Per diem rates FY2027

What a GSA per diem rate covers

A federal per diem rate has two parts. The lodging part is a ceiling on what a federal traveller is reimbursed for a hotel room per night. The meals and incidental expenses part, M&IE, is a fixed daily allowance for breakfast, lunch, dinner and small costs such as tips. GSA sets both for the continental US, one fiscal year at a time, and its lookup on gsa.gov is the place to confirm a rate before a trip^[1].

Lodging taxes sit outside the ceiling. GSA says plainly that they are not included in the CONUS per diem rate^[2], so a room priced exactly at the cap still costs the traveller the local hotel taxes on top, which federal travellers claim separately. A hotel looking at the cap should read it the same way: it is a pre-tax room rate.

How GSA decides which rate applies

Every non-standard rate belongs to a key city and usually to one or more counties around it. GSA defines the key city as all locations within, or entirely surrounded by, the corporate limits of that city^[1]. When your destination is not named but its county is, the county rate applies to the whole county^[2]. Everything outside those areas falls back to the standard rate, which is why two hotels a few miles apart can sit under very different caps.

The rate follows where the work happens, not where you choose to sleep. GSA explains this on its rates page, with one exception: when no lodging is available where the work is, the agency may authorize the rate where the room is found^[1]. Outside that case it matters at the edge of a locality: staying one county over to find a cheaper room does not change the cap you are reimbursed against.

Many localities also change their lodging cap by month. A city with a busy convention season often has a higher cap for those months and a lower one for the rest of the year, so the month of the stay matters as much as the place. Each city page here shows all twelve months side by side with the previous year.

Meals and incidentals, and the first and last day

GSA groups every locality into one of a handful of M&IE tiers, and each tier is split into breakfast, lunch, dinner and incidentals, which the table below shows for every tier.

On a trip of 24 hours or more, the Federal Travel Regulation pays 75% of the M&IE rate on the day you leave and on the last day, and the full rate on every day in between^[3]. GSA prints the resulting first and last day amount for each tier in its M&IE table, and its FAQ repeats the 75% rule^[2]. Trips of more than 12 but under 24 hours also get 75% for each day^[3].

When hotels cost more than the cap

The cap is not a promise that rooms exist at that price. GSA states that hotels are not required to honor the federal per diem rates^[2]. When no room is available at per diem, GSA tells travellers to check FedRooms first, and an agency may then authorize actual expenses of up to 300% of the per diem rate^[2].

The opposite also happens. An agency can set a lower rate in advance when it can tell that lodging or meals will cost less, and it must write that rate into the travel authorization before the trip^[4]. That is why a per diem total for a long stay is a ceiling, not a figure anyone is owed.

Private employers and the IRS high-low method

GSA rates bind federal travel. A private company can copy them into its own travel policy, but it does not have to. For employers that reimburse on a per diem basis, the IRS publishes a simpler alternative each year, the high-low method, with one daily rate for a short list of high-cost localities and another rate for everywhere else in the continental US^[5].

The current notice treats a locality as high-cost when its federal per diem rate, lodging plus M&IE, is at least a set amount for part or all of the year, and lists those localities with the months they qualify^[5]. Each city page shows that status month by month. This is general information about how the methods work; which one suits a reimbursement plan is a question for a tax adviser.

When the rates change

Per diem rates run on the federal fiscal year, from 1 October to 30 September. GSA reviews the standard and non-standard areas every year^[2] and typically announces the next year in mid-August^[1]. Every page on this site is built from a dated copy of GSA's published data, shows the date it was retrieved, and moves to the new fiscal year on the first rebuild after 1 October.

Hawaii, Alaska and US territories

The rates on this site cover the continental US only. GSA does not set rates for Alaska, Hawaii or the US territories: the Department of Defense sets rates for those non-foreign areas, and the Department of State sets rates for foreign travel. Look those up on the Department of Defense per diem pages. Department of Defense per diem rates.