Per Diem
Per Diem
What is Per Diem?
Per Diem refers to a fixed sum of money given to an employee every day to cover the expenses for a business trip. The amount of money that an employee spends through cash or credit card while traveling for business mean can be reimbursed.
The term Per Diem is driven from the Latin language, which means: for-each-day. It encompasses lodging, food for three times, and incidentals.
When an employee travels on for the employer business concerns, may that be inside or the outside Country, is given an amount of money fixed to cover the living expenses on the expense of the employer is called per diem.
The lodging can be paid as an advance amount or that amount may be claimed by the employee upon the presence of receipts when returned back to the duty station and then reimbursed to her/him the same, but as per approved rates. There are always some approved rates, say in private or public sector organizations, for per diem payments and that amounts are fixed as per grading systems based on seniority of positions.
The employee is given an approved document for traveling by the employer’s competent authorities wherein the leave of duty station along with travel expenses are covered and given, in cash or encashment upon return can be filled as the case may be, for the smooth out and back of the employee for any particular task assigned to complete which on the existing duty station is neither possible physically nor online. The per diem is the reimbursement for employees for their substance expenses when they are on a day of travel for official purposes.
In the United States, the Department of State establishes per diem rates for outside the US. The publishing of per diem is carried out by the General Services Administration for locations related to the Continental US: Alaska, Hawaii; and the US territories and possessions. It includes 48 contiguous states including the District of Columbia.
This publishing is executed by a committee for this task known as Per Diem Travel and Transportation Allowance Committee – PDTATAC – also known as Per Diem Committee.
The per-day rates for the employee set by GSA – General Services Administration are as:
- Incidentals = $ 5
- First meal morning = $ 16
- Second meal lunchtime = $ 17
- Third mealtime dinner = $ 28
The GSA official website has got the tabs for searching the per diem rates as per the following fields:
- Search by the City
- Search by the State
- Search by the ZIP
And that for which fiscal year to select from the last tab on the website. It is pertinent to mention here that the GSA official website helps the users to look for the hotels of the destinations you are going to. Along with that, there are tabs encompassing the per diem highlights for fiscal years for the utilization of consumers.
What are the United States General Services Administration (GSA) highlights for the fiscal year 2022 so far as the per diem is concerned?
The United States General Services Administration (GSA) has the following highlights for the fiscal year 2022 so far as the per diem is concerned:
- Federal per diem repayment amount slabs are encompassing the concentrated lodging payment constituent and meals and incident expense (M&IE) factors.
- CONUS – Continental United States – having approximately twenty-six hundred countries is under cover of per diem rate equal to $155.
- This $155 is divided into two divisible: (i) $96 for lodging; and (ii) $59 for M&IE
- However, in the fiscal year 2022, there are NSAs – non-standard areas – defined as 319 in numbers, having higher per diem rate slabs than the standard slabs.
- One important piece of good information about the per diem lodging is that the GSA receives the routine rental rates, per property divided by the number of rooms rented, from the hotels’ properties of the relevant areas for calculations of the average rate slabs in the particular areas, for the total good of facilitating the employees traveling on official visits.
- Yet another good practice of the US GSA is if the relevant area’s rental is higher than the rate slabs, the higher actual rate is ordered to be paid to the traveling official. Such allocation is allowed by the US FTR - Federal Travel Regulation.
- Moreover, the per diem rates of FY 2021 concerning NSA remain the same in FY 2022.
- Standard per diem is also the same as described above that is $96 for lodging
- However, the M&IE standard rate is the same too as $59 but the same for the NSA is revised from $59-$79.
Note: For updated information on afore-said, the afore-mentioned rates may be re-consulted:
Within USA travel on GSA official Website
And for foreign travels, consult the Department of States website