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Overseas Housing Allowance

About 44,000 people stationed overseas and living off base receive the Overseas Housing Allowance, which is based on rental cost surveys generally conducted every six months and then adjusted throughout the year whenever foreign currency exchange rates fluctuate more than 5 percent upward or downward.

OHA, paid at 430 locations overseas, is a reimbursement allowance with three components. The largest component covers rent and is based on the amount of a member’s lease, up to an authorized ceiling for a given location. Ceilings are set at a level at which 80 percent of service members in a given location have their housing costs fully reimbursed.

The second OHA component is a “utility/recurring maintenance allowance” to defray expenses paid directly to utility companies. As with the rental cost ceilings, this allowance is set at a level at which 80 percent of service members are fully reimbursed for utilities costs.

The third OHA component, the Move-In Housing Allowance, has three pieces of its own.

MIHA/Miscellaneous is a fixed-rate, lump-sum payment that reflects average expenditures to make dwellings habitable, such as installing supplemental heating equipment. MIHA/Rent is a dollar-for-dollar payment to cover one-time, nonrefundable rent-related charges customarily or legally required in a foreign country, such as rental agents’ fees. MIHA/Security can be paid to cover costs for security-related upgrades when housing must be modified to minimize exposure to terrorist or criminal threats.

Contact: BAH rates for 2007 are online at http://www.militarytimes.com/money/pay_charts. The Defense Department has an Overseas Housing Allowance calculator at https://secureapp2.hqda.pentagon.mil/perdiem/ohaform.html.