What OHA Covers: Rent, Utilities, Move-In and the Exchange Rate

Overseas Housing Allowance pays for private housing at an overseas duty station in four separate pieces, not one lump sum. Three of them are worked out from your grade, locality and lease; the fourth is the dollar rate DoD applies to the total. The OHA calculator does the arithmetic for your own numbers; this page lays out what each piece covers, and what OHA is deliberately not.

The four components

OHA works from actual cost, not a flat schedule. FMR 6.1 puts it plainly: "A Service member is reimbursed actual rental costs, limited to the maximum OHA rate for each locality and grade." The same paragraph explains why the figure moves from one member to the next: "The amount of OHA paid considers factors, such as whether the housing is shared, the appropriate utilities, and whether the Service member owns or rents the housing." Your grade and locality set the ceiling; your actual lease sets what you're paid up to it.

When your rent includes utilities

The utility and recurring maintenance allowance normally arrives as its own monthly payment, at 100% of the locality's rate with dependents and 75% without. But when a lease already bundles in every utility, the separate payment stops, and something else happens in its place. FMR 6.3.2.1 states both halves of this together: "A Service member is not authorized the utility and recurring maintenance allowance when rent includes all utilities. However, when computing the OHA, the appropriate utility and recurring maintenance allowance is added to the Service member's rental allowance." Both sentences are true at the same time: you don't get a separate UMA line, and your rent ceiling itself rises by that same amount, so a lease with utilities built in can still be paid up to the raised cap. The calculator's own Tokyo example shows this exact mechanic: checking Rent includes all utilities lifts the cap by the UMA figure and drops the separate utility line from the result.

If only some utilities are bundled in, FMR 6.3.2.2 pays a percentage of the UMA instead, set by a climate code and a utility point score. Neither the calculator nor this page works that partial case; your finance office has the tables for it.

What OHA is not

OHA is easy to confuse with BAH, per diem or a housing deposit, and the difference matters for what you can expect.

Not BAH. BAH is a flat schedule set by grade, dependency status and ZIP code, paid whether your actual rent runs higher or lower. OHA works the other way: it's cost reimbursement, capped at a ceiling, tied to a lease you can produce.

Not per diem. Per diem covers a daily travel or lodging cost while you're away from a permanent station. OHA is a standing monthly allowance at your own PDS, and the two don't stack on your first day there: "OHA is not payable on the arrival day when MALT Plus is paid."

No deposit. OHA doesn't front your security deposit or advance rent, and DTMO would rather you didn't need one: "Rental payments should be made on a month-to-month basis whenever possible to avoid the need for rental advances." An advance for a deposit or advance rent is its own authorization, separate from the monthly OHA payment itself; see how DTMO sets OHA rates for how the underlying figures are kept current, and OHA for sharers and dual-military if you split a lease or your spouse is also in uniform.