Guide

Travel expense policy: what to cover

For finance leads and travel managers writing the expense half of a travel policy: what to require for receipts, whether to pay per diem or actual costs, the IRS accountable plan rules behind reimbursement, who approves, how cards are used, and when claims are due.

Expense report template Policy builder

General information, not tax advice. The IRS figures on this page are quoted from the sources listed at the end, checked Oct 22, 2026. How they apply to your company is a question for your accountant or tax advisor.

The decisions to write down

An expense policy answers five questions. Write each answer down, with an owner, before the first trip under it. The right-hand column is the IRS reference point where there is one; the rest is yours to set.

The decisions an expense policy writes down
Decision	What to decide	IRS reference point
Receipts	Which expenses need a receipt, and what the receipt must show.	Receipts for lodging, and for any other expense of $75 or more, with exceptions (see Receipts).^[1]
Per diem or actual costs	Whether meals and lodging are paid at cost with receipts, or as a fixed daily allowance.	High-low rates from Oct 1, 2026: $329 a day for lodging and M&IE in high-cost places, $230 elsewhere in the continental US.^[2]
Approvals	Who approves each report, and who approves the approver's.	Not an IRS rule; yours to set.
Cards	What goes on a company card, what employees pay for themselves, and how each is reconciled.	Amounts charged to the employer's card are accounted for too.^[1]
Deadlines	When reports are due, and when unspent advances come back.	Accounting within 60 days and returns within 120 days count as a reasonable period.^[1]

Expense policy or travel policy?

The travel policy decides what gets booked: the cabin, the hotel limit, how far ahead to book and who approves the trip. The expense policy decides what happens to money employees spend on the road: meals, taxis, parking, mileage, and anything they book themselves. Keep them in one document if you like, but make sure they agree, so a hotel the travel policy allows isn't then refused as an expense.

For the travel policy itself, the travel policy builder writes a complete sample you can edit and download, with an optional Expenses section of written guidance. This guide covers the decisions that section leaves to you.

Receipts

The IRS's Publication 463 says expenses generally need documentary evidence such as receipts, canceled checks or bills. It lists exceptions: an expense other than lodging of less than $75, a transportation expense with no receipt readily available, and meals or lodging covered by a per diem allowance under an accountable plan.^[1] Your policy can be stricter, such as a receipt for every expense, which is easier to check than a list of exceptions.

A receipt has to show enough. Publication 463 counts documentary evidence as adequate when it shows the amount, date, place and essential character of the expense. A hotel receipt should show the hotel's name and location, the dates of the stay, and separate amounts for lodging, meals and calls. A restaurant receipt should show its name and location, the number of people served, and the date and amount.^[1] A card slip with only a total doesn't do that, so ask for the itemized receipt.

For each trip, the publication's Table 5-1 lists what the record should show: the cost of each separate expense, the dates the traveler left and returned and the days spent on business, the destination, and the business purpose.^[1] The expense report template asks for each of those.

Write down where receipts go (a photo in your expense system, or paper to finance), who checks them, and what happens when one is missing: for example, a short written statement, signed by the traveler and approved by their manager, with whatever else supports it, such as the card statement or booking confirmation.

Per diem or actual costs

There are two ways to pay for meals and lodging on the road. Actual costs: the employee claims what they spent, with receipts, up to any limits you set. Per diem: a fixed daily allowance for the place they stay, with no receipts for the amounts it covers. Publication 463 says that with the standard meal allowance, travelers must still keep records of the time, place and business purpose of the travel.^[1]

For a per diem, Publication 463 describes three federal rates an employer can use: the regular federal per diem rate, the standard meal allowance, and the high-low rate.^[1] The regular rates are GSA's, set place by place. For fiscal year 2027 (Oct 1, 2026 to Sep 30, 2027), GSA's standard continental US rates are $113 a night for lodging and $68 a day for meals and incidental expenses (M&IE), with higher rates for the places it lists.^[5] The trip cost estimator works out a trip at GSA's rates, night by night.

The high-low method replaces that city-by-city lookup with two rates. For travel on or after Oct 1, 2026, IRS Notice 2026-60 sets them at $329 a day for high-cost localities and $230 a day for anywhere else in the continental US, of which $86 and $74 respectively are treated as paid for meals. A high-cost locality is one with a federal per diem rate of $280 or more, for the part of the year the notice lists. The rate for incidental expenses only is $5 a day.^[2] For the last three months of a calendar year, Rev. Proc. 2019-48 says an employer keeps the method it used for an employee in the first 9 months, so high-low can't be started for that employee before January. An employer already using high-low may apply either the previous rates ($319 and $225, for Oct 1, 2025 to Sep 30, 2026^[1]^[2]) or the new ones through December, if it applies them consistently to every employee it reimburses that way.^[3]

Two details belong in the policy if you pay a per diem. On the day a traveler leaves, the publication's first method allows 3/4 of that day's M&IE rate; on the day they return, 3/4 of the preceding day's rate. A second method allows any proration you apply consistently in line with reasonable business practice.^[1] And if your allowance is higher than the federal rate, the publication says the excess is included in box 1 (wages) of the employee's Form W-2, and the amount up to the federal rate is shown under code L in box 12.^[1]

Mileage

If employees drive their own cars, say what rate you pay per mile and what counts as business miles. The IRS business standard mileage rate is 76 cents a mile for July 1 to Dec. 31, 2026 (IR-2026-29).^[4] Ask for the date, the start and end points, the business purpose and the miles for each journey.

