2017 GSA Per Diem Rate
The 2017 GSA Per Diem Rate is $91.
Effective 2016-10-01 through 2017-09-30Source: Maximum Per Diem Reimbursement Rates for the Continental United States (CONUS), FY 2017 (GSA Per Diem Bulletin FTR 17-01) (GSA)Verified 2026-09-02
Who it applies to
Federal employees travelling on official business inside the continental United States, and the agencies that reimburse them. These are maximum reimbursement rates set by GSA under the Federal Travel Regulation: an agency may pay up to the lodging rate for a night's room and up to the M&IE rate for a day's meals and incidental expenses, in any location GSA has not set a non-standard rate for. They are not the IRS high-low per diem rates, which are what a private employer or a self-employed taxpayer uses to substantiate a business travel deduction.
What changed this year, and why
GSA raised the standard CONUS lodging allowance rate to $91 a night for fiscal 2017 and added no new non-standard area location. The notice changes nothing about meals: it records only that the M&IE reimbursement rate tiers were not revised, and states no M&IE amount of any kind, so the lodging rate is the whole of what this notice puts in a sentence.
Common questions
- What is the standard CONUS lodging rate for fiscal 2017?
- $91 a night, for travel performed on or after October 1, 2016, through September 30, 2017.
- Does the FY 2017 notice state a standard M&IE rate?
- No. It says only that the M&IE reimbursement rate tiers were not revised for FY 2017 and prints no meals figure at all, so there is no M&IE amount this page can quote for the year.
- Why does this page give one standard rate instead of the rate for my city?
- GSA publishes the per-city and per-county lodging and M&IE rates only as a lookup grid at gsa.gov/perdiem, where a location's row crossed with a column holds a bare amount with no sentence around it. This site publishes figures a document states in words, so what it carries is the standard CONUS rate the Federal Register notice states in its own prose. A city GSA has not listed takes that standard rate anyway.
The first and last day of a trip pay three quarters of the M&IE rate
A trip's first and last day are not reimbursed at the full meals and incidental expenses rate. GSA pays three quarters of the M&IE rate for the traveller's temporary duty location on each of those two days, on the reasoning that a departure day and a return day do not each contain a full day of meals away from home. The rate that gets cut is the one for the place being travelled to, not the one for the traveller's own official duty station, which is the part people get wrong when they work a reimbursement out by hand. GSA publishes the already-reduced amount for every location in the meal breakdown table on its own site, under a heading for the first and last day of travel, so the arithmetic does not have to be redone.
On the first and last travel day, Federal employees are only eligible for 75 percent of the total M&IE rate for their temporary duty travel location (not the official duty station location).
Per diem rates frequently asked questions (GSA)
What happens when no room can be had at the maximum rate
The lodging figure on this page is a ceiling on ordinary reimbursement, not a promise that a room exists at that price. Where a federal traveller cannot find one within the established rate, the Federal Travel Regulation lets the employing agency authorise the actual expense allowance instead and reimburse what the room actually cost, up to triple the established per diem rate for that location. It is an authorisation rather than an entitlement: the agency has to approve it, normally before the travel happens, and GSA's own guidance asks the traveller to check FedRooms first to confirm that nothing is available at the per diem rate. The Federal Travel Regulation sets the allowance out in its own actual expense subpart, which is the part of the rules an agency travel manager will point to when approving one.
In addition, if a Federal employee cannot find a room within the established per diem rates, the travel policy allows the agency to reimburse the actual hotel charges up to 300 percent of the established per diem rates.
Per diem rates frequently asked questions (GSA)
Standard locations, non-standard areas, and the city that is on neither list
GSA sets a rate of its own for the non-standard areas, which are the places the federal community travels to often enough for GSA to review them every year. Everywhere else is a standard CONUS location, and standard locations are deliberately not listed one by one on the per diem site. So an address that returns nothing from GSA's lookup has not been left out by mistake. Check the county first: where the city is unlisted but its county is listed, the county's rate governs the whole county, that city included. Where neither the city nor the county appears, the location takes the standard CONUS rate published at the top of this page. That is why the standard rate is what most federal travel is actually reimbursed against, rather than an obscure fallback.
If the city is not listed, but the county is, then the per diem rate is the rate for that entire county. If the city and the county are not listed, then that area receives the standard CONUS location rate.
Per diem rates frequently asked questions (GSA)
Who this rate is actually for
The 2017 CONUS per diem rates set by GSA are specifically for federal civilian employees traveling on official business within the 48 contiguous states and the District of Columbia. GSA publishes the lodging rate, which in 2017 was $91 for most of the country, along with meals and incidental expenses rates that agencies use to pay back what their workers spend while away from their regular duty station. These rates do not automatically apply to other travelers - members of the military, for instance, fall under Department of Defense rates, and employees traveling overseas or to Alaska or Hawaii look to the State Department and DOD. The federal per diem is a reimbursement ceiling, not a general travel budget that anyone on the road can claim.
