2020 Basic Allowance for Housing (BAH) Rates

2019 Military BAH Rates Increasing By 2.9% Again

In 2019, Basic Allowance for Housing (BAH) rates will be increasing by about 2.9% on average, which is the same rate that they increased last year, and with the rates going into affect on January 1st, 2019. Service Members will first see the increase in their paycheck on January 15th, 2019.

As we mentioned last year, Congress continues attacking BAH pay, reducing the rates from covering 99% of housing costs in years past, to 2019’s rate of just 95% of total housing costs. Fortunately, this is the final reduction in the plans, so you shouldn’t see a further drop in the years ahead.

It’s honestly kind of pathetic that the Government seeks to cut costs by directly attacking BAH pay, which is so important to personnel and their families, but this is how Politics works in the modern United States.

While we’d probably all prefer to build a few fewer useless tanks each year, apparently that hurts Politician’s reelection chances more than taking an incremental amount of funding away from military personnel themselves…

While You’re Here…

While you’re here… if you’re struggling to pay off the balances of your student loans, make sure to look at the other pages of my site dedicated to helping Military Personnel get out of debt as quickly as possible.

You’ll definitely want to visit my pages on Military Student Loan Forgiveness Programs and the Military College Loan Repayment Program, but if those programs can’t help, then your best bet is looking into the Public Service Loan Forgiveness Program.

Two other great options to consider are Applying for a Borrower’s Defense Against Repayment Discharge, if you feel that your school defrauded you, or Filing for a Student Loan Bankruptcy Discharge if you feel that there’s simply no way to ever pay off your debt.

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What is Basic Allowance for Housing?

For those of you who don’t know – basic allowance for housing is the Forever GI Bill housing allowance offered to everyone who’s enrolled in the general benefits program.

BAH benefits are offered to military personnel who don’t live in government-provided housing (like on-base housing), but who instead want to rent or pay a mortgage on their own private property.

The trick with BAH pay is that it’s set based on your location, so those personnel living in areas with higher costs of living will receive more money each month, while those living in cheaper areas receive less.

In addition, BAH rates fluctuate based on pay grade (rank) and whether or not personnel have dependents (this is why people say that the military pays you to have a family, and why so many military personnel get married and start having kids so quickly).

The Government sets a new BAH rate each year by surveying the cost of rental properties in specific geographic locations, averaging the prices and issuing a dollar amount based on the cost to live in that area.

What Are The Actual BAH Rates For 2019?

Check out the BAH Calculator at MilitaryBenefits.info for specifics on BAH pay rates by zip code.

You’ll need to input your Duty Zip Code and Pay Grade, but their calculator will then spit out all the details you need to determine just how much you’ll receive for BAH.

Also, when it comes time to planning your budget, keep in mind that with recent regulatory and rules changes, the same BAH rate may go a lot less far than you’re used to, since there’s no more double-dipping allowed.

Congress Launches All-Out Attack on BAH Pay

While the Pentagon fought against it, a couple years back the U.S. Senate passed a new law attacking Basic Allowance for Housing rates and significantly reducing their utility.

Currently, BAH offers a set amount of money per month, which is supposed to be used for rent and utilities, but which individual service members can allocate however they see fit after it’s been handed over.

This new change to the program is set to change the benefits so that they only cover actual expenses, meaning that service personnel will have to hand over copies of their rent payments, mortgage payments, and actual utilities bills, and only be paid up to whatever was actually spent on these expenses.

Proposed Additional Cuts to BAH Benefits

Furthermore, military personnel sharing housing will have their allowances divided by the number of service members living in the shared space, which is a significant departure from the current guidelines that allow everyone in the household to receive the full amount of BAH benefits they qualify for.

This change could cost individual service personnel hundreds to potentially thousands of dollars per month, and removes any incentives for personnel to try and reduce their out of pocket costs for housing and utilities.

As such, it’s definitely a step in the wrong direction, and we see absolutely no reason for the changes other than greed. Unfortunately, Washington Politicians are likely to continue cutting military benefits of all sorts, from education benefits to housing benefits, until there is major pushback from voters across the country.

