O-2E without dependents, nearest stations0 – $5,268 / month
San Francisco$5,268
Topeka$1,728
County Cost Group 740$1,719
Fallon NAS$1,716
Holloman AFB$1,710
Montgomery$1,710
Seymour Johnson AFB$1,707
Sault Ste Marie$1,701
Malmstrom SFB$1,698
Lafayette$1,695
Youngstown$1,305
Montgomery is #269 of 338. The spread between
the dearest and cheapest station at this grade is $3,963 a month —
$47,556 a year, untaxed.
Every pay grade at Montgomery0 – $1,950 / month
E-1$1,269
E-2$1,269
E-3$1,269
E-4$1,269
E-5$1,431
E-6$1,527
E-7$1,605
E-8$1,704
E-9$1,713
W-1$1,590
W-2$1,701
W-3$1,719
W-4$1,764
W-5$1,833
O-1E$1,680
O-2E$1,710
O-3E$1,746
O-1$1,524
O-2$1,662
O-3$1,725
O-4$1,815
O-5$1,923
O-6$1,938
O-7$1,950
Promoting to O-3E here adds $36 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 Montgomery to San Francisco at O-2E is worth $3,558 a month — about 99 promotions worth of housing allowance, at $36 per grade here.
02
Dependency status is worth 12% 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. $1,710 a month of BAH takes more than $1,710 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.