You land in Okinawa, or Ramstein, or Yokosuka. Your household goods are on a ship. You have no house yet, and the on-base lodge is full, so you are in a hotel that costs more per night than your old mortgage payment. Temporary Lodging Allowance, almost always called TLA, is the benefit that keeps that stretch from wrecking your savings.
TLA is the overseas version of a lodging benefit many families only know in its stateside form. It works differently, it lasts longer, and it comes with strings that catch people off guard. This guide covers who gets it, how long it lasts, how the rate is figured, and the housing-search rules that keep it switched on.
What Temporary Lodging Allowance Covers
TLA is meant to partially pay a service member for higher-than-normal expenses while occupying temporary lodging outside the continental United States. That is the exact framing the Defense Travel Management Office uses, and the word doing the work is partially. TLA is not a blank check. It offsets lodging and meal costs against a formula, and if you book a resort, the gap is yours.
The authority comes from Title 37 U.S. Code section 405, and the rules live in the DoD Financial Management Regulation, Volume 7A, Chapter 68. Your garrison or installation commander publishes local guidance on top of that, which is why TLA feels a little different at every overseas base.
One rule matters more than the rest. Personal inconvenience is never a reason to authorize TLA. It is not there to buy you a nicer room while you wait, and it is not meant to leave you better off than you started.
When TLA Is Authorized
TLA can be authorized during several distinct windows, not just the obvious one. Per the Defense Travel Management Office, these include:
- Upon arrival at an overseas permanent duty station, while you wait for government quarters or arrange private housing
- Immediately before departing an overseas duty station on PCS orders, after you vacate your quarters or housing
- When you must vacate or wait to reoccupy housing for reasons outside your control
- While a service member without dependents seeks housing after a temporary duty assignment of 90 or more days
- While a dependent uses temporary lodging because the service member was hospitalized en route between duty stations
- While house hunting after you arrive at the new duty station and report for duty
That last one is worth reading twice. House hunting at an overseas duty station is an authorized reason for TLA, which is a meaningful difference from how many families assume it works.
Your TLA period on arrival begins the same day your overseas cost-of-living allowance eligibility begins. An advance may be paid for the authorized number of TLA days once the authority is issued.
The 60-Day Rule
This is the number to plan around. The overseas TLA authority may authorize TLA up to 60 days upon arrival at the new duty station, and up to 10 days before departure from an overseas duty station on a PCS.
Sixty days sounds generous. It is, compared with the stateside equivalent. It is also not as long as it feels once you account for in-processing, a housing office briefing, base orientation, and a rental market where the good listings move in a day.
Extensions past the initial period exist, but they are not routine. Additional TLA may be authorized when it is in the government's interest, and never for personal convenience. At the end of the first TLA period, the designated overseas commander has your case reviewed to see what progress you have made toward permanent housing. If your effort looks thin, you get reminded of your responsibilities. Unexcused failure to keep up a diligent search is grounds to terminate TLA outright.
The TLA clock at an overseas duty station, from arrival through the pre-departure window. Source: Defense Travel Management Office and DoD FMR Volume 7A, Chapter 68.
The practical read: treat day one as the start of a housing search, not a settling-in week. Get to the housing office immediately, keep a written log of every property you view, and save the paperwork. If you ever need an extension, that log is your case.
How the TLA Rate Is Figured
TLA is not a flat per-night amount. It is a percentage of the locality lodging and meal rates, and the percentage depends on how many eligible people are staying in the room. The percentages come from Table 68-11 of the DoD Financial Management Regulation.
| Who is occupying temporary lodging | Lodging percentage | Meals and incidentals percentage |
|---|---|---|
| Service member alone, or one dependent alone | 100 | 65 |
| Service member couples, each when lodging together | 65 | 65 |
| Service member and one dependent, or two dependents | 100 | 100 |
| Each additional dependent age 12 and older | 35 | 35 |
| Each additional dependent under age 12 | 25 | 25 |
Those percentages took effect 1 October 2020 and are the current figures published by the Defense Travel Management Office. The Defense Travel Management Office also publishes TLA computation examples that walk through common family sizes, which is the fastest way to sanity-check what your finance office tells you.
There is also TLA Special, or TLA-S, for unusual situations where lodging costs spike because of a special event. It uses a higher lodging factor. It must be approved before travel, it goes up the chain of command, and it can never be granted after the fact.
