DoD Pilot Program for PCSing Family Members with Children
Permanent change-of-station moves require military families to pack up their homes and move to a new base and neighborhood. Once the family gets to the new assignment, the process of finding essential services, including military-friendly childcare, begins.
The childcare aspect can be challenging for incoming families, but the Department of Defense launched a pilot program in 2024 to help ease that transition during PCS moves. A three-year pilot program offers military families additional funds to cover qualifying temporary childcare services.
How the DoD Childcare Pilot Program Works
The DoD pilot program is a three-year trial run that offers service members up to $1,500 to cover travel expenses for a temporary childcare provider. The family must coordinate with their local military travel office to arrange for the child care provider to travel to the new duty location, where they provide temporary childcare for the family during the PCS transition.
The Rules:
- This benefit is meant to be used when on-base child care isn’t available within 30 days of arriving at a new duty station.
- Service members can hire a provider (who may be a family member or friend) to care for their children during the transition.
- To use the program, service members must apply for child care at their new location.
- If no space is available within 30 days, they can then find a temporary provider and ask for reimbursement of travel costs.
- The reimbursement limit is $500 for moves within the continental US.
- The limit is $1,500 for moves outside the continental US.
Read next: What to Know About Military Childcare
The Benefits:
The program covers the cost of commercial travel, including flights, trains, and rental cars. Under the current rules at press time, no privately owned vehicle mileage reimbursement is offered, but you may qualify for a fuel stipend.
The program covers the provider’s transportation costs to the family and back home. It doesn’t cover the provider’s pay or housing costs. Each military family can only have one reimbursed provider, and only one service member per military couple can ask for the benefit.
As mentioned above, a childcare provider in this context is typically a relative or family friend, but au pairs may also qualify. This benefit program does not pay for those services, just transportation. There is no funding for the compensation a childcare provider may require.
Not all military families will qualify for this benefit, and not all bases may offer benefits under the pilot program. The program is subject to review, cancellation, or modification between now and its expiration date.
Congress directed the DoD to create this pilot program in the 2023 National Defense Authorization Act. The VA pilot program, as currently designed, runs until September 30, 2027. Contact your unit orderly room. First Sergeant, or command support staff to learn more about how to apply for this benefit.
Read next: What to Know About Military Childcare
About the author
Editor-in-Chief Joe Wallace is a 13-year veteran of the United States Air Force and a former reporter/editor for Air Force Television News and the Pentagon Channel. His freelance work includes contract work for Motorola, VALoans.com, and Credit Karma. He is co-founder of Dim Art House in Springfield, Illinois, and spends his non-writing time as an abstract painter, independent publisher, and occasional filmmaker.