Accountable plan basics

When employees are reimbursed, the IRS distinguishes an accountable plan from a nonaccountable one. Publication 463 says an accountable plan must include all three of these rules:^[1]

Business connection. The expenses were paid or incurred while performing services as an employee.
Adequate accounting. The employee accounts to the employer for the expenses within a reasonable period of time.
Returning excess. The employee returns any excess reimbursement or allowance within a reasonable period of time.

When all three rules are met, the publication says the employer shouldn't include the reimbursements in box 1 of the employee's Form W-2. Reimbursements under a nonaccountable plan are reported as pay, and excess amounts an employee doesn't return are treated as paid under a nonaccountable plan, even when the employer has an accountable one.^[1]

Adequate accounting means giving the employer a statement of expense, an account book, a diary or a similar record, made at or near the time of each expense, with documentary evidence such as receipts. The publication says it should be the same kind of record the employee would need if the IRS questioned a deduction.^[1] A per diem or mileage allowance can meet this requirement under the conditions the publication sets out.

Approvals

Decide who approves each expense report, and write it next to the travel approvals so the two don't drift apart. Arrangements to choose from:

The traveler's line manager approves, and finance checks receipts and policy before paying.
Nobody approves their own report. A manager's report goes to their own manager, and the most senior person's to finance or a named director.
Reports over an amount you set, or with items outside policy, get a second approval from finance.
A named delegate approves when the usual approver is away, so reimbursements aren't held up.

Approving the trip before it happens and approving the expenses afterward are different checks. The first decides whether the trip is worth it; the second checks that what was spent matches what was approved. The approval matrix template helps write down who approves trips.

Company cards and personal cards

Say which costs go on a company card, which the employee pays and claims back, and which are billed to the company directly by your travel provider. A clear split stops the same hotel being paid twice: once on the company's invoice and again on an expense claim.

Company card: the policy should say what it may be used for, that personal use isn't allowed (or how it's repaid if it happens), and that every charge still needs a receipt and a business purpose. Publication 463 says the amounts employees charge to the employer by credit card are part of what they account for.^[1]
Personal card or cash: the employee claims it back on an expense report with receipts. Say whether you pay foreign transaction fees and which exchange rate you use: the card statement's, or a published rate on the day.
Billed to the company: flights, hotels and rail booked through your travel provider shouldn't appear on an expense report at all. Say so in the policy.

Deadlines

Publication 463 says what counts as a reasonable period depends on the facts and circumstances, but that actions within these limits are treated as reasonable:^[1]

An advance is received within 30 days of the time of the expense.
Expenses are accounted for within 60 days after they were paid or incurred.
Any excess is returned within 120 days after the expense was paid or incurred.
Or, under a periodic statement (at least quarterly) asking for outstanding advances to be returned or accounted for, the employee complies within 120 days of the statement.

You can set your own deadline inside those limits, so month-end close isn't waiting on claims: for example, reports due within a set number of days of returning, and advances settled on the first report after the trip. Write down what happens when a report is late, and who chases it.

The expense report

The business travel expense report template puts these rules on one page: the trip and its business purpose, one line per expense with how it was paid and whether the receipt is attached, a per diem section and a mileage log, the total due after card charges and advances, and the sign-offs. Print it, or download it as a CSV for your spreadsheet.

Where silentVIP fits

silentVIP books and bills the travel itself and has no expense product: bookings are billed to the company, charged to a company card or marked employee-paid, and employee-paid items go to your expense system as a file (how payments work).

Sources

The IRS sources were checked on Oct 22, 2026. GSA's rates come from the file our hotel rate benchmarks use, checked on Oct 21, 2026.

IRS Publication 463 (2025), Travel, Gift, and Car Expenses. Chapter 5 (recordkeeping) and chapter 6 (accountable plans, adequate accounting, per diem allowances). The 2025 edition, written for employees; the IRS page was last updated Apr 30, 2026. (checked Oct 22, 2026)
IRS Notice 2026-60, 2026-2027 Special Per Diem Rates. Internal Revenue Bulletin 2026-43 (Oct 19, 2026). The high-low rates and the incidental-expenses-only rate for travel on or after Oct 1, 2026. It supersedes Notice 2025-54. (checked Oct 22, 2026)
IRS Revenue Procedure 2019-48, per diem substantiation. Internal Revenue Bulletin 2019-51. Section 5.04 sets the transition rules for the high-low method in the last 3 months of a calendar year; Notice 2026-60 points to it. (checked Oct 22, 2026)
IRS, Standard mileage rates. The business rate for each period, with the IRS news release that set it. (checked Oct 22, 2026)
GSA, FY2027 per diem files. The federal lodging and meals and incidental expenses (M&IE) rates for the continental US, Oct 1, 2026 to Sep 30, 2027. The same file our hotel rate benchmarks and trip cost estimator use. (checked Oct 21, 2026)

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