How Much Is Per Diem in California: Rates by City and Rules

Per diem rates in California run from $110 per night for lodging in standard-cost areas to more than $270 in San Francisco, with a meals and incidental expenses (M&IE) allowance of $68 to $92 per day layered on top. The exact number depends on two things: which set of rules your employer follows, and where in California you’re going.

Which Rate Set Applies to You

Three different rate systems cover business travel in California, and they don’t produce the same number for the same trip.

California State Employees

The California Department of Human Resources (CalHR) governs travel reimbursement for state employees. Effective October 1, 2024, CalHR adopted the federal GSA rate structure for both lodging and meals, replacing an older flat-rate system that had capped standard lodging at $90 per night in most counties.¹ State employees now follow the same location-based schedule federal travelers use.

The standard M&IE for state employees is up to $68 per day, dropping to $51 on the first and last days of a trip.¹ These figures apply to excluded employees who aren’t represented by a bargaining unit; employees under specific labor agreements may see different negotiated amounts.

Federal Employees

The General Services Administration sets per diem for federal civilian travelers in the continental United States. GSA uses a two-tier system: a standard rate for most locations and roughly 300 non-standard area (NSA) rates for cities where hotels and food cost more.² For fiscal year 2026 (October 2025 through September 2026), the standard CONUS lodging rate is $110 per night, unchanged from the prior year.³ California has more NSA designations than almost any other state, and many rates shift with the season.

M&IE tiers for FY 2026 range from $68 to $92 per day.⁴ Lodging taxes are reimbursed separately from the per diem rate on domestic travel, so the nightly cap applies to the room charge itself.⁵

Private-Sector Employees (IRS High-Low Method)

Private employers aren’t required to follow GSA’s city-by-city tables. Many use the IRS high-low substantiation method instead, which collapses every location into one of two buckets. For the period beginning October 1, 2025, the combined lodging-meals-incidentals rate is $319 per day in high-cost localities and $225 per day everywhere else.⁶ Meal-and-incidentals-only rates are $86 for high-cost areas and $74 elsewhere.

Once an employer starts using the high-low method for an employee during a calendar year, it must keep using that method for the same employee through the rest of the year.

California Rates by City

Under GSA’s FY 2026 schedule, the major California destinations look like this:

San Francisco: $259 to $272 per night, depending on the month, with the peak from October through December and again in September⁷
Santa Clara (San Jose, Sunnyvale, Palo Alto): $140 to $245 per night
Los Angeles, including Orange and Ventura counties: $191 per night year-round³
San Diego: $125 to $194 per night depending on the travel month
Sacramento: $95 to $145 per night¹

The IRS high-low list also treats a long stretch of California as high-cost. Year-round high-cost designations cover Los Angeles (with Orange and Ventura counties), Monterey, San Diego, San Francisco, Santa Barbara, Santa Monica, and Sunnyvale/Palo Alto/San Jose. Seasonal high-cost designations apply to:

Mammoth Lakes, December through March
Napa, October through November and February through September
Palm Springs, October through April
San Luis Obispo, June through July
South Lake Tahoe, December through March
Yosemite National Park, January through April⁶

Any California city not on the high-cost list gets the $225 rate under the high-low method. GSA rates change every October 1, and several California cities swing rates within the year, so check the exact date of travel before submitting expenses.

Keeping Per Diem Tax-Free

Per diem payments stay tax-free only when the employer runs what the IRS calls an accountable plan. Three requirements have to be met. The travel must have a business connection, the employee has to substantiate the time, place, and business purpose of each trip, and any per diem paid in excess of actual expenses has to be returned within a reasonable period.⁸

When per diem doesn’t exceed the applicable federal rate, the employee doesn’t need to prove the actual dollar amounts spent. The rate itself substantiates the amount. But the date, location, and business purpose still have to be documented.