What Were The BAH Rates For 2018?

In 2018, BAH Pay covered 96% of housing costs for personnel, so the new rate for 2019 represents another 1% cut in total BAY pay.

Again, as I mentioned above, the good news is that the planned cuts are finally finished now, and we shouldn’t see any further reductions (unless Congress changes their minds and starts slashing funding again).

Personally, I don’t think that President Trump or the Republican controlled Senate could get away with any more reductions, as the Military is their core constituency.

As long as Republicans retain the Senate (or take back the house in 2020), and the Presidency, I think BAH is safe where it currently stands for at least some time.

What Were The BAH Rates For 2017?

In 2017, the military received a 2.4% increase in BAH rates, which went into effect January 1st, 2017.

But Congress also announced that they were going to attack BAH, as they felt military personnel were being overpaid, and committed to reducing the coverage of BAH pay to get it down to covering just 95% of housing costs.

And that’s a big deal, because typically, Congress makes public statements about supporting military personnel, so this was one of the first times in recent memory that we saw things headed the wrong direction.

Combined with the pulling of support for many of the service branch Student Loan Repayment Programs, it’s a bad sign that military benefits are being reduced, but one that could be expected as the need for additional personnel decreases with the winding down of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

BAH Rates By Zip Code

To view the 2018 BAH rates by zip code, use Military Benefits’s BAH Calculator.

You can use the same calculator to look at historical BAH rates as well, so you can find out what the rate was by zip code for 2017, 2016, etc.

All you have to do is choose the Year, enter your Duty Zip Code and Pay Grade, and you’ll find out exactly what your rate is for each year.

What if My Rate Dropped?

Each year when the new BAH rates are posted, service personnel across the country bemoan the fact that their personal rate has decreased, but we’ve got good news about that…

There is a program in place offering individual rate protection, so that if the rates in your area happen to drop, you won’t have to worry, because you’ll continue to receive the amount you were receiving last year.

Only personnel who are newly reporting to the area will receive the lower BAH rate.

BAH Rates Charts

If you want to see the BAH Rate Charts, check out the Military Benefits’s page on BAH Pay here.

You’ll be able to see rates for personnel with and without dependents, once that’s all been released by the DOD (at the time of writing, the 2018 rates hadn’t been finalized yet).

BAH Rates Component Breakdown

If you want to pour over the nitty-gritty details and find out exactly how your area’s BAH rate was calculated, then take a look at the following PDFs, which break down the overall BAH rates into their three component pieces (Rent, Utilities and Insurance):

• 2017 BAH Rates Component Breakdown
• 2016 BAH Rates Component Breakdown
• 2015 BAH Rates Component Breakdown

As you can see in the above PDFs, Rent is by far the most important component when calculating BAH, accounting for about 65-75% of the total allowance, while Utilities make up about 25%, of the total BAH rate.

Insurance has been removed from this year’s components breakdown since it has historically been such a small component to the total amount (around just 1-3%).

The Official DOD 2018 BAH Fact Sheet

The 2018 BAH Fact sheet isn’t out yet, but should be released some time in December.

The Official DOD 2017 BAH Fact Sheet

You can check the 2017 version of the BAH Fact Sheet here.

The Official DOD 2016 BAH Fact Sheet

If you want to get your info straight from the horse’s mouth, please feel free to review the Department of Defense’s  official BAH Fact Sheet, which you can find here.

Frequently Asked Questions

Below are some of the most common questions regarding Basic Allowance for Housing. Please note that these questions and answers were paraphrased from the official DOD website for BAH pay, which you can find here.

Who is Eligible for BAH Pay?

Anyone assigned to permanent duty within the 50 United States who is not receiving government housing.

Members stationed overseas (except Hawaii and Alaska), including U.S. territories and possessions who are not receiving government housing are also eligible, but for something slightly different, called an Overseas Housing Allowance (OHA).

If My Rate is Lower Than Last Year do I Lose Money?

We answered this one above, but since it’s a pain-point (and in case you missed it earlier in this page), the answer is NO.

