E-5 BAH Rates: Complete Guide [2027]
An E-5’s BAH in 2026 runs from $1,185 a month (with dependents, Anniston/Fort McClellan, Alabama) to $5,127 a month (with dependents, San Francisco, California). The national median across all 338 military housing areas is $2,061 with dependents and $1,670 without. Your exact number depends on exactly three things: your duty station’s housing area, whether you have dependents, and nothing else — not how long you’ve served, not how many kids you have, not what you actually pay in rent. Everything below is the full E-5 picture: the range, the real duty-station numbers, the promotion ladder, and what 2027 might change.
I computed every figure on this page from the Defense Travel Management Office’s official 2026 rate tables (all 338 military housing areas) and cross-checked them against the best independent sources. Where a competitor’s number disagrees with the official tables, I’ll say so.
Independent guide — not affiliated with the U.S. Department of Defense or any military branch.
The 2026 E-5 BAH Range, in One Picture
E-5 is the most common enlisted grade — Sergeant in the Army and Marine Corps, Petty Officer Second Class in the Navy, Staff Sergeant in the Air Force and Space Force. It is also the grade most military families ask about, because it is where most careers land around the six-to-ten-year mark.
Here is the national spread for E-5 with dependents in 2026:
Lowest: $1,185/mo — Anniston/Fort McClellan, Alabama (AL001)
Median: $2,061/mo — the midpoint of all 338 military housing areas
Highest: $5,127/mo — San Francisco, California (CA019)
Without dependents the spread is $996/mo (Fort Chaffee/Fort Smith, Arkansas) to $4,980/mo (New York City), with a median of $1,670.
Two things worth absorbing. First, the range is enormous — a factor of 4.3 from cheapest to priciest. Second, the median is the honest center of the distribution: half of all housing areas pay an E-5 with dependents more than $2,061, and half pay less. It is a far better anchor than the average, which the coastal extremes would drag upward.
What an E-5 Gets at Real Duty Stations
These are the actual 2026 E-5 rates at duty stations people ask about most, with dependents first and without dependents second, straight from the official tables:
| Duty Station (MHA) | With Dependents | Without Dependents |
|---|---|---|
| San Francisco, CA (CA019) | $5,127 | $4,086 |
| New York City, NY (NY219) | $5,070 | $4,980 |
| Boston, MA (MA120) | $4,791 | $3,615 |
| Northern New Jersey, NJ (NJ202) | $4,749 | $3,681 |
| San Diego, CA (CA038) | $3,975 | $3,147 |
| Camp Pendleton, CA (CA024) | $3,963 | $3,093 |
| JB Pearl Harbor-Hickam, HI (HI408) | $3,663 | $2,841 |
| Travis AFB, CA (CA036) | $3,369 | $2,628 |
| JBLM/Tacoma, WA (WA311) | $2,556 | $2,121 |
| Fairbanks, AK (AK405) | $2,436 | $1,827 |
| Fort Carson, CO (CO046) | $2,358 | $1,860 |
| Fort Stewart, GA (GA080) | $2,310 | $1,947 |
| Phoenix / Luke AFB, AZ (AZ013) | $2,289 | $1,740 |
| Langley AFB, VA (VA297) | $2,274 | $1,779 |
| Yakima Training Center, WA (WA313) | $1,923 | $1,458 |
| San Antonio, TX (TX285) | $1,869 | $1,500 |
| Fort Bragg/Pope, NC (NC182) | $1,806 | $1,527 |
| Fort Benning, GA (GA075) | $1,716 | $1,482 |
| Fort Hood, TX (TX286) | $1,695 | $1,530 |
| Camp Lejeune, NC (NC178) | $1,584 | $1,476 |
A PCS from Fort Hood to JBLM is a $861-a-month raise in BAH alone — $10,332 a year — with zero change in rank. The opposite move hurts just as much. This is why military families treat the duty station as part of their pay, and why you should always look up your area before signing a lease. Our ZIP-code BAH lookup guide walks through the official lookup step by step.
