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About this tool
Total a business trip's daily allowance by city tier, with part-day rates, lodging nights and provided-meal deductions.
A per diem is the flat daily amount an employer pays to cover meals, incidentals and lodging while an employee is away on work, and this calculator totals a trip the way a travel policy actually reads it: full days at the city-tier rate, the departure and return days at a reduced rate (75% is the US GSA convention and the most common corporate default), lodging counted per night rather than per day, and any meal already provided deducted at its share of the daily rate. It then settles the total against any advance already paid.
Open Per Diem Allowance Calculator on AltFTool — it loads instantly in your browser.
Enter the values you already know.
Fine-tune the options to match your scenario.
Read the result and use it in your planning or reporting.
A five-day trip is five days of meals but only four nights of lodging — the single most common manual error.
The departure and return days are paid at your policy percentage, and a one-day trip counts as a single part day.
Breakfast, lunch and dinner shares default to 20/30/50 percent of the daily rate and can be set to match your policy.
At a reduced rate, because neither is a full day away. US federal travel pays 75% of the meals and incidentals rate on the first and last day, and most corporate policies use the same 75% figure. A single-day trip is treated as one part day, not a full day.
A daily allowance paid to meet the ordinary daily charges of being away from the normal place of duty is exempt under Section 10(14)(i) of the Income-tax Act, 1961 read with Rule 2BB(1)(b), but only to the extent it is actually spent for that purpose. An unspent surplus is taxable as salary. There is no prescribed rate, so employers set their own bands — check the treatment with your payroll team or a chartered accountant.
One fewer than the number of calendar days. A trip from the 10th to the 14th is five days but four nights, so meals are paid for five days and hotel for four nights.
Yes, that is standard practice: if a conference fee or hotel rate includes a meal, the corresponding share of the daily rate is deducted so the allowance is not paid twice. A common split is 20% for breakfast, 30% for lunch and 50% for dinner, though the exact percentages come from your own policy.
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