On October 1, the federal per diem table that sets the tax-free ceiling on almost every travel nurse stipend in the country resets. The General Services Administration published its fiscal year 2027 rates in the Federal Register on September 10, and the standard lodging rate moves from $110 to $113 a night while the meals and incidentals rate stays at $68. That is $21 more a week at the floor. In the markets travel nurses actually work, the swings are much larger, and not all of them go up.

What changed on the standard rate

The standard continental rate covers every county GSA does not list separately. For FY2027 it is $113 for lodging and $68 for meals and incidental expenses, $181 a day, effective for travel on or after October 1, 2026 through September 30, 2027. Seven nights at that rate is a weekly ceiling of $1,267, up from $1,246 this year. The meals tiers did not change anywhere: every non-standard area keeps the same M&IE figure it had in FY2026, so every dollar of movement below comes from lodging.

GSA lists 295 non-standard areas for FY2027, one fewer than last year. The Allentown / Easton / Bethlehem area of Pennsylvania drops off the list and falls back to the standard rate, which matters if you hold a Lehigh Valley contract that runs past October 1.

What we found when we compared the two rate files

We downloaded GSA's FY2026 and FY2027 master rate files and compared the 294 locations that appear in both. For each one we took the highest seasonal lodging rate, added that location's meals rate, and multiplied by seven, which is how most agencies express a weekly stipend ceiling. The weekly ceiling rises in 258 of them, falls in 18 and is unchanged in 18.

  • San Francisco: peak lodging rises from $272 to $325, taking the weekly ceiling from $2,548 to $2,919, up $371.
  • Albuquerque: lodging jumps from $144 to $208, the largest percentage increase in the continental US at 44%. The weekly ceiling goes from $1,568 to $2,016, up $448.
  • Tucson: $171 to $208, up $259 a week. Bakersfield / Ridgecrest: $132 to $164, up $224. San Jose / Sunnyvale / Palo Alto: $192 to $218, up $182.
  • New York City reaches $358 at peak and Boston / Cambridge $365, weekly ceilings of $3,150 and $3,199, each up $112.
  • Nashville falls from $248 to $230 at peak, down $126 a week. San Antonio drops $84 a week and Dallas $49.

Houston, a large travel market, moves only from $128 to $133, a weekly ceiling of $1,491. Seasonal areas have a lower off-season rate, so check the months your contract actually covers rather than the peak figure.

What the ceiling does and does not do

The GSA rate is a ceiling, not a raise. Under IRS rules, a per diem allowance paid up to the federal rate for the location stays out of the wages on your W-2, which is why agencies build tax-free housing and meal stipends around it. Anything paid above the rate is reported as wages. Nothing obliges an agency to pay the new maximum, and a stipend is only tax-free at all if you maintain a tax home you are duplicating while you travel.

Rates apply by travel date. A 13-week contract that started in August straddles two fiscal years: the weeks after October 1 fall under FY2027 limits. In a market where the rate went up, your recruiter now has room to move money from the taxable hourly rate into the stipend without breaking the ceiling. In Nashville, San Antonio or Dallas, a package that was built to the old maximum can end up over the new one.

Why this matters for nurses

I spent ten years as a multi-state travel nurse, and the per diem reset is the week to reread your pay package. The stipend is the biggest tax-free piece of your pay, and recruiters quote it as a single weekly number that hides where it came from. When the ceiling in your city goes up by $371 a week, as it does in San Francisco, ask whether the package moves with it. When it goes down, as in Nashville, ask the agency to show you how the post-October weeks were recalculated, because an overpayment against the ceiling is taxable to you, not to them.

If you are comparing offers this fall, put the numbers into our travel nurse stipend calculator and check the offer line by line with the pay package decoder. The tax home rules decide whether any of it is tax-free in the first place.