 – $2,214 / month
E-1$1,233
E-2$1,233
E-3$1,233
E-4$1,233
E-5$1,299
E-6$1,500
E-7$1,554
E-8$1,791
E-9$1,863
W-1$1,518
W-2$1,788
W-3$1,875
W-4$2,013
W-5$2,091
O-1E$1,728
O-2E$1,848
O-3E$1,995
O-1$1,329
O-2$1,662
O-3$1,902
O-4$2,070
O-5$2,109
O-6$2,178
O-7$2,214
Promoting to W-4 here adds $138 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 Grand Forks to San Francisco at W-3 is worth $3,426 a month — about 25 promotions worth of housing allowance, at $138 per grade here.
02
Dependency status is worth 17% 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. $1,875 a month of BAH takes more than $1,875 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.