Federal Travel Per Diem: Rates, 75% Days, and Vouchers

Federal travel per diem is the daily allowance the government pays employees on official travel to cover lodging, meals, and incidental expenses. It has two parts that work differently: lodging is reimbursed at your actual hotel cost up to a cap set for the destination, and meals and incidental expenses (M&IE) are paid as a flat daily amount regardless of what you actually spend on food. Rates are set by the General Services Administration for the continental United States and refresh each October with the federal fiscal year.1U.S. General Services Administration. Per Diem Rates

What the Two Parts Actually Pay

Lodging reimburses your real hotel or rental cost, capped at the locality’s maximum. Pay less than the cap and you get only what you paid. Pay more and you eat the difference unless your agency has approved actual expense reimbursement in advance. Lodging taxes on trips inside the continental United States are handled separately as a miscellaneous expense and do not count against the lodging cap.2eCFR. 41 CFR Part 301-11 – Subsistence Expenses

M&IE is different. You receive the full locality M&IE rate for each full travel day whether you eat three restaurant meals or skip food entirely. The incidental piece of that flat amount covers tips to porters, baggage carriers, and hotel staff, and runs $5 per day across all standard CONUS tiers.3U.S. General Services Administration. M&IE Breakdowns

Laundry and dry cleaning is a small but useful extra. On CONUS trips, your agency may reimburse those costs as a separate miscellaneous expense once you have logged at least four consecutive nights of lodging. For foreign and non-foreign overseas locations, laundry is already baked into the per diem rate, and you cannot claim it separately.4eCFR. 41 CFR 301-11.31 – Laundry, Cleaning, and Pressing of Clothing Expenses

Who Qualifies for Per Diem

Three conditions all have to be true. You need official travel orders, your destination has to fall outside your agency’s local travel area, and you have to be in travel status for more than 12 hours.5eCFR. 41 CFR Part 301-11 – Subsistence Expenses – Section 301-11.1

The local travel area is where people get tripped up. Federal regulations let agencies define that boundary using a mileage radius of up to 50 miles from your official duty station.6U.S. General Services Administration. Regional Determination of Local Travel Area Some agencies use the full 50; yours might use less. Check with your travel office if your destination sits near the line.

The 12-hour rule is firm. A trip that lasts 12 hours or less pays nothing for meals or incidentals, no matter how far you drove. A day trip from 6 a.m. to 7 p.m. clears the bar; one that wraps up by noon does not.

First and Last Day Are Paid at 75%

On the day you leave and the day you return, your M&IE is reduced to 75% of the full daily rate. Any single trip that runs more than 12 hours but less than 24 also pays at 75%. Only full days in between get the complete M&IE.7eCFR. 41 CFR Part 301-11 – Subsistence Expenses – Section 301-11.20

At a $68 M&IE tier, that means $51 on the departure day, $68 on a full middle day, and $51 on the return day. A clean three-day trip works out to $170. Record your departure and return timestamps carefully. Wrong times are one of the fastest ways to get a voucher kicked back.

When the Government Provides a Meal

If a conference registration, training event, or other official function includes a meal, you deduct the value of that meal from that day’s M&IE.8eCFR. 41 CFR 301-74.21 – Applicable M&IE Rate When Meals Are Furnished The amount you subtract depends on your tier:

  • $68 tier: breakfast $16, lunch $19, dinner $28, incidentals $5
  • $74 tier: breakfast $18, lunch $20, dinner $31, incidentals $5
  • $80 tier: breakfast $20, lunch $22, dinner $33, incidentals $5
  • $86 tier: breakfast $22, lunch $23, dinner $36, incidentals $5
  • $92 tier: breakfast $23, lunch $26, dinner $38, incidentals $5

On a first or last day, the full meal deduction comes off the already-reduced 75% amount, though total deductions can never take your reimbursement below the incidentals figure.9eCFR. 41 CFR Part 301-11 – Subsistence Expenses – Section 301-11.18

Two things do not trigger a deduction: a complimentary hotel breakfast and meals served by an airline.3U.S. General Services Administration. M&IE Breakdowns Light refreshments at a meeting, coffee and snacks and the like, also do not count. The rule targets full meals paid for at government expense.

