This guide has 2026 BAH for every paygrade at Tripler Army Medical Center, how far it goes against local rents, the TRICARE region, how Hawaii taxes military pay, and the PCS tools for a move here.
Rates last verified August 2026 against the published source tables.
Tripler Army Medical Center is an Army installation in Honolulu, Hawaii.
Housing here is priced in the Honolulu County military housing area. 2026 BAH for an E-5 with dependents is $3,663 a month, against HUD's FY2027 fair market rent of $3,520 for a three-bedroom — roughly $143 a month above the rent. BAH is paid on top of base pay and is not taxed, and the rate is the same whether you rent or buy.
HI exempts non-resident military pay. Care here falls under the TRICARE West region.
$365 a day. DTMO prices Tripler Army Medical Center under its Hawaii locality Schofield Barracks at $365 per person per day — $202 of lodging and $163 of meals and incidentals.
This is the figure TLA is built from, not a rate of its own. Temporary Lodging Allowance covers the gap between arriving and signing a lease, and it is computed as percentages of the lodging and M&IE figures just quoted rather than as a published dollar amount: lodging at up to 100% of the lodging rate and meals at 65% of M&IE for a member arriving alone, both rising with the number of dependents traveling with you. It is authorized for up to 60 days, extendable.
The reporting day is computed from it, but not at the full rate. Arriving by commercial air, train, ship or government transport — which is how most members reach Tripler Army Medical Center — the day you report pays 75% of the M&IE figure above, and that night's lodging is reimbursed as TLA rather than as per diem. Where MALT Plus is payable for the reporting day instead, no TLA is payable for that day at all, and OCONUS COLA starts the day after you report rather than on the day itself.
It is a second allowance, not part of the first. BAH covers housing at Tripler Army Medical Center. OCONUS COLA is the separate, non-taxable allowance that offsets what everything else costs — groceries, fuel, services — and it explicitly excludes housing, so it neither raises nor reduces the housing figures this guide states. It exists because the prices paid around Tripler Army Medical Center are measured against what the same goods cost in the continental United States, and the gap is what the allowance closes.
What sets the amount. Three tables in sequence: your annual compensation, which follows pay grade and years of service; the spendable-income figure where that compensation meets your number of command-sponsored dependents; and the COLA index published for this duty station. Subtract 100 from the index, treat the remainder as a percentage, and apply it to spendable income — that is the annual allowance, divided by 360 to give the daily rate that reaches your LES.
An index of 100 pays nothing. Because the calculation subtracts 100 before it multiplies, a location priced level with the continental United States produces no allowance at all. Overseas orders are not by themselves a COLA entitlement, and a location that paid it last year can stop.
It moves while you are there. The index is rebuilt from two price surveys, and the allowance is re-adjusted for currency movement as often as twice a month — so this is not a rate you check once before you fly. A dependent who is with you but is not command-sponsored does not move you to the with-dependent rate either, which is the difference most often noticed after the fact.
Hawaii. Hawaii exempts military pay for members domiciled in another state. Hawaii-domiciled service members are taxed on their pay.
SCRA. Under the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act your military pay is taxed by the state you are domiciled in, not by the one your duty station sits in. Being assigned to Tripler Army Medical Center does not by itself change which state may tax you, and it does not create a filing obligation where you are stationed.
TRICARE West. Care at Tripler Army Medical Center falls under the TRICARE West region, administered by TriWest Healthcare Alliance — enrollment and claims run through 888-TRIWEST (874-9378).
| Pay grade | With dependents | Without dependents |
|---|---|---|
| E-1 | $3,333 | $2,598 |
| E-2 | $3,333 | $2,598 |
| E-3 | $3,333 | $2,598 |
| E-4 | $3,333 | $2,598 |
| E-5 | $3,663 | $2,856 |
| E-6 | $3,912 | $3,036 |
| E-7 | $4,098 | $3,348 |
| E-8 | $4,302 | $3,720 |
| E-9 | $4,518 | $3,783 |
| W-1 | $3,930 | $3,222 |
| W-2 | $4,182 | $3,717 |
| W-3 | $4,434 | $3,795 |
| W-4 | $4,551 | $3,951 |
| W-5 | $4,692 | $4,146 |
| O-1 | $3,702 | $2,997 |
| O-1E (Prior Enlisted) | $4,137 | $3,660 |
| O-2 | $3,909 | $3,555 |
| O-2E (Prior Enlisted) | $4,398 | $3,768 |
| O-3 | $4,428 | $3,819 |
| O-3E (Prior Enlisted) | $4,572 | $3,903 |
| O-4 | $4,737 | $4,110 |
| O-5 | $4,959 | $4,224 |
| O-6 | $5,001 | $4,413 |
| O-7+ | $5,040 | $4,494 |
Tripler Army Medical Center draws its rates from the Honolulu County military housing area. In 2026 an E-5 with dependents receives $3,663 a month and an E-5 without dependents $2,856. An E-7 with dependents receives $4,098. The rate depends on the housing area, your paygrade and whether you have dependents — not on your ZIP code, and not on whether you rent or buy.
For an E-5 with dependents, it covers a three-bedroom at the local benchmark with $143 a month left over. The benchmark is HUD's FY2027 fair market rent of $3,520 — a 40th-percentile gross rent, so it includes tenant-paid utilities and half the local market rents for more. Anything above that benchmark comes out of pocket, and anything below it you keep: BAH pays the same rate whatever your actual rent turns out to be.
No. BAH is a non-taxable allowance, so it does not appear as taxable wages on your W-2 and no federal or state income tax is withheld from it. That makes a dollar of BAH worth noticeably more than a dollar of base pay, which is why comparing a civilian salary against base pay alone understates military compensation.
Tripler Army Medical Center falls in the TRICARE West region — the contractor there is TriWest Healthcare Alliance. Your region decides who pays your claims and where referrals are authorized, so a PCS that crosses regions means transferring your enrollment — Prime enrollment does not follow you automatically, and letting it lapse drops you to TRICARE Select with its cost shares.
Hawaii exempts military pay for members domiciled in another state. Hawaii-domiciled service members are taxed on their pay. Being stationed in a state does not by itself make you a resident of it: state income tax follows your state of legal residence, and the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act protects that against an involuntary PCS.
Most of it is reimbursed rather than paid. A PCS to Tripler Army Medical Center normally pays a dislocation allowance, a mileage allowance for driving your own vehicle, per diem for you and each dependent while you travel, and temporary lodging once you arrive. Choosing a personally procured move pays you the government's cost for the same shipment, so the profit — and the tax on it — depends on your weight and the distance. The PCS calculator estimates all of those for this destination.