Joint Base Lewis-McChord BAH Rates 2026

How BAH Is Calculated Here

The survey behind these rates samples Lakewood, Tacoma and the wider Pierce County rental market, sorts it into six housing profiles, adds average utilities, and pays each paygrade the median for its profile.

Median, not ceiling. Rises mid-tour, never falls.

Washington adds a structural feature worth knowing. State law caps a taxing district's revenue growth at 1% a year absent a voter-approved levy lid lift or bond. Assessed values in Pierce County can climb hard without bills climbing proportionally, because the district's total take is capped and the rate falls to compensate. It is the opposite of what happened in Cumberland County, North Carolina, and it means a rising-value year here does not automatically become a rising-tax year.

That is the good news. The part that will cost you money is not a tax at all — it is a landlord ordinance, and it is covered below, because at these prices most people arriving at JBLM who buy will eventually rent the house out rather than sell it.

What BAH Actually Covers at Joint Base Lewis-McChord

The median Lakewood home sold for $519,740 in July 2026 (Redfin), at $329 a square foot, down 1.1% year over year. Tacoma ran slightly cheaper at $499,707 in August but is further from the gates. VA loan, 0% down, 6.77%, funding fee financed:

	Monthly
Principal & interest	$3,451
Property tax (Lakewood, 1.00%)	$433
Homeowners insurance	$119
Total	$4,003

Against BAH with dependents:

Rank	BAH	Covers the payment?
E-4	$2,370	Short $1,633
E-5	$2,556	Short $1,447
E-6	$2,919	Short $1,084
E-7	$2,994	Short $1,009
O-3	$3,123	Short $880

That $119 insurance line is not a typo. Washington averages $1,428 a year on $300,000 of dwelling coverage — roughly a third of what Texas costs and the lowest figure on this site. No hurricane exposure, no hail corridor, no wildfire pricing in this part of the state. On a half-million-dollar house you are paying less for insurance than a Killeen owner pays on a $239,000 one.

It does not rescue the payment. A $3,451 principal-and-interest line at these prices is simply larger than any BAH rate shown.

A VA service-connected disability rating waives the funding fee, worth about $72 a month here — the largest dollar saving of any market on this page, because the fee scales with the loan.

How It Compares

A three-bedroom rents for about $2,595 in Lakewood or Tacoma (Zumper, September 2026). Owning the median Lakewood home costs $4,003 — $1,408 a month more, before maintenance.

Buying passes renting at about month 139, roughly eleven and a half years.

Lakewood moves fast — 13 days on market in July, essentially unchanged year over year — so if you do buy, you will be competing. But speed is not the same as strength: Lakewood's median is down 1.1% year over year while its price per square foot is up 6%, which means the market is trading smaller houses, not appreciating broadly.

Now the thing that actually distinguishes this market. If you buy here and rent the house out when you PCS — the normal JBLM outcome, because almost nobody sells a Pacific Northwest house at a three-year mark — Tacoma and Lakewood put you under completely different rules.

Tacoma enforces a Landlord Fairness Code (Tacoma Municipal Code Chapter 1.100, as amended by Ordinance 29086 effective 1 January 2026). The provision that reaches a single-property military landlord is relocation assistance: raise the rent 5% or more in any twelve-month period and the tenant may require you to pay two months' rent; above 7.5%, two and a half months; above 10%, three months' rent, payable within thirty days of the request. The code's cold-weather and school-year eviction bans carve out landlords with four or fewer units in the city. The relocation-assistance obligation has no such carve-out. On a $2,595 rental, a 10% increase can cost you $7,785.

Lakewood has no equivalent ordinance. It instead requires rental registration and a business license under Lakewood Municipal Code Chapter 5.60, with the unit subject to city health-and-safety inspection. That is a cost and a hassle, not a five-figure contingent liability.

What to do with this: rent for a standard tour. If you buy with the intention of holding it as a rental — which is the defensible reason to buy in this market — buy in Lakewood, DuPont or unincorporated Pierce County rather than inside Tacoma city limits, and price the difference honestly rather than chasing Tacoma's $20,000 lower median.

The price where BAH covers everything is $326,136 for an E-5 and $374,715 for an E-6. Those are 37% and 28% below the Lakewood median, and at $329 a square foot they buy a small house. Run your rank and a real listing through the BAH calculator before assuming a condo closes the gap — the HOA dues will eat most of what the lower price saves.