W-3 without dependents, nearest stations0 – $5,301 / month
San Francisco$5,301
Seattle$3,549
Portsmouth$3,519
West Palm Beach$3,519
Vandenberg SFB$3,498
Washington$3,471
Burlington$3,453
Riverside$3,453
Vallejo$3,435
Portland$3,423
Youngstown$1,341
Washington is #37 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 Washington0 – $4,071 / month
E-1$2,409
E-2$2,409
E-3$2,409
E-4$2,409
E-5$2,832
E-6$3,057
E-7$3,099
E-8$3,261
E-9$3,447
W-1$3,096
W-2$3,258
W-3$3,471
W-4$3,777
W-5$3,876
O-1E$3,129
O-2E$3,405
O-3E$3,753
O-1$3,054
O-2$3,126
O-3$3,531
O-4$3,855
O-5$3,909
O-6$3,999
O-7$4,071
Promoting to W-4 here adds $306 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 Washington to San Francisco at W-3 is worth $1,830 a month — about 6 promotions worth of housing allowance, at $306 per grade here.
02
Dependency status is worth 16% 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. $3,471 a month of BAH takes more than $3,471 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.