Session resources

How Maryland’s legislative per diem and reimbursement work

Updated September 25, 2026 · Every rule and figure below was read from the state’s and GSA’s own published documents. Where a 2027 figure has not been published yet, this page says so rather than estimating it.

Maryland does not pay its legislators a flat allowance and leave them to sort out where they sleep. Session lodging, meals and travel are governed by a specific set of rules — a constitutional commission sets the numbers, a published guideline says who pays whom, and a federal schedule caps the lodging line. Anyone budgeting a 2027 session presence, or deciding how to house a member or a team for the ninety days between January 13 and April 12, 2027, is working inside that structure whether they know it or not.

This page sets out the structure as the state describes it. It covers members of the General Assembly, which is what the source documents cover; it is not a statement of what any private employer, association or legislative staff office reimburses.

1. Who sets the numbers, and why they cannot be argued up

Legislative compensation in Maryland is set by the General Assembly Compensation Commission under Article III, Section 15 of the state constitution. Nine members sit on it — five appointed by the Governor, two by the Senate President, two by the House Speaker — and legislators and state and local officers are ineligible to serve. Appointments are made four years in advance, which is a deliberate independence device.

The Commission submits its recommendations by formal resolution within fifteen days after the start of the last regular session of a four-year term. The resolution then has the force of law and takes effect at the beginning of the next General Assembly. The one lever the legislature holds is downward only: by joint resolution it may reduce or reject, but may not increase, any item in the resolution. That is why the schedule below is fixed years ahead and why nothing in it is negotiable at the individual level.

2. The 2027–2030 salary schedule

The Commission’s January 2026 report covers calendar years 2027 through 2030 — the term that begins with the 2027 session.

Year	Member	President / Speaker
2027	$57,627	$74,849
2028	$58,636	$76,159
2029	$60,248	$78,254
2030	$61,905	$80,406

Salary is separate from the expense rules that follow. Lodging, meals and mileage during session are reimbursements and allowances, not salary, and they are governed by their own ceilings.

3. Lodging: the state pays the lease directly

This is the provision most people outside Annapolis do not know about, and it is the one that shapes how session housing actually gets transacted. 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 submission of a properly executed lease or a signed invoice.

Read that carefully, because it points in one direction. A fixed-term lease for the session, signed in advance, is the instrument the Department is set up to pay against. A member piecing the session together out of nightly bookings is outside the mechanism the guidelines describe and back in the world of vouchers and itemized bills, where original itemized lodging bills have to be submitted with the expense voucher.

4. The GSA cap on lodging

There is a ceiling. The Commission’s resolution states 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 in Annapolis, where the lodging occurred in Annapolis. The guidelines use the same federal benchmark.

Two things follow. First, the cap is a moving number set in Washington, not Annapolis — when GSA moves the Annapolis lodging rate, the state ceiling moves with it. The January 2026 Commission report cites $125 as the rate current at the time it was written. Second, and this matters for anyone building a 2027 budget: the rates governing January through April 2027 belong to federal fiscal year 2027, and GSA published that schedule in September 2026 for travel on or after October 1, 2026. Under it, the Annapolis lodging rate for November through April is $130 a night, up from $125. See the FY2027 per diem rates and the 2027 session for the full Annapolis schedule.

At the fiscal 2027 winter rate of $130, ninety session days works out to $11,700 of capped lodging, and a 104-night term to $13,520 — our arithmetic on a published rate, not a published figure. The session housing cost guide compares that ceiling with what downtown hotels actually charge.

5. Meals

Meals are handled as a per diem allowance rather than a reimbursement of actual spending. The Commission resolution caps it at “the total amount for meal expenses per day as provided in the Standard Travel Regulations of the State of Maryland,” which the Board of Public Works amends from time to time.

The Department of Budget and Management publishes that standard allowance as $15.00 breakfast, $18.00 lunch and $30.00 dinner — $63.00 a day, tax and tip included. The January 2026 Commission report cites the same $63 daily figure for fiscal 2026. Because the state can amend the schedule, check the Department of Budget and Management page for the fiscal year you are actually budgeting.

Two administrative details are worth knowing. Requests for payment of the per diem meal allowance need not be supported by receipts — the guidelines note receipts are relevant mainly to help members avoid adverse tax consequences. And a member may request a lesser amount, or none at all.

Meal	Standard state allowance
Breakfast	$15.00
Lunch	$18.00
Dinner	$30.00
Daily total	$63.00

6. Mileage — and the rule that rewards staying in town

Members are reimbursed for travel between home and Annapolis at the rate in the standard state travel regulations. The January 2026 Commission report cites 72.5 cents per mile effective January 1, 2026; that matches the federal business standard mileage rate the IRS set for 2026.

The frequency rules are where the structure shows itself:

Situation	Mileage reimbursed
Member commutes daily	One round trip each day
Member lodges in Annapolis through the week	One round trip per week
Days on which lodging is reimbursed	No mileage for those days

So the two paths are not additive. A member who takes lodging for the week draws one weekly round trip, not five daily ones, and draws no mileage on the days lodging is covered. The system is built on the assumption that a member either commutes or stays — not both in the same week.

Separately, members receive a $750 lump-sum, non-vouchered within-district transportation allowance paid at the beginning of each calendar year. That is district travel, not session travel, and it is not tied to the Annapolis rules above.

7. What this means for a 2027 session housing decision

Put the pieces together and the state’s framework has a clear grain. Lodging that is known in advance and documented by a properly executed lease is paid directly by the Department, which removes the member from the float and the paperwork. Lodging is capped at a federal per diem rate that is set per day, so a term arrangement is measured against the same ceiling as a hotel night. And once a member is lodging in Annapolis for the week, the mileage side of the budget collapses to one round trip — the daily-commute economics stop applying.

For a firm or association rather than a member, the same fixed-term logic applies for different reasons; the fee and filing side of that is laid out in budgeting a 2027 session presence, and the transport picture in getting to Annapolis without a car.

One caution to close on. Nothing here is tax advice, and nothing here substitutes for the Department of Legislative Services’ own current guidance — the guidelines cited on this page are the January 2024 edition, and the Commission resolution is the January 2026 report. Confirm the operative version with the Department before relying on a number in a filing.