Session resources

The FY2027 federal per diem rates are out — and they are the ones that govern the 2027 session

Updated September 25, 2026 · Every figure below was read from the federal government’s own published documents and data.

Anyone budgeting the 2027 Maryland General Assembly session has been waiting on one number that is not set in Annapolis at all. It is set in Washington, by the General Services Administration, and it caps what a member of the General Assembly may be reimbursed for lodging. The session runs January 13 to April 12, 2027, which falls inside federal fiscal year 2027 — so the fiscal 2027 schedule, not the fiscal 2026 one, is the schedule that will actually be in force.

That schedule has now been published. It was late by GSA’s own pattern — the agency notes that rates for the coming fiscal year are “typically announced in mid-August,” and the fiscal 2026 release came on August 15, 2025 — but it is out.

1. What GSA published, and when

Two things landed. The policy document is GSA Per Diem Bulletin FTR 27-01, titled “Fiscal Year 2027 Continental United States (CONUS) Per Diem Reimbursement Rates.” It states that it is “effective upon the date of publication, and applies to travel performed on or after October 1, 2026, through September 30, 2027.”

Alongside it, GSA posted the underlying data files. Its per diem files page now lists an FY 27 Per Diem Rates workbook and an FY 27 Per Diem ZIP Code workbook, the latter marked published 9/03/2026. GSA’s per diem landing page now states that “Rates are available between 10/1/2024 and 09/30/2027” — the three-year window has rolled forward to take in fiscal 2027.

2. What changed for fiscal 2027

The headline change is modest and it is on the lodging side. Per the bulletin: “The standard lodging rate increased from $110 to $113.” Meals did not move: “The meals and incidental expenses (M&IE) reimbursement rate tiers for FY 2027 remain at $68–$92, and the standard M&IE rate remains at $68.”

	FY2026	FY2027
Standard CONUS lodging	$110	$113
Standard M&IE	$68	$68
M&IE tier range	$68–$92	$68–$92

The standard rate is the floor that applies to most of the country. It is not the rate that applies here. The bulletin notes that “There are 295 locations that receive non-standard rates,” and Annapolis is one of them.

3. Annapolis is a non-standard area — and a seasonal one

Annapolis is listed by GSA under Anne Arundel County, and unlike the flat standard rate it carries a seasonal lodging schedule: a lower winter rate across the months the legislature is actually in session, and a higher rate for the boating and graduation season. That structure is the important part for session planning, because the session months sit squarely in the cheaper half of the year — which means the cap a member is working against from January to April is the low one.

GSA’s own per diem data for Annapolis (Anne Arundel County) sets the fiscal 2027 schedule as follows, next to the fiscal 2026 schedule it replaces:

Months	FY2026	FY2027
October	$161	$169
November – April	$125	$130
May – September	$161	$169
M&IE (all year)	$80	$80

So the lodging cap for the months the legislature sits rises by $5, from $125 to $130 a night, and the meals and incidentals rate is unchanged at $80. The $125 figure it replaces is the one the January 2026 Report of the General Assembly Compensation Commission cites as the then-current GSA rate for lodging in Annapolis.

4. Why a federal number caps a Maryland reimbursement

The link is written into the Compensation Commission’s resolution, which has the force of law. It provides that “In no event shall a member be reimbursed for lodging expenses that exceed the most current published federal General Services Administration daily per diem rates for lodging: (i) In Annapolis, Maryland, if the lodging occurred in Annapolis, Maryland.”

Note the phrase most current published. The ceiling is not frozen at whatever was true when the Commission wrote its report — it tracks GSA. When the fiscal 2027 schedule takes effect on October 1, 2026, the Maryland ceiling moves with it automatically, three months before the session gavels in.

The other half of the mechanism is who writes the cheque. Under the Department of Legislative Services’ Guidelines for Compensation and Expenses for Legislators, “all lodging during the legislative session for a period that is known in advance must be paid directly by the Department of Legislative Services” — on a properly executed lease or a signed invoice. Lodging assembled out of nightly bookings falls back into the voucher process, against original itemized bills. The full picture of how those rules fit together is set out in our guide to how Maryland’s legislative per diem and reimbursement work.

5. What it means for a 2027 housing decision

Three practical consequences follow.

First, the cap is a daily ceiling, not a total budget. It is measured the same way against a term lease as against a hotel night, so structuring the session as a lease does not put anyone outside the rule — it just changes who administers the payment.

Second, at the fiscal 2027 rate of $130 a night, the ninety days from January 13 to April 12, 2027 work out to $11,700 of capped lodging, and a 104-night term with a move-in and a pack-out week to $13,520. That is our arithmetic on a published rate, not a figure GSA or the state publishes. It is useful mainly as a sense of scale: the cap is generous enough that the binding constraint on most session housing is availability, not the ceiling.

Third — and this is the part worth acting on now — the rate schedule being published does not make downtown inventory appear. Annapolis has a small hotel stock and a legislature that arrives all at once. The people who are settled by October are the ones who signed in the summer.