O-5 without dependents, nearest stations0 – $6,162 / month
Westchester County$6,162
Savannah$2,694
Detroit$2,688
Fort Collins$2,688
Buffalo$2,676
Helena$2,670
Patuxent River$2,670
Charleston$2,664
Rochester$2,652
Eugene$2,643
Youngstown$1,593
Helena is #134 of 338. The spread between
the dearest and cheapest station at this grade is $4,569 a month —
$54,828 a year, untaxed.
Every pay grade at Helena0 – $2,802 / month
E-1$1,515
E-2$1,515
E-3$1,515
E-4$1,515
E-5$1,572
E-6$1,902
E-7$1,968
E-8$2,037
E-9$2,211
W-1$1,917
W-2$2,016
W-3$2,235
W-4$2,550
W-5$2,643
O-1E$1,977
O-2E$2,169
O-3E$2,529
O-1$1,614
O-2$1,971
O-3$2,298
O-4$2,619
O-5$2,670
O-6$2,754
O-7$2,802
Promoting to O-6 here adds $84 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 Helena to Westchester County at O-5 is worth $3,492 a month — about 42 promotions worth of housing allowance, at $84 per grade here.
02
Dependency status is worth 21% 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. $2,670 a month of BAH takes more than $2,670 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.