Per Diem Rates 2026: The Full CONUS Table, Explained

Federal travel season runs on a different calendar to everyone else's. Fiscal year 2026 rates took effect on 1 October 2025, and they'll stay in force until 30 September 2026, so if you're booking a trip anywhere in that window, these are the numbers that govern your reimbursement. The trouble is that most people only ever check one figure — the standard rate — when the real answer often depends on which county you're in and which month you're travelling.

The FY2026 fiscal year window

GSA sets per diem rates once a year, ahead of the federal fiscal year, and publishes them via a Federal Travel Regulation bulletin each August. FY2026's rates were released in mid-August 2025 and locked in for the full twelve months, so a rate that applies in October 2025 is the same rate that applies in June 2026 — unless you're in one of the seasonal cities covered below. You can read the underlying bulletin on the Federal Register if you want the source document.

The standard CONUS rate: the default for most of the country

For FY2026, the standard rate is $110 a night for lodging and $68 a day for meals and incidental expenses (M&IE), for a combined $178 a day. This isn't a floor or a rough guide — it's the rate that legally applies to any county GSA hasn't individually listed with a higher rate. According to GSA's own per diem FAQs, that covers approximately 85% of counties in the continental United States. If you're travelling to a smaller city or a rural area, there's a good chance this is your rate. Our guide to the standard CONUS rate walks through exactly when and how it applies.

“Maintaining the FY 2026 per diem rates is a prudent step that reflects our commitment to responsible stewardship of taxpayer funds.”

— Larry Allen, Associate Administrator, GSA Office of Government-wide Policy

Non-standard locations: where rates run higher

The other roughly 15% of counties are what GSA calls non-standard areas — places where hotel costs are consistently higher than the national default, based on lodging industry survey data. These get their own locality-specific rate, set city by city (or county by county), and it can be substantially above the standard $178. Washington DC and New York City are two of the most-searched examples, and both illustrate why checking your specific destination matters more than assuming a flat national number.

Lodging swings with the seasons — three real examples

Unlike the standard rate, non-standard lodging caps aren't flat across the fiscal year. GSA adjusts them by month within each locality, matching the pattern of hotel demand. San Francisco's FY2026 lodging cap sits at $259 for most of the year but climbs to $272 in September and October, when conference and tourism demand peaks in the city. Book the same trip in August instead of October and your lodging ceiling is $13 lower, even though the destination hasn't changed.

Washington DC is more dramatic still. Its FY2026 monthly lodging maximums run $196 in January and February, jump to $276 for March through June (cherry blossom season and the busy spring conference calendar), drop back to $183 in July and August, rise again to $275 for September and October, then settle at $196 for November and December. That's a swing of $93 a night depending purely on which month you travel. See the full month-by-month breakdown on our Washington DC per diem page or the dedicated DC seasonal rates post.

New York City moves even further. Manhattan's FY2026 lodging cap is $179 in January and February, jumps to $281 from March through June, dips to $237 in July and August, then peaks at $342 from September through December — the city's busiest stretch for conferences, fashion events, and holiday tourism. That's a $163 gap between the cheapest and most expensive month in the same locality. Details are on our New York City per diem page, with more context in our NYC seasonal rates guide. If you only remember one thing from this article, remember that lodging rates in cities like this are not a single annual number — they're a monthly calendar, and lodging rates change by season far more than most travellers expect.

M&IE doesn't move with the seasons

Meals and incidental expenses work differently. GSA sets five M&IE tiers for the whole fiscal year — $68, $74, $80, $86, and $92 — and each locality is assigned one tier that stays fixed from October through September, regardless of month. Washington DC and New York City both sit at the top tier, $92 a day, all year round. San Francisco is the same. Only lodging caps move seasonally; the meal allowance for a given city is the same in January as it is in July.

One more wrinkle: on the first and last day of any trip, M&IE is paid at 75% of the full daily rate, not the full amount. That works out to $51 for the standard $68 tier, $55.50 for $74, $60 for $80, $64.50 for $86, and $69 for the top $92 tier. It's a small detail, but it catches people out when they're totalling up a multi-day trip.

How to actually find your destination's rate

1. Identify the exact city and state (or county) you're travelling to — not just the nearest major metro.
2. Look it up using the GSA per diem lookup tool, or run it through PerDiemWise's per diem calculator for an instant lodging and M&IE breakdown.
3. Check the specific month of travel if you're heading to a non-standard locality — the lodging figure can change even within the same trip if it spans two months.
4. If your destination isn't listed anywhere, don't guess: it automatically defaults to the standard CONUS rate of $178/day.
5. Browse rates by state on our state-by-state per diem pages if you're comparing multiple destinations for a trip itinerary.

The "standard rate fallback" — the mechanic most people misunderstand

This is worth spelling out clearly, because it's the single most common mistake in per diem planning. GSA doesn't publish a rate for every town in America. Instead, it lists non-standard rates only for the roughly 300 areas where costs run high enough to justify a locality-specific figure. Every other county — the other 85% — simply falls back to the standard rate by default. There's no separate lookup step required and no need to find a "closest match." If a place isn't named on the non-standard list, the standard $178/day applies automatically. The mistake people make is assuming a nearby big city's higher rate carries over to the surrounding region — it doesn't. Rates are set per county, not per state, so a small town two hours from New York City is almost certainly on the standard rate, not NYC's. Our full per diem overview covers how the locality system is structured if you want the mechanics in more depth.