TLA Calculator for Ramstein & the KMC

Your ceiling is a percentage of the Ramstein locality rate, and that rate is currently $229.00 lodging plus $133.00 M&IE per day (DTMO OCONUS per diem, Change 727). The percentage is not the same for both. A service member arriving alone draws 100 percent of the lodging rate but only 65 percent of M&IE. With one dependent it is 100 percent of lodging and 100 percent of M&IE, and each further dependent adds 35 percent aged 12 and over or 25 percent under 12. Those figures are DoD FMR Volume 7A, Chapter 68, Table 68-11. Lodging is reimbursed against your receipts up to that ceiling and unused ceiling is forfeited; M&IE is paid without a receipt, so what you do not spend is yours. Put your own family into the calculator above for your figure.

Yes, and it is the single most common misunderstanding about TLA. Table 68-11 pays a percentage to each service member, not one percentage to the couple, so a mil-to-mil couple files two separate TLA claims - 65 percent of the lodging rate and 65 percent of M&IE each when you lodge together. Under FMR 2.2.1 neither of you is the other's civilian spouse, so nobody fills the 100 percent dependent slot. If you share one apartment you still need itemised receipts that support both claims - a single invoice in one name leaves the other claim unpaid (FMR 6.2.3.2.1). We issue split invoices for mil-to-mil couples as a matter of course.

Your TLA does not stop. Under FMR 4.4.2 your lodging reimbursement is capped at what government quarters on base would have cost, instead of at the percentage of the locality rate - so the ceiling drops, but the entitlement continues and M&IE is untouched. The calculator above shows both figures: switch the Non-Availability letter off and you see exactly what the cap costs you. Ask the lodging desk for the denial in writing either way; Finance will want it in the file.

It can, on paper. FMR 6.3.4.1 permits the approving official to reduce the M&IE portion when kitchen facilities are available. In fifteen years of KMC practice we have not seen it applied to a TLA claim here - every one of our apartments has a full kitchen and our guests have been paid the full M&IE rate. But the decision belongs to your Finance office, not to us, and we will not promise you an outcome they control. If yours raises it, ask for the reduction in writing and bring it to us.

One NF-1 form covers up to 2,499.99 EUR net per transaction, so a normal TLA stay needs several of them, issued in blocks. The first form has to be with us within 7 days of check-in, and every further invoice needs its own form before the invoice is written - a VAT form handed over afterwards cannot be applied to an invoice that already exists. The form fee itself is a reimbursable TLA expense. The calculator works out how many forms your stay needs.

DoD allows TLA for up to 60 days at a permanent duty station. In the KMC, Housing works with an initial 30-day period and then extends in 10-day increments, each one applied for and approved separately. Apply before the current period runs out - a lapsed period is a gap you will not be paid for, even if the extension is later approved. Bring your house-hunting log to every extension appointment.

No - turning down suitable housing ends your TLA. Pets, furniture that will not fit, the school district and the size of the home are explicitly not grounds for an extension, and Housing records the refusal. That is why we keep our own permanent rentals in Bruchmuehlbach-Miesau and Lambsborn, with a Housing-approved lease ready to sign: it puts you in a position to accept a home rather than refuse one, and your TLA runs to its natural end instead of being cut short.