The Ten Cheapest and Ten Priciest E-5 Areas
For the full national picture, here are the extremes — the ten cheapest and ten most expensive of the 338 military housing areas for an E-5 with dependents in 2026:
| # | Cheapest Areas | E-5 w/Deps |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Anniston/Fort McClellan, AL | $1,185 |
| 2 | Youngstown, OH | $1,191 |
| 3 | Monroe, LA | $1,194 |
| 4 | Vance AFB/Enid, OK | $1,200 |
| 5 | Fort Polk, LA | $1,218 |
| 6 | Fort Sill/Lawton, OK | $1,233 |
| 7 | Altus AFB, OK | $1,254 |
| 8 | Fort Chaffee/Fort Smith, AR | $1,263 |
| 9 | Alexandria, LA | $1,290 |
| 10 | Meridian, MS | $1,290 |
| # | Priciest Areas | E-5 w/Deps |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | San Francisco, CA | $5,127 |
| 2 | New York City, NY | $5,070 |
| 3 | Boston, MA | $4,791 |
| 4 | Northern New Jersey, NJ | $4,749 |
| 5 | Santa Clara County, CA | $4,659 |
| 6 | Westchester County, NY | $4,479 |
| 7 | Long Island, NY | $4,425 |
| 8 | Nantucket, MA | $4,344 |
| 9 | Maui County, HI | $4,329 |
| 10 | Hanscom AFB, MA | $4,188 |
The pattern is not a surprise — big coastal metros cost the most, and rural Southern training posts cost the least — but it matters for PCS planning: Fort Polk’s $1,218 and Fort Sill’s $1,233 are both real assignment destinations, and the difference between them and Boston’s $4,791 is a $3,573-a-month swing in housing allowance at the same rank.
With Dependents vs Without: What Actually Changes
The dependency bump for an E-5 is real money. At the national median, having dependents adds $391 a month ($2,061 vs $1,670) — $4,692 a year. But the premium varies wildly by area: in San Diego it is $828 a month ($3,975 vs $3,147), while in New York City it collapses to just $90 ($5,070 vs $4,980), because the single rate there is already near the ceiling.
Three rules worth knowing:
One rate, not per-child. The with-dependents rate is a single number. An E-5 with one child gets exactly the same BAH as an E-5 with four children. The formula prices your rank and dependency status, not your household size.
Single E-5s don’t always get BAH. If you are unmarried and assigned government housing (barracks), you may be required to live in the dorms and receive no locality BAH at all. The single-soldier BAH guide covers the service-specific rules in detail.
Life events change the rate, not the formula. Marriage, divorce, and the birth of a child change which column you draw — they never change the numbers in the columns. Report them to your finance office promptly; retroactive corrections are painful.
The E-4 to E-5 to E-6 Ladder: What Promotion Buys You
Promotion changes your BAH, but the amounts are worth seeing precisely. National medians across all 338 areas:
| Grade | Median w/Deps | Median w/o Deps | BAH Bump (w/Deps) |
|---|---|---|---|
| E-4 | $1,920 | $1,520 | — |
| E-5 | $2,061 | $1,670 | +$141/mo |
| E-6 | $2,374 | $1,809 | +$313/mo |
| E-7 | $2,439 | $1,938 | +$65/mo |
Two observations. First, the E-4 to E-5 BAH jump is modest — about 7.3% at the median. Second, the E-5 to E-6 jump is more than twice as large (+$313, about 15%), because E-6 with dependents is priced at a larger housing profile. Promotion math should count both: an E-4 to E-5 move at the “over 6” step also adds $294.60 a month in base pay ($3,815.40 to $4,110.00), so the combined raise is roughly $435 a month, $5,220 a year. Our 2026 military pay chart has the full base-pay tables by grade and years of service. And our E-6 & E-7 BAH guide covers what those two grades draw at every duty station. If you’re thinking about the officer route, our O-3 BAH rates guide maps the O-2 to O-3 to O-4 ladder the same way.
Why Your Buddy’s E-5 BAH Is Different From Yours
If someone at your unit draws a wildly different BAH at the same rank, one of these is the reason:
1. Different duty station. The dominant factor, as the tables above show. Even nearby posts differ: Hunter Army Airfield’s E-5 rate ($2,415 with dependents, Savannah area) beats Fort Benning’s ($1,716) by $699 a month in the same state.
2. Rate protection. If an area’s rates dropped on January 1 (San Antonio fell about 3% for 2026), members already stationed there keep the higher prior-year rate while new arrivals get the new table. Two E-5s in the same unit can legitimately draw different numbers. Our rate-protection guide explains it in full.
3. Dependency status. Married or with kids versus single changes the column — the single biggest per-person variable after location.
4. Barracks vs off-post. An unmarried E-5 in the dorms gets no locality BAH; an unmarried E-5 authorized to live off-post gets the full without-dependents rate.
None of these are errors, and none require a pay inquiry unless you suspect your location or status was entered wrong in the system.
What $2,061 a Month Actually Buys (and the VA-Loan Angle)
BAH is tax-free, which makes it worth more than its face value when lenders evaluate you. On a VA loan application, lenders can “gross up” non-taxable income — counting your $2,061 median E-5 BAH as roughly $2,576 in taxable-equivalent income at a 20% bracket. That directly raises how much house you can qualify for. Our how-much-house guide runs the full math.
