2018 GSA Per Diem Rate
The 2018 GSA Per Diem Rate is $93.
Effective 2017-10-01 through 2018-09-30Source: Maximum Per Diem Reimbursement Rates for the Continental United States (CONUS), FY 2018 (GSA Per Diem Bulletin FTR 18-01) (GSA)Verified 2026-09-02
Compared with 2017
| Item | 2017 | 2018 | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Standard CONUS lodging rate | $91 | $93 | +$2 (+2.2%) |
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
The standard CONUS lodging allowance rate rose from $91 to $93 a night for fiscal 2018, and again no new non-standard area location was added. As in the year before it, the notice states that the M&IE reimbursement rate tiers were not revised and prints no meals figure, so the lodging rate is the only amount this page can take from it.
Common questions
- What is the standard CONUS lodging rate for fiscal 2018?
- $93 a night, for travel performed on or after October 1, 2017, through September 30, 2018.
- How much did the standard lodging rate go up?
- It moved from $91 to $93 a night, the second annual review since GSA began looking at the standard rate every year rather than every third 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 GSA per diem rates exist to reimburse federal employees for the cost of lodging, meals, and incidental expenses when they are on official travel within the continental United States (CONUS), which includes the 48 contiguous states and the District of Columbia. These are not general consumer rates, unemployment benefits, or small-business subsidies. If you work for a private company, are self-employed, or are traveling on personal business, the CONUS standard lodging rate of $93 does not automatically apply to you. Other agencies set the rates for non-CONUS U.S. areas and for foreign travel: the Department of Defense covers Alaska, Hawaii, and U.S. territories, and the State Department covers foreign countries. Within an agency, only the traveler's own finance or travel office can confirm how the rates apply to a specific trip.
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
A federal traveler cannot simply claim the full per diem without paperwork. For every official temporary travel destination, the agency requires a receipt to back up the lodging costs claimed, plus receipts for any other authorized expense that costs more than $75. If the traveler cannot produce a receipt, the agency may still accept the claim only if the traveler provides a reason the agency finds acceptable for why the receipt is missing. These rules are set out in the Federal Travel Regulation at 301-11.25. In practice, this means keeping every hotel folio and any itemized receipt above the $75 threshold, and turning them in with the travel voucher. The standard CONUS lodging rate of $93 is a maximum, not an automatic payout, so the receipt showing actual cost is what determines what the traveler is reimbursed.
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 Federal Travel Regulation does not allow federal travelers to shift money between the lodging portion and the meals-and-incidental-expenses portion of the per diem. Lodging per diem rates are a maximum reimbursement, not a flat payment: the traveler is paid back only for actual lodging costs up to that maximum, so any unspent lodging money does not become extra spending money for meals. The same restriction works in reverse: a traveler cannot give up part of the meals-and-incidental-expenses allowance to push the lodging reimbursement higher. Each allowance has its own ceiling, and the two pools cannot be combined, traded, or carried over from one to the other, even when the traveler's actual spending on one side is well below the $93 standard CONUS lodging rate.
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 sets per diem rates for federal employees on official travel and has no authority over what a private employer pays a contractor, what a contractor's contract allows for travel reimbursement, or what the Internal Revenue Service permits a self-employed trucker to deduct for meals. When a government contract involves travel, the contracting officer and the contract terms - not the GSA per diem page - determine what the contractor is paid. Contractors should also follow their own company's travel regulations. The same separation applies to independent truckers asking how much they can deduct per day for meals on their taxes: that is an IRS question, not a GSA one. The standard CONUS lodging rate of $93 and the related M&IE rates therefore do not automatically become a contractor's billing rate or a trucker's deduction limit.
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.
Per diem rates frequently asked questions (GSA)
A hotel's advertised GOV rate is not the same thing as the federal per diem rate
Hotels often advertise a special government rate, sometimes labeled the GOV rate, but that rate is set by the individual hotel and may be higher or lower than the federal per diem. A federal traveler is responsible for knowing the actual per diem rates for the destination and cannot assume the hotel's GOV rate matches them. If the GOV rate comes in above the per diem, the traveler must obtain approval for an actual-expense allowance before the trip in order to be reimbursed for the full amount. In 2018 the standard CONUS lodging rate is $93; a hotel's GOV rate that exceeds that figure still requires pre-trip authorization, and a GOV rate below it simply means the traveler pays less, not that the per diem has changed.
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 $91 to $93.