2024 GSA Per Diem Rate
For 2024, the GSA Per Diem Rate figures are $107 (Standard CONUS lodging rate), $59 (Standard CONUS M&IE rate), $59 (Lowest M&IE rate tier) and $79 (Highest M&IE rate tier).
Effective 2023-10-01 through 2024-09-30Source: Maximum Per Diem Reimbursement Rates for the Continental United States (CONUS), FY 2024 (GSA Per Diem Bulletin FTR 24-01) (GSA)Verified 2026-09-02
Compared with 2023
| Item | 2023 | 2024 | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Standard CONUS lodging rate | $98 | $107 | +$9 (+9.2%) |
| Standard CONUS M&IE rate | $59 | $59 | +$0 (+0.0%) |
| Lowest M&IE rate tier | $59 | $59 | +$0 (+0.0%) |
| Highest M&IE rate tier | $79 | $79 | +$0 (+0.0%) |
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 largest single-year move in this series: the standard CONUS lodging rate went from $98 to $107 a night for fiscal 2024. Two new non-standard areas were added, Charles Town in West Virginia and Huntsville in Alabama, and lodging rose in some existing ones. Meals were untouched, with the M&IE tiers unchanged at $59 to $79 and the standard CONUS M&IE rate unchanged at $59 a day.
Common questions
- What is the standard CONUS lodging rate for fiscal 2024?
- $107 a night, for travel performed on or after October 1, 2023, through September 30, 2024.
- How much did the standard lodging rate rise?
- From $98 to $107 a night.
- Did the meals rate change for fiscal 2024?
- No. The standard CONUS M&IE rate stays at $59 a day and the non-standard area tiers stay at $59 to $79.
- 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.
Every amount on this page is a published figure rather than yours. The How much of the M&IE rate your spending leaves takes the number you enter and works it out against them, showing which published figure it used.
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 2024 GSA per diem rates published by the General Services Administration apply specifically to federal civilian employees who are traveling on official business within the continental United States (CONUS). CONUS includes the 48 contiguous states and the District of Columbia. Federal agencies use these published rates as the maximum amount they may reimburse to workers for lodging, meals, and incidental expenses while they are away from their regular duty station. If travel takes place outside the continental United States - such as in Alaska, Hawaii, or a U.S. territory - different agencies set the rates: the Department of Defense handles non-foreign areas, and the Department of State handles foreign destinations. The standard CONUS lodging rate for 2024 is $107 and the standard CONUS M&IE rate is $59. Travelers should be aware that specific localities can have higher rates, and the lowest M&IE rate tier is $59 while the highest M&IE rate tier is $79. The rates establish ceilings for reimbursement, not automatic payments; an employee is only repaid for what was actually spent, up to the applicable maximum.
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
When traveling on official business, a federal employee must keep receipts and turn them in to the agency in order to be reimbursed. For lodging, a receipt is always required. For other authorized travel expenses, a receipt is required whenever an individual expense costs more than $75. If a receipt cannot be produced, the traveler must give the agency a reason that it finds acceptable for why the receipt is missing. Without the proper receipts - or an acceptable explanation - the agency may refuse to reimburse the expense, even if the traveler actually incurred the cost and the amount falls within the published per diem rates. The documentation requirements are set out in the Federal Travel Regulation.
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
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
Under the Federal Travel Regulation, a federal employee cannot shift money between the lodging portion and the meals and incidental expenses portion of the per diem. Lodging per diem rates represent a ceiling: the traveler is reimbursed only for actual lodging costs up to that maximum, so any amount not spent on the hotel room does not create a surplus that can be added to the meal allowance. The reverse is also true - a traveler may not give up part of the M&IE allowance to claim additional lodging reimbursement. The rule means that money saved on the room stays unspent, and money saved on meals stays unspent; the two categories cannot be mixed. The standard CONUS lodging rate for 2024 is $107, and the standard CONUS M&IE rate is $59. These figures are governed separately and are set out in the Federal Travel Regulation.
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 establishes per diem rates and sets the related policies only for federal civilian employees on official travel. The agency does not set rules for how private-sector contractors are paid, and it cannot address specific inquiries concerning the payment of contractors. A contractor whose work involves a federal contract should check with the contracting officer to see what the contract itself says about travel reimbursement, and should also look to the travel policies of the contractor's own company. The standard CONUS lodging rate of $107 and the standard CONUS M&IE rate of $59 therefore do not automatically determine a contractor's pay or travel allowance.
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
Some hotels advertise a special "GOV" rate for government travelers, but that rate is set by the hotel and is not the same as the federal per diem rate published by GSA. If the hotel's GOV rate is higher than the published per diem rate, a federal traveler must receive approval for an actual-expense allowance before traveling in order to be reimbursed for the full amount. The responsibility falls on the traveler to know the federal per diem rates and not to assume that whatever GOV rate the hotel offers matches those published figures. The standard CONUS lodging rate for 2024 is $107, which is the ceiling GSA sets; any hotel charge above that amount requires separate, advance authorization under Federal Travel Regulation Chapter 301, Subpart D.
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 rate will increase from $98 to $107.
- Standard CONUS M&IE rate
the standard M&IE rate unchanged at $59.
- Lowest M&IE rate tier
The M&IE per diem tiers for FY 2024 are unchanged at $59-$79,
- Highest M&IE rate tier
The M&IE per diem tiers for FY 2024 are unchanged at $59-$79,