The U.S. General Services Administration (GSA) establishes the per diem reimbursement rates that federal agencies use to reimburse their employees for subsistence expenses incurred while on official travel within the continental U.S. (CONUS), which includes the 48 contiguous states and the District of Columbia.
Per diem rates frequently asked questions (GSA)
What you have to keep and hand over to get reimbursed
Federal travelers who want to be paid back for what they spent on official travel must be able to prove it. A hotel bill is always required, and any other authorized expense over $75 also needs a receipt to be reimbursed. If a receipt is missing, the traveler has to give their agency an acceptable reason why; the agency decides whether that explanation is enough. Keeping every receipt organized and turning them in with the travel voucher is part of the process - the rates set by GSA, such as the $91 standard CONUS lodging figure, do not pay out on their own without documentation showing what the employee actually spent.
For any official temporary travel destination, you must provide a receipt to substantiate your claimed travel expenses for lodging and receipts for any authorized expenses incurred costing over $75, or a reason acceptable to your agency explaining why you are unable to provide the necessary receipt (see Federal Travel Regulation 301-11.25).
Per diem rates frequently asked questions (GSA)
Money you do not spend on the room cannot be shifted to meals, or the other way around
The lodging portion and the meals-and-incidental-expenses portion of the per diem are separate buckets that cannot be combined. A federal employee who finds a cheaper hotel does not get to keep the difference and spend it on nicer dinners; the lodging rate is a cap, and the traveler is only reimbursed for what the room actually costs. By the same token, someone who chooses to skip meals cannot shift that unspent meals money toward a room that exceeds the lodging rate. In 2017, the standard CONUS lodging figure was $91 and the M&IE rate was set separately; the two do not interact. The Federal Travel Regulation sections cited make clear that neither allowance can be transferred to the other.
For federal employees, the Federal Travel Regulation (FTR) does not make a provision for “mixing and matching” reimbursement rates. The lodging per diem rates are a maximum amount; the traveler only receives actual lodging costs up to that maximum rate. Therefore, there is no “extra” lodging per diem to add to the M&IE rate. Likewise, the M&IE per diem cannot be given up or transferred to lodging costs.
Per diem rates frequently asked questions (GSA)
GSA's rate does not automatically govern a contractor's pay or a trucker's tax deduction
GSA publishes per diem rates for federal civilian employees on official travel and nothing more. That means the agency does not set the amounts a private contractor bills the government, and it does not decide how much an independent truck driver can deduct on a tax return. A contractor working under a federal contract needs to check what the contracting officer has written into that specific agreement, as well as their own company's travel policy. The $91 standard CONUS lodging rate and the meals allowance that accompany it are guidance for federal workers, not a universal reimbursement schedule. Contractors and self-employed travelers operate under separate rules and must look elsewhere for the figures that apply to them.
GSA establishes per diem rates and related policies for federal travelers on official travel only, and cannot address specific inquiries concerning the payment of contractors. If the contractor is on a federal contract, check with the contracting officer to see what is stated in their contract. Contractors should also check the travel regulations of their company.
Per diem rates frequently asked questions (GSA)
A hotel's advertised GOV rate is not the same thing as the federal per diem rate
When a hotel lists a "GOV" rate at the front desk or on a booking site, that number is the hotel's own discounted government price, not the per diem rate GSA has published for the area. The two figures can be higher or lower than each other. If the GOV rate turns out to be above the federal per diem - which was $91 for standard CONUS lodging in 2017 - the traveler must get actual-expense approval before the trip in order to be reimbursed for the full amount. GSA makes clear that the responsibility for knowing the correct per diem rate rests with the traveler, who should not assume the hotel's GOV rate matches it and should follow the actual-expense rules in the Federal Travel Regulation when it does not.
Hotels sometimes offer a “GOV” rate, which might be different than the federal per diem rate. If it is higher, you need to receive approval for actual expense prior to travel in order to receive full reimbursement. It is the traveler’s responsibility to know the federal per diem reimbursement rates, and should not assume a GOV rate is the same as the federal per diem rate.
Per diem rates frequently asked questions (GSA)
How each figure was verified
Each number below was read from a stored copy of the document named beside it, and checked to occur word for word in the quoted sentence. The digest is of that stored text.
- Standard CONUS lodging rate
The standard CONUS lodging allowance rate will increase from $89 to $91.