Finding the Rate for Your Destination

Use the per diem lookup tool at gsa.gov. Enter your destination and travel dates and you will see the maximum lodging rate and the M&IE allowance day by day. That is the authoritative figure your agency will check your voucher against.1U.S. General Services Administration. Per Diem Rates A standard rate covers most of the country. Roughly 300 non-standard areas, usually built around a key city and its surrounding county, carry higher rates based on local cost data. Some locations use seasonal rates that shift during peak months; a coastal destination may have a higher summer lodging cap than a winter one.

Actual Expense Reimbursement When Per Diem Isn’t Enough

When real costs run above the locality cap, your agency can authorize actual expense reimbursement. This replaces the flat M&IE with itemized meal receipts and allows lodging above the standard cap, up to a ceiling of 300% of the applicable per diem rate. No agency can go beyond that.10eCFR. 41 CFR 301-11.303 – Maximum Amount Under Actual Expense

Approval almost always has to come before you travel. The Federal Travel Regulation lists the situations that warrant it:

  • Lodging and meals procured at a prearranged conference or training venue where rates exceed per diem
  • Special events such as a sporting event, convention, or natural disaster that have driven local costs up, with no practical cheaper option nearby
  • Presidentially-declared disaster areas where the agency has issued a blanket authorization
  • Mission requirements that make staying within per diem impossible

Under actual expense you itemize every meal, and any single meal over $75 needs a receipt. Lodging receipts are always required regardless of amount.11eCFR. 41 CFR Part 301-11 – Subsistence Expenses – Section 301-11.23 Standard per diem M&IE requires no meal receipts at all, so actual expense is a real paperwork jump.

A simpler way to keep lodging within the cap is FedRooms, available through your agency’s booking tool. Participating hotels guarantee rates at or below the locality cap with standardized amenities, so you avoid the whole actual expense process when local prices are high.12U.S. General Services Administration. Book Your Hotel With FedRooms

Long Assignments: Reduced Per Diem and the One-Year Tax Line

The Federal Travel Regulation recognizes three reimbursement methods: standard lodgings-plus per diem, actual expense, and reduced per diem. Agencies can move between them on a calendar-day basis.13eCFR. 41 CFR Part 301-11 – Subsistence Expenses – Section 301-11.3 Reduced per diem most often shows up on long-term temporary duty assignments, where the agency drops both lodging and M&IE after a set number of days. Schedules vary: some agencies start reducing at 30 days, others at 60, and reductions can reach 50% or more past 120 days. If you get orders for an extended assignment, get the specific reduction tiers from your travel office before you sign a lease.

Then there is the tax question. Per diem is generally tax-free, but the IRS treats an assignment at a single location as your new tax home once it is realistically expected to last more than 12 months. From that point every per diem payment is taxable income, even if the payments are still labeled as travel allowances and you account for them to your employer.14Internal Revenue Service. Publication 463 (2025), Travel, Gift, and Car Expenses Expectation is what counts. A 14-month assignment is indefinite from day one. A 10-month assignment later extended to 15 months may become indefinite at the point circumstances changed. A string of short assignments to the same location can also be treated as one indefinite assignment. Federal employees working on criminal investigations or prosecutions are exempt from the one-year rule.

Filing the Voucher

You need receipts for all lodging and for any other individual expense over $75. Your lodging receipt does not need to show a zero balance, contrary to a common belief; it needs to show the dates of your stay and the charges.15Defense Travel Management Office. Information Paper – What Is a Valid Receipt You also need your travel authorization, any unused tickets, and a statement that you have not been reimbursed for the same expenses from another source.16eCFR. 41 CFR 301-52.1 – Travel Claim Information Requirements Record exact departure and return times: those drive the 75% calculation and the 12-hour threshold.

Submit within five working days of finishing your trip. On continuous travel, file at least every 30 days. Hang onto receipts for six years. Civilian agencies file through an electronic travel system; the Department of Defense uses the Defense Travel System. A certifying officer checks the voucher against the Federal Travel Regulation and your original orders, and most agencies pay by direct deposit within a few business days of approval.

What Per Diem Does Not Cover

Per diem is not a general travel wallet. Several common expenses fall outside it entirely:

A Note If You’re a Contractor

GSA’s per diem rates and the Federal Travel Regulation govern federal employees. Contractors working on federal contracts may receive per diem, but GSA does not set or enforce those rates. Whether you get per diem at all, and at what amount, depends on your contract. The contracting officer is your point of contact.18U.S. General Services Administration. Frequently Asked Questions, Per Diem Many contracts incorporate the GSA rates by reference, but some set their own terms.