BAH Restoration Act

This bill would raise the Basic Allowance for Housing (BAH) for service members living in the United States. Instead of tying BAH to a formula that uses a national average, it would set your BAH to match the monthly cost of “adequate housing” in your local area, based on your pay grade and whether you have dependents, as determined by the Department of Defense. Today, BAH is based on the gap between local housing costs and a percentage of a national average; this bill would restore it to cover the full local cost for your situation.

What this means: if housing near your base is expensive, your BAH would go up to meet that local cost, rather than being limited by a national formula. This aims to make rent and mortgage payments more manageable for military families .

• Who is affected: Members of the uniformed services living in the United States, with amounts based on pay grade and dependency status.
• What changes: BAH would equal the monthly cost of adequate housing in your area, as set by DoD, instead of using a national average-based formula .
• When: The text does not specify an effective date; it describes how BAH would be calculated if enacted.