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.
Comparison uses with-dependents rates. Differences are annual and untaxed.
Rate protection is not applied — a PCS resets you to the new location's current-year rate.
O-2 with dependents, nearest stations0 – $5,451 / month
San Francisco$5,451
St. Louis$2,652
Savannah$2,649
Knoxville$2,646
Richmond$2,625
Charleston$2,613
Pittsburgh$2,601
Detroit$2,580
County Cost Group 830$2,577
Asheville$2,568
Elizabeth City$2,559
Norfolk$2,556
Brunswick$2,553
Buffalo$2,550
Spokane$2,550
Patuxent River$2,544
Twenty Nine Palms MCB$2,544
Birmingham$2,529
Fort Collins$2,529
Helena$2,526
Cincinnati$2,523
Eglin AFB$2,523
Youngstown$1,332
Norfolk is #129 of 338. The spread between the
dearest and cheapest station at this grade is $4,119 a month —
$49,428 a year, untaxed.
Every pay grade at Norfolk0 – $3,366 / month
E-1$2,229
E-2$2,229
E-3$2,229
E-4$2,229
E-5$2,430
E-6$2,559
E-7$2,604
E-8$2,661
E-9$2,796
W-1$2,574
W-2$2,628
W-3$2,697
W-4$2,832
W-5$3,000
O-1E$2,613
O-2E$2,685
O-3E$2,859
O-1$2,454
O-2$2,556
O-3$2,694
O-4$3,054
O-5$3,318
O-6$3,342
O-7$3,366
The pay chart moves this allowance far less than the map does.
Moving from Norfolk to San Francisco at O-2
is worth $2,895 a month — about 21 promotions at this grade.
Where you are stationed outweighs rank, by a lot.
What the rate table does not 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.