The consequences of getting this wrong cut two ways. If the employer pays more than the federal rate, the excess is taxable wages subject to income tax withholding and FICA.⁹ The portion at or below the federal rate stays tax-free. If the plan itself fails, though — no expense reports, no business purpose documented, or the employer just cuts a flat check regardless of travel — the entire per diem becomes taxable, not only the excess.⁸ The employer then has to report the full amount as wages on the W-2 and pay employment taxes on it.

Most employers who trip over this assume that staying at or below the GSA rate is enough. The documentation requirements matter just as much. The procedural framework comes from Revenue Procedure 2019-48; the annual dollar amounts come from a separate IRS notice each fall, currently Notice 2025-54.¹⁰

If You’re Self-Employed

The rules work differently if you travel for your own business. You can use the standard meal allowance — the same M&IE rates employees use — to deduct meal costs without keeping every receipt.¹¹ At $74 for a low-cost city or $86 for a high-cost California city, that’s a real simplification.

Lodging is the catch. There is no standard lodging allowance for self-employed individuals. You have to deduct actual lodging costs and keep receipts.¹¹ Booking a $350 hotel room in San Francisco and then claiming some flat rate for it won’t survive an audit.

The One-Year Rule for Long Assignments

The IRS draws a hard line at twelve months. A work assignment expected to last one year or less is temporary travel, and per diem stays tax-free under an accountable plan. An assignment expected to last more than one year is indefinite, and all per diem and travel reimbursements become taxable from the point the assignment is expected to exceed that threshold.¹¹

The tricky word is “expected.” You evaluate the assignment at the start based on realistic expectations, not hopes. Take a six-month consulting gig in Sacramento that gets extended to eighteen months, and the assignment becomes indefinite on the date you learn it will exceed one year. Per diem paid after that date is taxable; per diem paid before the change stays non-taxable. A series of short assignments to the same location that together stretch past twelve months can also be treated as indefinite, even if each individual stint was brief.

Calculating a Trip

To pull a total together, combine lodging and M&IE, then adjust for partial travel days. On the days in the middle of the trip, you get the full M&IE rate. On the first and last days of travel, you get 75 percent of the applicable M&IE rate.⁵ The same 75 percent rule applies when a whole trip runs longer than 12 hours but shorter than 24.

Say you travel to Los Angeles for three days and two nights, with a $191 lodging cap and a $79 M&IE rate (a mid-tier example). The ceiling breaks down like this:

Lodging: 2 nights × $191 = $382
Day 1 (partial): $79 × 0.75 = $59.25
Day 2 (full): $79
Day 3 (partial): $79 × 0.75 = $59.25
Total M&IE: $197.50
Total reimbursement ceiling: $579.50, plus applicable lodging taxes

If the employer provides a meal directly during the trip — a conference lunch or a client dinner — the M&IE for that day is typically reduced by the value of the provided meal. Travelers who incur no meal costs but still have incidental expenses like baggage tips can claim the incidental-expenses-only rate of $5 per day.⁶

Because GSA rates change every October 1 and several California cities swing throughout the year, check the rate for your specific destination and specific dates before you file. Booking a February trip to Palm Springs at January’s rate can leave money on the table, or create a taxability problem if you claimed too much for the month you actually traveled.

1
California Department of Human Resources. Travel Reimbursements
2
General Services Administration. Per Diem Rates
3
General Services Administration. FY 2026 Per Diem Rates for California
4
Federal Register. Maximum Per Diem Reimbursement Rates for the Continental United States (CONUS)
5
eCFR. 41 CFR Part 301-11 Subpart A – General Rules
6
Internal Revenue Service. Notice 2025-54 – 2025-2026 Special Per Diem Rates
7
General Services Administration. FY 2026 Per Diem Rates for San Francisco, California
8
eCFR. 26 CFR 1.62-2 – Reimbursements and Other Expense Allowance Arrangements
9
Internal Revenue Service. Per Diem Payments Frequently Asked Questions
10
Internal Revenue Service. Rev. Proc. 2019-48
11
Internal Revenue Service. Publication 463 (2025), Travel, Gift, and Car Expenses