← Home · Active-duty payA rough estimate

Model your active-duty pay

Base pay, BAH, BAS, and what is tax-free. Not affiliated with the Department of Defense.

Your rank

Years of service

yrs

Dependents

I have a dependent on my BAHKids at home

Sets your BAH rate. A dependent here is the military definition, which is not the same as a partner you live with. Kids at home count too, so tick the box only if someone else does.

Tax filing status

Sets the federal brackets only. Being married is not the same as having a BAH dependent, and having one is not a filing status.

Do you draw BAH?

We hold your housing figure until you say. Members in barracks or government quarters draw no BAH, and showing one anyway would overstate the month.

Duty-station ZIP

Enter your duty-station ZIP for your exact DoD/DTMO 2026 rate. No ZIP? We use the area estimate below.

No ZIP? Pick your area (estimate)

Low: Fort Sill, Fort Bliss · Average: most CONUS · High: DC, San Diego, Hawaii. Nothing is picked for you: an area you did not choose is a housing figure you did not give us.

Verified: figures come from the official DoD 2026 tables: DFAS basic pay, DTMO BAH by duty-station ZIP, and BAS, cited below the results. Your LES remains the authority for your actual pay.

BAH and BAS aren’t raises. They’re structure.

BAH and BAS show up on your LES as separate lines because they’re untaxed allowances, not salary. They don’t follow you to a civilian job, and they don’t count toward your pension. The pieces that DO follow you: your TSP balance, what you save outside it, and a pension if you stay to 20.

Illustrative only. Base pay reflects the DoD/DFAS 2026 monthly basic pay table (3.8% Jan 2026 raise). BAH is the real DoD/DTMO 2026 rate when you enter your duty-station ZIP; without a ZIP it falls back to a 3-tier area estimate. These are published 2026 new-arrival rates; if you were already at your station, individual rate protection may keep you at a higher prior-year rate. Not affiliated with the Department of Defense. Federal income tax is estimated from the 2025 single-filer brackets and standard deduction, chosen by the filing status you picked above, plus FICA; state tax is not modeled. Those are 2025 IRS tables applied to 2026 pay, so the federal figure is an estimate and not a return. Only taxable base pay is taxed here: BAH and BAS are not. Your LES is the authoritative source for your actual pay. MoneyBadger is an educational tool, not financial advice.

Sources: DFAS Military Pay · Defense Travel Management Office (BAH) · TSP.gov. Figures are illustrative. Kids at home are counted both as BAH dependents and, at $2,000 each, as child-tax-credit claimants. Not every child at home qualifies for that credit, so a household with older children may owe more federal tax than this shows.