What the 2026 tables are
Basic Allowance for Housing is the military's monthly housing payment, and it is repriced every year. For 2026 the process worked the way it always does: the Defense Department surveyed rental costs in 366 military housing areas, covering apartments and rental houses sized to each pay grade, and rebuilt every rate from that data. The new tables took effect January 1, 2026.
Because the tables are built from local data, there is no single national raise. San Diego moved with San Diego rents; Panama City moved with Panama City rents. That local pricing is the whole point: the allowance is supposed to reflect what housing actually costs where you are stationed, not a national average.
How to read your row
Every BAH table has three dimensions. Down the left side are pay grades, from E-1 through O-10. Across the top are two columns, with dependents and without dependents. And each military housing area gets its own table. Find your grade, pick your column, and read the number where they meet.
Two wrinkles in the grade list: E-1 and E-2 share a rate, and the officer table caps at O-7, so O-8 through O-10 are all paid the O-7 amount. The dependent columns are binary: one dependent draws the same with-dependents rate as six.
The same rank, five different paychecks
Take an E-5 with dependents in the 2026 tables. In San Diego the rate is $3,975 a month. In Honolulu it is $3,663. In the Washington DC metro area it is $3,132. In Panama City it is $2,163. At the national flat rate, paid when no locality applies, it is $1,403.70. One rank, one family situation, five numbers, and the San Diego rate is nearly three times the flat rate (3,975 divided by 1,403.70 is about 2.83).
The grade curve matters too. In San Diego with dependents, an E-1 draws $3,666, an E-5 draws $3,975, and an O-3 draws $4,518. The E-5 to O-3 step is $543 a month, or $6,516 a year, which reflects the larger housing the officer grades are sized for.
Rate protection, in plain English
Here is the rule that surprises people: if the new annual table for your area comes in lower than what you were getting, you keep your old rate as long as you stay stationed there. Only new arrivals get the lower number. When rates rise, everyone moves to the new table. So two members of the same rank in the same area can briefly draw different BAH, and the one who has been there longer is the one with the higher check.
Rate protection ends when you PCS. A move puts you on the new area's table at whatever it pays now, with no carryover from the old station.
How to get your exact 2026 rate
Examples are useful for understanding the system, but your number comes from your specific combination of grade, dependents, and location. The calculator on this site looks up the official 2026 tables for major duty stations and the national flat rate, and its reverse mode shows what share of your rent that rate covers. Run your own numbers with the free BAH calculator, and read how the dependents column works if your family situation is changing.