For renters, the honest test is your area’s median rent versus your rate. BAH is designed to cover 95% of median rental costs for your grade’s housing profile — the missing 5% is a deliberate congressional cost-share, not a mistake. (How that works mechanically is covered in how BAH is calculated.) In practice, shopping slightly below the profile — a townhouse instead of the single-family home an E-5 with dependents is priced at — is how families bank the difference.
Special E-5 Rates: Partial, RC/T, and BAH-DIFF
Not every E-5 situation uses the tables above:
BAH Partial — $8.70/mo: for E-5s assigned to government quarters who aren’t drawing the with-dependents rate.
BAH RC/T (Reserve Component/Transit) — $1,052.70 (without dependents) / $1,403.70 (with dependents): the flat national rate for E-5s on orders of 30 days or fewer, or in transit. Geography doesn’t matter — Manhattan or rural Mississippi, same number.
BAH-DIFF — $380.10/mo: for members in government housing who pay child support. If you live on the local economy and pay child support, you draw the normal with-dependents rate instead.
All three are covered in depth in what partial BAH is and the non-locality BAH tables.
E-5 and the GI Bill: Your BAH Becomes a Student Allowance
The Post-9/11 GI Bill’s monthly housing allowance is built directly on the E-5 with-dependents BAH for the campus ZIP code. So an E-5 figure you see in the tables — San Francisco’s $5,127, say — is the same number a full-time student veteran at a San Francisco campus draws as their housing allowance. That is why E-5 is the reference grade across all military housing math: the Department treats it as the standard enlisted housing profile.
The 2027 Outlook for E-5s
Two numbers are in play for 2027, and both are currently proposals, not decisions:
BAH: the administration’s FY2027 budget request proposes a 4.2% increase. If that survived the legislative process, a median E-5 rate of $2,061 would become roughly $2,148 — but Congress has not enacted it, so don’t budget it yet.
Base pay: the President’s alternative pay plan (August 2026) proposes tiered raises of 7% for E-1–E-5, 6% for E-6–O-3, and 5% for O-4 and above. A 7% raise would take an E-5 with under two years from $3,342.90 to about $3,576.90 a month. The House NDAA passed with matching tiers; the Senate’s flat 3.6% stalled — final outcome pending the December NDAA process.
The official 2027 BAH tables land around mid-December, and we track the release date in when 2027 BAH rates are released — with the 2027 increase guide covering what the numbers mean once they’re real.
Frequently Asked Questions
1. How much BAH does an E-5 get?
In 2026 it ranges from $1,185 to $5,127 a month with dependents ($996–$4,980 without), depending on the duty station’s housing area. The national median is $2,061 with dependents and $1,670 without.
2. Do E-5s get BAH if they are single?
Yes — if authorized to live off post or in privatized housing, a single E-5 draws the without-dependents rate. If assigned to barracks/dorms, you may be required to live there and receive no locality BAH.
3. How much more BAH does an E-5 get for having dependents?
At the national median, $391 a month ($2,061 vs $1,670). The premium varies by area — $828 in San Diego but only $90 in New York City.
4. Does BAH increase with more children?
No. The with-dependents rate is a single number regardless of how many dependents you have.
5. What was the E-5 BAH in 2025 vs 2026?
Most areas rose modestly for 2026; a few fell (San Antonio dropped about 3%). If your area’s rate fell, rate protection keeps your higher prior rate while you stay at the same duty station.
6. Does BAH go up when you get promoted from E-4 to E-5?
Yes — about $141 a month at the national median, on top of the $294.60 monthly base-pay increase at the “over 6” step.
7. Can an E-5 use BAH to buy a house?
Yes — BAH is stable qualifying income on a VA loan, and lenders can gross it up (a 25% bump is standard in underwriting) since it is tax-free.
8. Is E-5 BAH taxable?
No — BAH is federal and state income-tax free, including the dependency premium. (Full detail in our tax guide.)
9. What is the highest E-5 BAH in the country?
San Francisco, California: $5,127 a month with dependents ($4,086 without) in 2026.
10. When do 2027 E-5 BAH rates come out?
Around mid-December 2026, when DTMO publishes the official tables. The 4.2% increase currently cited is a budget-request proposal, not an enacted rate.
Last updated: October 23, 2026. BAH rates shown are official 2026 figures; 2027 rates publish ~mid-December 2026.
Sources: DTMO 2026 BAH rate tables (official, all 338 military housing areas); DoD military compensation (BAH overview); DFAS 2026 military pay tables; FMR Volume 7A.
