The following has been adapted to establish an employee reimbursement policy for meal expenses during travel.
The Penn State policy for meals and incidentals states:
Meal expenses and any tips related to meals will be reimbursed via the meal and incidentals per diem. The meal and incidentals per diem is established by the General Services Administration of the federal government, and differentiates allowances by geographic location. The per diem schedule is regularly updated. As with any reimbursement request, a lesser amount may be claimed at the traveler’s request.
An amount less than the per diem can be requested (using actual costs) by a faculty or staff member in order to save funds from certain accounts such as scholarly activity funds, endowments, or restricted funds. The faculty or staff member should make the decision to use per diem or some lower level of reimbursement, not the program or school director. The employee or his/her ERS designee will process the reimbursement request; receipts for meals, miscellaneous, and incidental expenses are not required.
Receipts are required for travel in the continental United States for other items such as business communications, commercial transportation (airlines, taxis, car rentals, etc.), lodging, group meals, and those expenses not considered incidental or miscellaneous.
All other University policies apply.
September 2, 2008
Reviewed July 19, 2017
Reviewed January 28, 2025