The Department of War Releases the 2026 Continental U.S. Cost-of-Living Allowance Rates

The Continental U.S. Cost-of-Living Allowance (CONUS COLA) is a taxable, extra payment added to military pay to help active-duty uniformed service members stationed in certain high‑cost areas of the continental United States cover higher everyday, non‑housing living expenses (things like food, transportation, and goods and services). It supplements basic pay and other allowances; housing costs are handled separately through Basic Allowance for Housing (BAH).

CONUS COLA is for active-duty uniformed service members whose permanent duty station is in a designated high‑cost location within the continental United States. For 2026, a location qualifies as high‑cost if its non‑housing cost of living is at least 7% above the national CONUS average; only members assigned to those locations are eligible, and the exact dollar amount they receive depends on their pay grade, years of service, and whether they have dependents.

Each year, the Defense Travel Management Office (DTMO) calculates CONUS COLA by:

• Collecting local non‑housing price data (for food, transportation, and other goods/services) in every Military Housing Area and certain counties and comparing it to average CONUS prices.
• Adjusting those local costs for factors like Basic Allowance for Subsistence (BAS) and typical savings from commissaries and exchanges.
• Converting the resulting cost‑of‑living index into a percentage and a monthly dollar amount based on a member’s "spendable income" (regular compensation minus housing, taxes, savings, etc.), which varies by rank, years of service, and dependency status.

The policies and formulas are set in the DoD Financial Management Regulation (FMR), Volume 7A, Chapter 67, and implemented by DTMO under DoD authority.

The detailed 2026 CONUS COLA rates (by location, rank, years of service, and dependency status) are available through the Defense Travel Management Office’s online tools:

• The CONUS COLA Rate Lookup tool, where you select the year (2026) and your location/rank to see monthly amounts.
• The CONUS Cost-of-Living Allowance page, which also lists 2026 CONUS COLA locations.

The 2026 announcement on defense.gov links directly to these DTMO resources.

The new 2026 CONUS COLA rates take effect for service on and after January 1, 2026. They should be included in the first regular paycheck that covers days served in January 2026 (typically the mid‑January pay for most members), although the exact paycheck date follows the normal Defense Finance and Accounting Service (DFAS) pay schedule.

CONUS COLA applies only to eligible service members whose permanent duty stations are within the continental United States. Service members stationed overseas or in non‑CONUS locations (such as foreign countries, U.S. territories, Alaska, or Hawaii) may qualify instead for Overseas COLA (also called OCONUS COLA), which is a separate allowance with its own rules and rate tables.

For questions about a specific CONUS COLA entitlement or amount, service members and families should first contact the local installation finance or military pay office (or unit S‑1/admin office), which can access the member’s pay record and apply the official CONUS COLA tables. If issues remain, they can be escalated through the service’s finance chain or to the Defense Finance and Accounting Service (DFAS) using its customer‑service channels.