PCS and Military Relocation to Kansas City

This is one piece of a larger guide. For the full picture of buying and selling with a VA loan in Kansas City, start at our veterans hub.

What should I do first when I get PCS orders to Kansas City?

Set up the household goods move and start the housing conversation at the same time, because the second one drives your timeline more than the first. The Department of Defense runs household goods moves through the Defense Personal Property Program, and you schedule your shipment, track it and file claims through the Defense Personal Property System at dps.move.mil.

If you are managing the move yourself, the current term is a Personally Procured Move, or PPM. You will still see it called a DITY move in older articles and in conversation. That name is retired, and if you are searching for guidance, searching the current term will get you to the official pages instead of a decade old forum thread.

Should I buy or rent when I PCS to Kansas City?

The Department of Defense publishes guidance on exactly this question and it does not pick a side, which I think is the right posture. Military OneSource lays out both cases: renting means the landlord handles maintenance, lower up front costs and the flexibility to leave without selling, while buying opens up the VA home loan with no down payment and no private mortgage insurance, builds equity if values rise and lets you renovate without asking permission.

My own read, from having done this and from watching a lot of Kansas City closings, is that the length of the tour matters more than the market does. A three year tour where you expect to extend is a very different calculation from a two year tour you already know ends. Kansas City is one of the more affordable major metros in the country, which lowers the entry cost and shortens the time it takes for buying to make sense, but it does not make a short tour into a long one.

One protection worth knowing either way: under the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act you can terminate a lease without penalty due to deployment or a PCS. If you rent first and buy later, that is the door out.

What happens to my BAH when I PCS to Kansas City?

It resets to the rate for your new duty station, and that reset is the part people get wrong. Individual rate protection keeps your allowance from dropping while you stay put, but it does not carry across a PCS. The Defense Travel Management Office puts it plainly: at the new duty station a member gets the housing allowance driven by local housing costs there, which can be higher or lower than where they came from.

Rates are set annually and new ones take effect January 1. I am not going to print a figure here, because the moment I do it starts aging. Pull your own from the official BAH rate lookup, and then look at what that number actually buys in this metro, which is the more useful exercise and which we cover on our page about BAH and what it buys in Kansas City.

What PCS allowances actually help with the move?

Three matter for most families, and they do different jobs. Dislocation Allowance partially reimburses the household moving expenses a PCS creates, it is paid at a rate based on grade and dependency status, and in most cases you can only receive one per fiscal year. Temporary Lodging Expense partially reimburses lodging and meals while you are in temporary quarters during a stateside move. Advance pay exists for members with written PCS orders, authorized by your commander, and it is repaid out of your pay over the following months rather than forgiven.

You can request an advance on DLA through your losing installation’s finance office. If you are doing a PPM, an advance operating allowance against the incentive payment is also available. None of this is free money. It is your money, earlier, and it is worth arranging before the move rather than after you have floated the costs on a credit card.

How long do I have in temporary lodging?

For a PCS to a duty station inside the continental United States, Temporary Lodging Expense covers a maximum of 21 days. That went up from 14 days effective November 27, 2024, so any guide still saying 14 or 10 days is out of date.

Two things to know before you plan around it. You cannot receive TLE and per diem for PCS travel time on the same day. And the extended TLE authorization, which runs up to 60 days, only applies at a short list of designated locations with a certified permanent housing shortage. No Kansas or Missouri location is on that list, which means 21 days is what you have here. Plan the house hunt accordingly, because three weeks moves fast when inspections and appraisals are involved.

Temporary Lodging Allowance is a different program and it is for overseas locations. If you are PCSing to Kansas City from anywhere in the States, TLE is the one that applies to you.

Which military installations are near Kansas City?

Four places anchor the military presence in this metro, and the drive time from where you choose to live is the single biggest constraint on your search.

• Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, roughly 40 minutes northwest. Our guide to the best places to live near Fort Leavenworth covers the commute question in detail, and we have a separate look at whether to buy or rent at Fort Leavenworth.
• Whiteman Air Force Base, Knob Noster, Missouri, roughly 75 minutes east. Home of the 509th Bomb Wing. See Whiteman AFB housing.
• Rosecrans Air National Guard Base, St. Joseph, Missouri, roughly an hour north. Home of the 139th Airlift Wing, where I served all 21 years. See Rosecrans and the 139th Airlift Wing.
• Kansas City VA Medical Center, in east Kansas City, Missouri.

If you are house hunting from a distance, or from another time zone entirely, we do this constantly. Our page on buying a home in Kansas City while stationed overseas walks through how a remote purchase actually closes.

What about my spouse’s career and license?

The DoD spouse career program is called SpouseWorks, and if you have used it before under the name SECO, that is the same program renamed. It covers career coaching, resume help, education and training assistance and professional licensing support, and it runs through the Military Spouse Employer Partnership network of employers who have committed to hiring military spouses.

The piece most families do not know about is reimbursement. Under the 2018 National Defense Authorization Act, each service branch can reimburse a spouse up to $1,000 for the costs of transferring a professional license or certification when a PCS crosses state lines. A move into this metro can cross the state line by itself, since the Kansas City area sits in two states, so this is more relevant here than in most places. Start with SpouseWorks or Military OneSource at 800-342-9647 to find out how your branch handles it.

Who this applies to and who it does not

This page is written for a stateside PCS into the Kansas City metro. If you are moving overseas, or coming back from overseas, several of the allowances work differently, and TLA rather than TLE is the one that applies to your temporary lodging.

Two honest cautions. The Homeowners Assistance Program still comes up in relocation conversations and in older articles as a benefit that helps service members who have to sell a home on orders. Applications for permanent reassignment have not been accepted since September 30, 2012. It remains open only to wounded, injured or ill applicants and to surviving spouses. Do not plan around it. Second, none of the allowances above cover the costs of buying or selling a house on a routine PCS. The VA home loan is a loan benefit, not a moving entitlement, and it is the main housing tool a PCS actually puts in your hands.

Frequently asked questions about a PCS to Kansas City

Equal Housing Opportunity

Nelson Home Group is committed to the Fair Housing Act. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, color, national origin, religion, sex, familial status, or disability. School district and neighborhood information on this page is provided for factual informational purposes only and does not constitute a recommendation to purchase in any particular area. All buyers are encouraged to independently research neighborhoods, schools, and communities to determine the best fit for their individual needs.

Joe Nelson is a licensed Realtor in Missouri and Kansas, and a licensed mortgage originator in Missouri and Kansas (NMLS #2547018). Joe cannot serve as both Realtor and loan officer on the same transaction. This page is educational and is not an offer of credit or a commitment to lend. Allowance and entitlement determinations are made by the Department of Defense and your service branch.