Work out what Temporary Lodging Allowance pays while you wait for permanent quarters overseas. TLA is a percentage of the per diem rate DTMO publishes for your locality, and since 1 October 2020 lodging and meals carry different percentages: a member with no dependents draws the full lodging rate but 65% of the meals rate, a member and one dependent draw the full rate of both, and each additional dependent aged 12 or older adds 35% while each one under 12 adds 25%. Lodging pays your actual cost up to that ceiling and no further; meals pay as computed, against no receipts. Arrival at an overseas duty station is ordinarily authorized up to 60 days and departure up to the last 10, with anything beyond approved in increments of 10 days or fewer.
Rates last verified August 2026 against the published source tables.
TLA does not come from the JTR. TLE is JTR §0506; TLA is the DoD Financial Management Regulation, Volume 7A, Chapter 68, under 37 U.S.C. §405, and the percentages are its Table 68-11. Searching the JTR for TLA rules turns up cross-references and nothing else, which is why so many explanations of it are secondhand.
There is also no daily dollar cap on TLA. DTMO's fact sheet states there is no maximum ceiling for a daily payment other than the one the calculation itself produces, so the $290 daily limit that governs TLE does not follow you overseas. Your ceiling is the percentage of the locality lodging rate, which in an expensive locality is well above it. The other half of that trade is that TLA is authorized only for command-sponsored dependents: family members who accompany you without command sponsorship do not count toward the percentage at all.
TLA is a percentage of the locality per diem rate for your overseas duty station, and since 1 October 2020 lodging and meals carry different percentages. A member with no dependents is paid 100% of the lodging rate but only 65% of the M&IE rate. A member and one dependent are paid 100% of both. Each additional dependent aged 12 or older adds 35% to both, and each one under 12 adds 25%. Lodging then pays your actual cost up to that ceiling and no more; meals pay as computed. If you have read that a single member gets 65% of everything, that is the table as it stood before 1 October 2020. It understates the lodging ceiling by more than a third.
They cover the same problem at opposite ends of a move. TLE is CONUS and comes from JTR §0506; TLA is OCONUS and comes from the DoD Financial Management Regulation, Volume 7A, Chapter 68 — a different regulation, which is why searching the JTR for TLA rules turns up nothing but cross-references. Three practical differences matter. TLA has no daily dollar cap, while TLE clamps every day at $290. TLA runs to 60 days on arrival against TLE's 21. And a member with no dependents is computed differently: 100% of lodging under TLA, 65% under TLE.
On arrival at an overseas duty station, DTMO's guidance is "a number of days deemed sufficient, but ordinarily, not more than 60 days" while you look for permanent quarters. Before you depart an overseas station, you should "not require TLA for more than the last 10 days" after giving up your quarters. Past that, TLA can continue — the fact sheet allows extensions "for an indefinite period when approved by the proper authority" for reasons such as delayed household goods — but it is granted in increments of 10 days or fewer, each of which has to be justified and approved. In tight overseas housing markets that is routine, and it is also the deadline families most often miss.
No. DTMO's TLA fact sheet is explicit: "There is no maximum ceiling for a daily TLA payment other than that based on the daily calculation." The $290 daily cap belongs to TLE and does not follow you overseas. Your effective ceiling is the percentage of the locality lodging rate, which in an expensive locality is far above $290 for a family.
The difference is yours. The lodging portion of TLA may never exceed either the ceiling or the actual cost you paid — booking under the ceiling does not pay you the difference, and booking over it does not raise the ceiling. Where lodging genuinely cannot be found within the rate — a special event, or a shortage of adequate temporary lodging — a higher rate called TLA Special (TLA-S) can be requested. It has to be approved in advance, at the OUSD(P&R) level, and never retroactively, so it is something to raise before you travel rather than after you have paid.
Yes. TLA is authorized only for service members and their command-sponsored dependents. Family members who accompany you overseas without command sponsorship do not count toward the percentage and their lodging is not payable, which is the single largest reason a TLA claim comes back smaller than the family expected.
Your reimbursement is limited to what the government quarters would have cost. If they are not available, written certification of that is required to support the claim — get it from the housing office at the time rather than reconstructing it later. This calculator computes the ordinary case, in which government quarters are unavailable and you are paying commercial lodging.