You’ve got something called BAH rate protection, which guarantees that you will not receive any reduction in BAH pay as long as you maintain “uninterrupted eligibility” for it.

Can I Lose BAH Rate Protection?

Yes, and quite easily actually. There are three ways to lose BAH rate protection:

1. Being transferred to a new duty station where the BAH rate is lower than your previous location. You will be reassigned to the new BAH rate for the area, receiving less money if that areas rate is lower. Technically, the Government claims that you aren’t really losing anything, since they’ve determined that the new area has a lower cost of living, but we all know how that goes…
2. If you are demoted, your BAH rate will be reduced to the lower pay grade.
3. If your dependency status changes (and you no longer have dependents), then your BAH pay is guaranteed to be reduced.

Does Rate Protection Prevent Increases Too?

Of course not. Do you know how much complaining there would be if it did?

If I Get Promoted, do I Get the Higher Amount?

When you’re promoted, your BAH rate will be adjusted to whatever the current BAH rate is for your new higher pay grade.

However, if you get promoted and are serving in a duty station where the current BAH rate for your new grade is lower than what you were receiving before, you’ll continue to receive the larger amount.

How Much Does BAH Change Each Year?

Typically the BAH rate doesn’t change that much each year, since rental prices across the country tend to change only between about 2-5%, unless there’s an exceptionally “hot” market where rents could spike up 5-10%.

This year the rate increased substantially less than it has in many recent years, which is unsettling to say the least, especially when so many military families count on the increase in BAH pay to make the rent, or mortgage.

What if I Still Have Out of Pocket Expenses?

You’re going to, almost guaranteed.

BAH isn’t designed to subsidize your housing 100%. It was designed to offer some assistance in helping you secure housing, and its been set at an average rate for your area.

If you happen to rent a much nicer house than the average place that was surveyed, then you’ll likely end up with out of pocket expenses.

Conversely, if you serve in an extremely nice duty station, but find an extremely cheap place to live, you’ll end up with more BAH pay than you need for rent, and can spend the money on something else.

My BAH Rate Doesn’t Come Close to Covering My Mortgage!

That’s probably true, unless you bought a fixer upper.

BAH rates are set based on rental data, not mortgages, and monthly mortgage payments tend to be higher than rental rates, especially when you factor in the costs of actually owning (and maintaining) property.

Don’t expect for BAH to cover your mortgage payments, or you’ll end up in hot water.

Where does BAH Data Come From?

The Government collects data from “multiple sources”, and claims that there are “checks and balances” in place to ensure its accuracy.

They claim to randomly survey residential vacancies listed in local newspapers and real estate rental listings, as well as telephone interviews and other means to ensure a 95% confidence level in the accuracy of their data.

Are BAH rates perfectly set for every area? Probably not.

What Gets Included in the BAH Rate Calculation?

We mentioned this above, but there are three components to the calculation for BAH pay:

1. Average rent prices for the area
2. Average utilities bills for the area
3. Average renters insurance costs for the area

When is Data Collected?

Each year, in the spring and summer while housing markets are most active.

This typically helps the rate get set a little higher than it would if they collected the data during the Winter when housing markets are relatively flat, or even depressed.

Does Family Size Matter?

No. The only thing that matters in determining your personal BAH rate is whether or not you have ANY dependents.

If you have 1 dependent, or 10 of them, you’ll still receive the same rate.

So – while the Government (and the military) are effectively promoting starting a family here, it’s a bit of a mixed message, because they aren’t subsidizing starting a huge family.

Does BAH Guarantee that my Private Residence is as Nice as Military Housing?

No. You may end up living somewhere that’s not nearly as nice as the on-base housing, but you could also end up living somewhere that’s far superior to base housing.

BAH rates are determined based on the average for the area, if you remember, so you can play the game of living in a cheaper part of a nice area to save some BAH money for other expenses, or you can live in a nicer than average place in your area and end up spending a little bit of money out of pocket for that added comfort.

Why is BAH Based on Duty Location Instead of Resident Location?

Politics.

Will Living in a Crappier Area Reduce BAH Rates for Others at My Duty Station?

