Alaska is BAH, not OHA — a common mix-up when people see 'overseas-feeling' duty stations.
Basic Allowance for Housing by duty station, pay grade and dependency status. Official DoD rates, no login, no email.
Alaska is BAH, not OHA — a common mix-up when people see 'overseas-feeling' duty stations.
JB Elmendorf-Richardson is #5 of 17. The spread between the dearest and cheapest station at this grade is $2,622 a month — $31,464 a year, untaxed.
Promoting to O-3 here adds $471 a month. The pay chart moves this allowance far less than the map does.
Where you are stationed outweighs what you are paid. Moving from JB Elmendorf-Richardson to San Diego at O-2 is worth $1,512 a month — about 3 promotions worth of housing allowance, at $471 per grade here.
Dependency status is worth 26% 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.
None of it is taxed. $2,889 a month of BAH takes more than $2,889 of basic pay to match, which is why comparing a civilian salary against military base pay alone understates the gap.
“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.
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.
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.