Travel nurse stipends vs GSA per diem caps
Why agencies benchmark housing and meal stipends separately against federal GSA lodging and M&IE—and how to read over-cap amounts on your assignment.
Two stipends, two federal caps
Travel contracts usually pay a housing stipend and a separate meals / incidentals stipend. For tax planning, each is often compared to a different GSA benchmark for your assignment locality:
- Housing → total GSA lodging for the days you are away (monthly rates by city).
- Meals → total GSA M&IE (meals and incidental expenses) for those same days.
Comparing only the combined stipend to the combined GSA total can hide a problem—for example, high housing with low meals can still exceed the lodging cap even when the grand total looks reasonable.
What our calculator shows
The travel nurse calculator totals GSA lodging and M&IE for your assignment dates, then—if you enter weekly stipends—estimates agency totals and labels each side as under, within, or over the matching federal cap. Weekly amounts are multiplied by weeks rounded up from calendar days (a rough compare, not your contract’s exact week count).
Full M&IE vs 75% travel days
Many travelers use full daily M&IE when benchmarking stipends. The optional 75% first and last day setting follows federal travel-day conventions used by government itineraries and some crew tools—it is not the default for every agency or preparer.
Related
- Tax home basics
- Federal GSA calculator (civilian government travel)
More for travel nurses
Planning aid only · Not tax, payroll, or legal advice · Methodology