No.

BAH rates are not set based on actual personnel’s living expenses, but on the average cost for anyone living in the area.

If your friends move out to the sticks to reduce their own expenses and save some of the money they were offered via BAH benefits, that won’t cause your BAH pay to get decreased next year, so don’t hold it against them.

Why do People in Other Cities Get More Than Me if Living Here is More Expensive?

It probably isn’t.

The rates are set scientifically, using random surveys and calculations.

You probably aren’t using a large enough sample size to get an accurate idea of how much it costs to live where you live, compared to how much it costs to live where they live.

I Need More BAH!

No, you don’t.

And you won’t get more either.

If the BAH you’re receiving isn’t covering enough of your expenses, then it’s time to downsize.

How are Duty Stations / Local Areas Defined?

Zip codes.

If My Spouse and I are Both Service Personnel and We Have Two Children, Can We Collect Two Full-Rate BAH?

No.

One of you will be allowed to collect full-rate BAH, while the other will only be able to collect single BAH.

This is according to the rules governing allocation of dependents.

What is BAH-Diff?

BAH-DIFF is the housing allowance amount authorized for personnel who are assigned to single-type quarters, but who are authorized to collect BAH pay only because they’re paying child support.

If I’m Divorced, but Have Children, Do I Get BAH With Dependents?

Your rate will be determined based on the following factors: whether or not you have legal and physical custody of your children, pay child support, and/or live in single-type government quarters.

If you have legal and physical custody of the kids, you’ll receive BAH at the with dependents rate as long as you are not assigned family-type government quarters.

If your ex has custody and you are paying child support (at a level high enough to be determined as “adequate” based on the BAH-DIFF rate), then you’ll receive BAH at the with dependents rate if you are not in government quarters, and you’ll receive BAH-DIFF if you’re assigned to single-type government quarters.

If I’m Divorced, My Ex is a Service Member, and We Share Legal Custody of Children, Can We Both Receive BAH With Dependents?

No.

Both members may not receive a housing allowance at the BAH with dependents rate based on the same dependent.

When you share legal and physical custody of a child, each parent will be authorized BAH at the with dependents rate during the period of time that the child is  actually in their custody.

This gets a bit complicated, but it works out so that you’ll get some percentage of the BAH with dependents rate, based on the amount of time you’re actually in custody of your child/children.

If I’m Divorced, My Ex has Full Custody, but I Pay Child Support, Can I Get BAH with Dependents?

No.

If you don’t have legal or physical custody of your dependents, then they don’t really count as dependents, so you will not receive BAH at the with dependents rate.

Where To Ask Other Questions?

If you need help determining your rate, or if you have any other questions about how BAH works, then please use the contact numbers below.

US Army

Army personnel should contact MACOM RM directly, using the numbers below:

• AMC – (256) 450-6577
• Army Reserve – (877) 462-7782
• Cadet Command – (757) 788-3835
• Hawaii – (808) 438-2070
• HQDA – (703) 692-7954
• TRADOC – (757) 788-5183
• USAREC – 502-626-0263 DSN: 536

US Navy

Navy personnel should contact their local PSD or command for questions about specific entitlements, but may then contact the Navy’s official BAH representative at (703) 604-5477.

US Air Force

Air Force personnel should contact the local finance office for questions about specific entitlements. They will then contact the MAJCOM for clarification, if necessary.

US Coast Guard

Coast Guard personnel should call (202) 475-5398.

US Marine Corps

Marines should contact their local finance office or command for questions about specific entitlements. If they aren’t provided a sufficient answer, they can then contact the USMC BAH representative at (703) 784-9386.

NOAA

NOAA personnel may contact their representative at (301) 713-1045.

Public Health Service

If you receive BAH pay as part of the Public Health Service, please contact your representative at (301) 427-3296.

Was it Enough?

Considering that the rate only increased .5% this year, what are your thoughts on how the Federal Government is treating military personnel?

Do you think that a half percentage point increase was fair, or was this far too little to cover the increased costs of living in your area?

Please share your thoughts in the comments section below.

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