Per Diem / Daily Travel Budget Calculator

Per diem is a daily travel allowance covering lodging and meals & incidental expenses (M&IE) so travelers don't need to submit itemized receipts for every expense. Under the standard GSA/federal model, per diem = lodging allowance (a nightly rate x number of nights) + M&IE allowance (a daily rate, with the first and last travel day paid at 75%). Enter your trip length and the applicable rates and this calculator totals both pieces for you.

Federal Travel Regulation 41 CFR 301-11.101 and IRS Publication 463 ('Method 1') both prorate M&IE to 75% (three-fourths) of the full daily rate on the day you depart and the day you return, because you're typically not present at the destination for the full 24 hours on those two days. Every full day in between is paid at 100%.

Lodging is paid per overnight stay, not per calendar day, so a 3-day trip (day 1 through day 3) has 2 nights of lodging: nights = days - 1. A 5-day trip has 4 nights, and so on. A same-day trip with no overnight stay gets 0 nights of lodging.

Strictly, the Federal Travel Regulation is built around an overnight stay, so a same-day trip is often not per-diem eligible in the formal sense. However, both the FTR ('more than 12 but less than 24 hours' provision) and IRS Publication 463 support paying 75% of the M&IE rate for a single travel day over 12 hours as a reasonable practice — this calculator applies that convention as a budgeting estimate, not a guaranteed entitlement. Check your organization's specific travel policy.

This calculator multiplies the per-traveler total (lodging + M&IE) by the number of travelers, assuming every traveler has the same trip length and the same lodging/M&IE rates. For example, a 2-day trip at $150 lodging and $80 M&IE totals $270 per traveler, or $540 for 2 travelers.

The U.S. General Services Administration publishes current fiscal-year lodging and M&IE rates by location at gsa.gov/travel/plan-a-trip/per-diem-rates. Rates change every October 1 (the start of the federal fiscal year) and vary by city/county, so look up the specific destination rather than relying on the standard CONUS default.

For destinations without a specific published rate, GSA sets a 'standard CONUS' (continental United States) rate that applies by default — for FY2026 this is $68/day M&IE and $110/night lodging, which are this calculator's default seed values. High-cost cities (New York, San Francisco, Washington DC, etc.) have their own higher published rates.

No. Per diem pays a fixed daily/nightly allowance regardless of what you actually spend (so you keep the difference if you spend less, and absorb the difference if you spend more, subject to your organization's policy), while actual-expense reimbursement pays back your real receipted costs up to a cap. This calculator estimates the per-diem allowance, not an actual-expense reimbursement.

In the U.S., per diem paid at or below the federal per-diem rate under an 'accountable plan' is generally not taxable to the employee. Per diem paid above the federal rate, or paid without proper substantiation of business purpose, can become taxable. This calculator estimates the allowance amount only — consult IRS Publication 463 or a tax professional for the tax treatment of your specific situation.

Yes. Under the federal model, the M&IE rate bundles meals together with 'incidental expenses' — fees and tips paid to porters, baggage carriers, and hotel or ship staff. It does not include lodging taxes, which are typically reimbursed separately from the lodging per-diem rate.

For a 2-day trip, both days count as travel days, so M&IE is calculated as 1.5x the daily rate (0.75 + 0.75) rather than a full day. At an $80 M&IE rate and $150 lodging rate for 1 traveler: 1 night of lodging ($150) plus M&IE of $120 (1.5 x $80) totals $270 for the trip.

This calculator models the U.S. GSA/Federal Travel Regulation CONUS (domestic) methodology. Foreign per diem rates are set separately by the U.S. Department of State and can use different maximum lodging and M&IE structures by country and city — enter the applicable foreign M&IE and lodging rates as inputs if you're estimating international travel, but verify the exact proration rules with the Department of State's foreign per diem tables.