When service members receive their first paychecks of 2025, those stationed at the Army’s Fort Cavazos and Fort Knox and the Navy’s main recruit training center near Chicago are among those that will see military housing allowance increases that significantly outstrip the national average, according to a Federal News Network analysis of DoD data.

The military’s Basic Allowance for Housing (BAH) rates for this year, on average, will rise by 5.4% — the same overall increase as last year. But the actual increases members and their families will receive will vary widely, mostly depending on their locations, and to some extent their pay grades.

The relatively few service members stationed on Hawaii’s big island will see the biggest average percentage increase: 20%.

But some large military concentration centers will get sizeable bumps as well: Fort Cavazos, Texas (13.9%,) Naval Station Great Lakes, Ill. (10.1%), Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson, Alaska (9.46%) and Marine Corps Air Station Cherry Point (10.4%) are a few examples.

On the other end of the spectrum, 16 of DoD’s designated military housing areas will see decreases in 2025. Military members already stationed there won’t see actual cuts, because they’re grandfathered in to their current allowances. But areas including Mountain Home Air Force Base, Idaho (-3.1%), Huntsville, Ala. (-1.1%), Los Angeles (-0.8%) and San Antonio (-0.7%) will have lower BAH rates this year than last.

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Note: Increases/decreases are based on each housing area’s “with dependents” rate

DoD bases the annual rates on surveys of rental costs and utilities in each market, conducted each spring and summer, and estimates it will pay $29.2 billion in housing allowances to about one million service members this year. By and large, they reflect rising or falling housing costs in the local economy in each area, but since they’re based on surveys of 2024 data, they can lag behind sharp increases in actual rental costs that service members have already incurred.

The housing allowance changes are separate from the basic pay raises Congress enacted as part of the 2025 defense authorization bill.

In that measure, lawmakers approved across-the-board military pay increases of 4.5%, but also granted an unusually generous 10% raises to junior enlisted troops in the E-1 through E-4 paygrades above-and-beyond the base pay increase. Because of that, junior enlisted members who are also living in high cost areas will see substantial differences in their first paychecks of 2025.

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