Free educational tool
What’s your BAH?
Your paygrade, your duty station’s ZIP, and whether you have dependents: those three things set your . Look yours up from the official DoD tables, then see what it does to the home price you can finance.
BAH uses your duty station’s ZIP, not where you live.
One or ten dependents: same rate.
Loading rate tables…
How BAH works in a VA loan
BAH is real qualifying income. When a lender adds up what you make, your housing allowance counts alongside your base pay.
It gets better. BAH is tax-free, and many lenders treat a tax-free dollar as worth more than a taxed one in the debt-ratio math. They call this grossing up, and it commonly adds 15 to 25% to how much your BAH counts. In plain words: a $2,000 allowance can count like $2,500 of salary. On a typical rate, that difference alone supports roughly $25,000 to $30,000 more house.
One boundary worth knowing: grossing up applies only to the debt-ratio test. The VA’s other test, , works in take-home cash, where your tax-free BAH already counts in full. Nothing extra to claim there; it is simply never taxed away.
The buying-power calculator runs both treatments for you: a conservative number with BAH at face value, and the grossed-up number many lenders would use. Lenders differ; bring both to the conversation.
BAH is one piece of your pay. The military pay calculator stacks it with your base pay and BAS for the full monthly picture, then carries the total into the buying-power estimate for you.
What this tool does not cover
Overseas stations use OHA (Overseas Housing Allowance), a different system. Reserve and Guard members on short active-duty orders may receive a different BAH type. The rates here are the standard active-duty BAH published by the DoD; your finance office and the official lookup are the final word.