Build a week of travel pay from its parts — taxable wages, a lodging stipend and M&IE at GSA's per diem rates — by discipline and location.
Enter your taxable hourly rate and hours and pick a location: the calculator adds the lodging and M&IE stipends at GSA's per diem rates and shows gross weekly pay. Beside it: what contracts in our feed pay, by discipline, state and setting.
Before tax: taxable wages plus both stipends. This calculator does not estimate what you keep.
| Taxable wages | — |
|---|---|
| Lodging stipendnon-taxable only if you meet the IRS tax-home rules (IRS Publication 463) | — |
| M&IE stipend (meals and incidental expenses)non-taxable only if you meet the IRS tax-home rules (IRS Publication 463) | — |
Last verified: against IRS Publication 463 and GSA's per diem rates. Pay figures come from our own contract feed (pay data as of 2026-10-05).
A travel contract pays in two parts: an hourly wage, which is taxed like any wage, and allowances (stipends) for lodging and for meals and incidental expenses (M&IE). Whether the allowances are taxed is set by the IRS, not by the agency. IRS Publication 463 says of an employer's allowance under an accountable plan: “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.” Is a very low hourly wage a problem? See what the rules say about a low taxable rate.
The federal rate is the one GSA publishes. Publication 463 describes it: “The regular federal per diem rate is the highest amount that the federal government will pay to its employees for lodging and M&IE (or M&IE only) while they are traveling away from home in a particular area.” In GSA's words: “We establish the per diem rates that federal agencies use to reimburse their employees for lodging and meals and incidental expenses incurred while on official travel within the continental United States.” For federal fiscal year 2027, GSA's daily lodging rate across the continental states runs from $113 to $499, and its daily M&IE rate from $68 to $92, depending on the location (GSA per diem rates).
It builds one week of pay from its parts: the taxable hourly rate and hours you enter, plus a lodging stipend and an M&IE stipend at GSA's fiscal year 2027 daily rates for the location you pick, counted for every day of the week. Nothing is filled in for you: the wages and the total stay blank until you enter a rate and hours. The total is gross weekly pay, before tax. The stipends are non-taxable only if you meet the IRS tax-home rules below, and the calculator does not estimate what you keep.
Beside it, the calculator shows what contracts in our feed pay for the discipline you pick: the national median, the median in the state you pick, the median in a setting, and the states with the highest medians. Each median is the advertised weekly gross across the contracts in our feed: the wage and any stipends together, before tax. A cut needs at least 5 live contracts before it shows a median; below that it shows its count.
Nationally, by discipline (pay data as of 2026-10-05):
| Discipline | Median weekly gross | Contracts in our feed |
|---|---|---|
| Physical Therapist (PT) | $2,340 | 348 |
| Occupational Therapist (OT) | $2,280 | 140 |
| Speech-Language Pathologist (SLP) | $2,280 | 95 |
| Physical Therapist Assistant (PTA) | $1,540 | 233 |
| Certified Occupational Therapy Assistant (COTA) | $1,540 | 127 |
The Pay Index breaks pay down by state and setting each month, and How We Verify explains how these figures are built and checked.
Stipends stay out of taxable income only while you are working away from your tax home. Publication 463 defines it: “Generally, your tax home is your regular place of business or post of duty, regardless of where you maintain your family home. It includes the entire city or general area in which your business or work is located.”
If you have no regular or main place of business, the publication uses three factors:
And how they count: “If you satisfy all three factors, your tax home is the home where you regularly live. If you satisfy only two factors, you may have a tax home depending on all the facts and circumstances. If you satisfy only one factor, you are an itinerant; your tax home is wherever you work and you can’t deduct travel expenses.”
Length matters too: “Generally, a temporary assignment in a single location is one that is realistically expected to last (and does in fact last) for 1 year or less.” And: “If your assignment is indefinite, you must include in your income any amounts you receive from your employer for living expenses, even if they are called “travel allowances” and you account to your employer for them.”
That is the IRS's wording, quoted rather than paraphrased; a tax professional can apply it to your situation. The Tax Home Checker asks questions built around the three factors, and the Travel PT 101 guide covers contracts and licensing.
Yes. The calculator adds your taxable wages and the lodging and M&IE stipends at GSA's rates into gross weekly pay, before tax, and each median it shows is an advertised weekly gross. It does not estimate what you keep, because that depends on your own tax situation.
IRS Publication 463 says of an allowance under an accountable plan: “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.” It also says: “If your assignment is indefinite, you must include in your income any amounts you receive from your employer for living expenses, even if they are called “travel allowances” and you account to your employer for them.” A tax professional can apply those rules to your situation.
In the words of IRS Publication 463: “The regular federal per diem rate is the highest amount that the federal government will pay to its employees for lodging and M&IE (or M&IE only) while they are traveling away from home in a particular area.” GSA publishes the rates for the continental United States: “We establish the per diem rates that federal agencies use to reimburse their employees for lodging and meals and incidental expenses incurred while on official travel within the continental United States.”
IRS Publication 463: “Generally, your tax home is your regular place of business or post of duty, regardless of where you maintain your family home. It includes the entire city or general area in which your business or work is located.” For people with no regular or main place of business, the publication uses three factors, and the Tax Home Checker asks questions built around them.
IRS Publication 463: “Generally, a temporary assignment in a single location is one that is realistically expected to last (and does in fact last) for 1 year or less.”
A median from a handful of contracts can move with a single posting, so the calculator shows a median only where our feed has enough contracts for that cut, and shows the count otherwise.
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