How to check a stipend offer against the FY2027 rates

To check a stipend offer under the FY2027 tables, find the county where you will sleep on the contract, look up GSA’s FY2027 lodging and meals rates for it, and set each daily rate against the offer’s housing and meals lines. A county without a listed rate of its own takes the FY2027 standard rate, $113 a night for lodging and $68 a day for meals and incidentals.

By ProTherapy Staffing, published October 25, 2026.

What changed in the tables on October 1, 2026?

Two sets of federal figures turned over with the fiscal year: GSA’s FY2027 per diem rates took effect, and IRS Notice 2026-60 set new rates for the high-low method some employers use instead. The full account, each figure quoted from its source, is in what changed for travel therapists on October 1, 2026. Three facts from it matter for checking an offer:

Which county do you look up for your contract?

The county where you will sleep. IRS Publication 463 says: “For per diem amounts, use the rate in effect for the locality where you stop for sleep or rest.” That can differ from the facility’s county when you rent across a county line, so the housing address comes first.

GSA prices most places at one standard rate. Its per diem rates page says “A standard rate applies to most of CONUS” and “Most NSAs are a key city/primary destination and the surrounding county,” an NSA being a non-standard area with its own GSA per diem rate. Look the county up there, or start from this site’s FY2027 rates by state.

How do you set an offer against the county’s rates, step by step?

  1. Note the lodging rate for each month of the contract. In some areas GSA’s lodging rate changes by month, so a contract that crosses a season can carry more than one.
  2. Multiply each month’s nightly rate by your nights there and add the months. Divide by the contract’s weeks to set the result beside a weekly housing stipend.
  3. Do the same with the county’s daily M&IE rate and the weekly meals line.
  4. Write down the gap, line by line, so the questions below are about real numbers.
  5. Check the dates. A contract priced before October 1, 2026 may still rest on the old tables through December 31 under the transition rules in Publication 463.

Where the facility and the housing sit in different counties, the numbers that count are the housing county’s. If the housing is not chosen yet, run both counties and note which one the offer used.

If you want a written offer with its stipend lines set against the FY2027 rates for your county, ask a ProTherapy recruiter: Find my next contract.

What if the agency uses the high-low method instead?

Then the county’s own GSA rate is not the figure the agency measures against. Publication 463 calls high-low “a simplified method of figuring the federal per diem rate for travel within the continental United States.” For FY2027 the Notice sets $329 a day for a high-cost locality and $230 for any other, with $86 and $74 of those amounts “treated as paid for meals.”

To check an offer on this method, find the county in the Notice’s list of high-cost localities and the months it counts, then set the offer’s daily housing and meals together against $329 or $230 for each night. The list holds places with “a federal per diem rate of $280 or more,” so a county on the standard rate is not on it.

What do you ask when an offer sits above or below the rate?

Publication 463 draws the tax line: “If your allowance is less than or equal to the federal rate, the allowance won’t be included in box 1 of your Form W-2,” and above it “the excess allowance will be included in box 1 of your Form W-2.”

Whether stipends are tax-free at all depends on your tax home; see the tax home checklist.

Frequently asked questions

Does the FY2027 rate apply to a contract that started in September?

Not always right away. Publication 463’s transition rules let the last three months of the calendar year run on the new rates or on the rates in use before October 1, so ask which fiscal year each line uses.

What if my county has no rate of its own on GSA’s list?

It takes the standard rate. For FY2027 that is $113 a night for lodging and $68 a day for M&IE in the continental United States.

Are Alaska and Hawaii in the FY2027 GSA tables?

No. GSA’s FY2027 highlights define the continental United States as the 48 contiguous states and the District of Columbia. This site covers Alaska and Hawaii stipends on a page of their own.

Sources

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