Multi-City Per-Diem Calculator (US GSA FY2026)
Plan a multi-leg US business trip across several cities and compute the total federal per diem using GSA FY2026 lodging and M&IE rates, with the first-and-last-day 75% M&IE rule applied across the full trip.
| City | Nights | Lodging | M&IE rate |
|---|---|---|---|
| New York City (Manhattan) | 2 | $618.00 | $92.00/day |
| Washington DC | 1 | $257.00 | $86.00/day |
| Standard CONUS | 1 | $110.00 | $68.00/day |
GSA FY2026 per-diem rates (verify on gsa.gov/perdiem). The first and last travel day of the trip are paid at 75% M&IE per GSA Federal Travel Regulation §301-11.101 — applied here across the full trip, not per leg. Lodging is exclusive of state/local lodging taxes (reimbursed separately). US CONUS + Honolulu only; OCONUS rates handled by DoD/DoS. Everything runs in your browser.
About this tool
Multi-leg US business trips are exactly where per-diem math gets fiddly: lodging rates differ by city — Manhattan and San Francisco run far above the standard CONUS rate, while a regional plant town might be at the standard floor — and the GSA's first-and-last-day 75% M&IE rule has to be applied to the whole trip's first and last calendar day, not to each city leg separately. This calculator handles that. You add each leg of the trip — destination city plus number of nights — and the tool looks up the city's GSA per-diem rate, computes lodging × nights and M&IE × days for that leg, and then on the overall trip applies the 75% reduction to exactly the first and last day's M&IE (regardless of which leg those days happen to fall on). Built-in rates cover the GSA FY2026 standard CONUS rate ($110 lodging / $68 M&IE) plus a curated set of common business destinations published by GSA for FY2026 — New York City (Manhattan), San Francisco, Washington DC, Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, Seattle, Honolulu, and others — and each rate is editable in case you are working from a sub-locality rate (GSA publishes county-level overrides) or a more recent update. A few legal-but-important notes that sit outside the math: federal per diem is the maximum allowable for federal employees on official travel; private employers commonly adopt it as their reimbursement ceiling under IRS Publication 463, and using it relieves them of substantiating actual receipts for meal expenses. Lodging taxes are normally reimbursed separately and not capped by the lodging rate. International (OCONUS) and non-foreign overseas rates are published by the Department of State and Department of Defense respectively, and are not in this US-focused tool. Everything runs in your browser; the rates ship with the page and never call out — verify against gsa.gov before relying on a number for a real expense report.
How to use it
- For each leg of the trip, pick a city and enter the number of nights you will stay there (one night = one lodging night and two travel days, except shared check-in/checkout days across legs).
- Optionally override the lodging or M&IE rate for any leg.
- Read the per-leg subtotal and the trip total at the bottom, with the GSA 75% first/last day M&IE adjustment applied across the entire trip.
Frequently asked questions
- How is the first-and-last-day 75% rule applied across multiple cities?
- GSA Federal Travel Regulation §301-11.101 reduces M&IE to 75% on the first and last day of travel — across the trip as a whole. This tool sums all travel days, gives full M&IE to the middle days, and 75% only to the first and last (which may fall in different cities). Each leg pays its own city's M&IE rate on the days that occurred in that city.
- Where do the built-in rates come from?
- GSA Per Diem FY2026 rates as published on gsa.gov/perdiem. The standard CONUS rate is $110 lodging / $68 M&IE; cities listed above the standard rate are sub-rates for the metropolitan area. Rates are editable per leg in case your destination is on a county-level override.
- How does this differ from the standard per-diem calculator?
- The single-city version asks for one rate and one trip length. This version handles a multi-leg trip with different rates per city, and correctly applies the 75% first/last day rule across the combined itinerary rather than per leg — which matters because per-leg application would over-reduce by counting interior days as "first" or "last" days.
- Are lodging taxes included in the lodging rate?
- No. The GSA lodging cap is exclusive of state and local lodging taxes, which are typically reimbursed separately and in full. Add hotel taxes to your reimbursement claim alongside the per-diem lodging.
- What about partial nights on travel days?
- The number of lodging nights is typically one fewer than the number of travel days (you fly out on day 1 and back on day N, with N-1 nights away). For a multi-city trip, count nights per city; the M&IE day count is the sum of nights + 1 (the final travel day at 75%).
- Does this work for international or US territory travel?
- No. Non-foreign OCONUS (Hawaii, Alaska, US territories) rates are set by the DoD, and foreign rates by the US State Department; both use different rate tables not included here. Hawaii (Honolulu) is included here because GSA publishes a CONUS-style rate for it as well.