Guides · Taxes

GSA Per Diem Rates for Travel Therapists

Published 11 February 2026Updated 3 August 202610 min read

When a recruiter says a stipend is "at the GSA max," they are referring to a specific published table that has nothing to do with healthcare and everything to do with federal business travel. Knowing how that table works turns a vague reassurance into something you can check in ninety seconds — and occasionally into leverage.

Who sets per diem rates, and why they apply to you

The General Services Administration publishes the maximum per diem allowances federal civilian employees may receive for lodging and for meals and incidental expenses (M&IE) while travelling in the continental United States. The Department of Defense sets rates for Alaska, Hawaii and US territories; the State Department sets foreign rates.

None of that is aimed at travel therapists. The connection comes through the tax code. Under Revenue Procedure 2019-48, an employer operating an accountable plan may pay a per diem allowance in lieu of reimbursing actual, receipted expenses, and an allowance that does not exceed the applicable federal per diem rate for the locality is deemed substantiated as to amount. The employee still has to substantiate the time, place and business purpose of the travel — the safe harbour only removes the requirement to prove the dollar amount.

That is the entire basis for the industry's stipend structure. It is why agencies quote "GSA rates," why stipends vary wildly between cities, and why an agency that pays far above the local federal rate has stepped outside the safe harbour.

The FY2026 numbers

Per diem rates run on the federal fiscal year: 1 October to 30 September. For fiscal year 2026, GSA held rates flat at the FY2025 level. The standard CONUS rate — which applies to roughly two-thirds of US counties, the ones with no location-specific rate — is:

Those weekly and contract columns are our arithmetic, not GSA's — the federal tables are per-day figures. They are useful because agencies quote stipends weekly, and because $1,246 a week is a genuinely handy benchmark. A combined housing plus M&IE stipend meaningfully above that number in an ordinary market is worth a question.

Non-standard areas: where the big stipends come from

Several hundred higher-cost locations are designated non-standard areas with their own lodging rates, and many have seasonal rates that change month to month — a beach county in July is not the same rate as the same county in February. GSA added no new NSA locations for FY2026.

M&IE in an NSA falls into one of five published tiers:

The last column is the 75% rule: on your first and last day of travel, only three-quarters of the M&IE allowance applies, because you are not away for a full day. Over a thirteen-week contract this is trivial — about $34 at the standard tier — but it is the reason careful agencies pro-rate the first and last weeks.

How to look up your assignment

1. Go to gsa.gov/perdiem and enter the city, or the state and ZIP code, of the facility.
2. Select fiscal year 2026. Rates for the year beginning 1 October 2026 are published separately each August.
3. Read the lodging row for the month your assignment falls in — not the annual figure, if the location is seasonal.
4. Multiply lodging by 7 and M&IE by 7 to get the weekly ceiling, then compare against the stipends you have been quoted.

Two details trip people up. Lodging per diem is based on where you sleep, not where you work — relevant if you are assigned to an expensive city and stay one county over. And the published lodging rate excludes lodging taxes, which federal travellers are reimbursed separately; your stipend has to cover them.

What happens if the stipend exceeds the federal rate

Nothing automatically becomes illegal. Under Revenue Procedure 2019-48, the portion of a per diem allowance that exceeds the applicable federal rate is treated as wages: it should be reported in Box 1 of your W-2 and is subject to income tax and FICA withholding, unless the employer accounts for the excess and you substantiate actual expenses. In practice, an agency that pays over the rate and still reports the whole amount as non-taxable is creating an exposure that lands on your return, not theirs.

This is separate from — and often confused with — wage recharacterisation. Paying $1,400 a week in housing in Manhattan is fine, because the local rate supports it. Paying $1,400 a week in a rural county with a $110 lodging rate, while quoting a $19 taxable hourly rate, is a different animal, and Revenue Ruling 2012-25 is the ruling that describes it.

You can receive M&IE even in company housing

A point worth knowing when you compare offers: Revenue Procedure 2019-48 permits an employer to pay a per diem for meals and incidental expenses alone, without any lodging component. So a traveller in agency-provided housing can still receive a tax-free M&IE stipend. If an agency offering company housing tells you there is no meal stipend available, that is a business decision on their side, not a tax rule — and it is negotiable.

What to do with all this

Before you accept a contract, spend two minutes on the GSA site and write down three numbers: the lodging rate for your city in your assignment months, the M&IE tier, and the weekly total. Then put your offer into the pay calculator, which flags stipends above the standard CONUS rate and tells you the take-home figure the package actually produces. If the stipends are well below the local ceiling, you have a concrete, citable basis for asking for more — one that does not require the recruiter to take your word for anything.

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