What Is GSA Per Diem Rate? (2026)

Key numbers at a glance

What GSA per diem rate means

Each per diem rate has two parts. Lodging: a per-night maximum that varies by county and by month — beach towns peak in summer, ski towns in winter, and the tables reflect it. M&IE: a meals-and-incidentals allowance for the day, which runs in tiers (for FY2026, $68 to $92, with the standard rate at $68). For most of the country — the "standard CONUS" counties that do not merit their own table — one rate applies everywhere. For fiscal year 2026 (October 1, 2025 through September 30, 2026), that standard rate is $110/night lodging plus $68/day M&IE, or $178/day combined, unchanged from FY2025, per GSA.gov/perdiem.

Two mechanics from the federal rules that explain things you will see in your own pay. First, rates are seasonal by month, so a contract starting in June and its extension starting in October can sit under different lodging maximums for the same city. Second, federal travelers get 75% of M&IE on departure and return days, and lodging taxes are handled separately from the lodging cap — conventions your agency may or may not mirror, but which shape the stipend numbers you are quoted.

What the GSA table is not: a law about your pay. No rule says an agency must pay you GSA rates. What the federal tables actually do for a private traveler is set the tax boundary — per-diem allowances paid under an accountable plan are tax-free up to the federal rate for the area, and any excess above it is taxable wages (per IRS Publication 463's accountable-plan rules). That makes the GSA table simultaneously your negotiation ceiling and your audit guardrail, and it only applies to you at all if you maintain a tax home and genuinely incur duplicated expenses.

How GSA per diem rate affects your numbers

Work the standard-rate version first, because it is arithmetic you can do on a napkin. Lodging $110 × 7 nights = $770/week. M&IE $68 × 7 days = $476/week. Combined maximum in a standard-rate area: $1,246/week — roughly $16,198 over a 13-week contract before you touch taxable wages. When an agency quotes you combined stipends near that number in a standard-rate city, it has simply taken you to the federal ceiling. In non-standard cities the same multiplication applies to that city's own, higher tables — pull the exact lodging figure for your contract's months from GSA.gov rather than trusting anyone's summary.

The FY2026 standard tables at a glance:

Three practical uses. Negotiation: if your quoted stipends sit well below the local ceiling, the difference is negotiating room the agency is holding — cite the table. Audit guardrail: stipends above the federal rate for the area are taxable excess; if a package looks too generous, ask which rate it was built on. Offer comparison: two contracts with identical taxable rates are not identical if one sits in a non-standard city with a much higher lodging cap — the take-home gap goes through the stipend, and the take-home calculator will show it. Also compare against the practical alternative of agency housing using our housing stipend vs agency housing breakdown.

Common mistakes

Using last year's table. Rates reset every October 1 with the federal fiscal year. A FY2025 number quoted against an FY2026 contract is a stale ceiling.

Ignoring the month. Seasonal lodging tables mean January and July in the same resort town can carry different maximums. Match the table to your contract dates.

Confusing the cap with the market. GSA rates approximate federal lodging costs, which run below extended-stay reality in some hot markets and above it in others. The cap limits the tax-free stipend; it does not guarantee the apartment is affordable.

Assuming the stipend label tells you anything. "We pay max per diem" is meaningless until you know which city, which months, and which table. Ask for the breakdown in dollars.

When it matters most

GSA tables matter most when you are comparing offers across cities, negotiating a stipend up, or sanity-checking an unusually rich package — and every time October 1 rolls the tables over mid-extension. Rural and unglamorous locations are the sleeper case: their lodging caps are often competitive with glamorous cities while far fewer travelers want them, which is part of why the highest blended rates show up in places nobody brags about visiting. Start from the NursePayLab home page for the full pay toolkit, and keep GSA.gov/perdiem open whenever a recruiter says the word "maximum."