Foreign Per Diem Rates by Location: Who Sets Them, Where DoD Prints Them, and What a 10-Day TDY Pays at Eight Overseas Bases

A TDY to Ramstein Air Base on the table in force today pays up to $229.00 a night for lodging and $133.00 a day for meals and incidentals, a maximum of $362.00 a day. That row comes from the Defense Travel Management Office (DTMO) OCONUS per diem table effective November 1, 2026, and the rate itself is the State Department's: DTMO's rate lookup says plainly that "DoS sets the per diem rates for foreign locations." None of this is proposed or pending. It is the rate a voucher is settled on this month, and it can change on December 1, because DTMO says foreign rates "are updated at the beginning of each month."

Three tables, three owners

Per diem is not one table. DTMO's Per Diem Rate Lookup splits it three ways: "GSA sets per diem rates for the contiguous 48 States and the District of Columbia," "DoS sets the per diem rates for foreign locations," and "DTMO prescribes rates for non-foreign locations overseas," which it describes as Alaska, Hawaii, Guam, Puerto Rico and the other U.S. areas outside the 48 states.

The State Department publishes its own list under the heading "Foreign Per Diem Rates by Location" (Department of State Standardized Regulations section 925), searchable by country and post. That is the page most federal civilians use. A service member does not need it: the DTMO OCONUS table carries the foreign rates alongside the non-foreign ones, and it adds named military locations such as RAMSTEIN AB, ROTA NAS and CAMP HUMPHREYS, so the row you need is usually listed by base name.

Our copy of that table holds 1,617 rows across 240 countries and non-foreign areas. Each country has its own page, for example Germany with 71 localities and Japan with 91. A city that is not named takes the country's "[OTHER]" row where DTMO prints one; in Germany that row is the same $229.00 and $133.00 as Ramstein.

How to read one row

The Ramstein row reads: lodging $229.00, meals $106.00, proportional meals $62.00, incidentals $27.00, maximum per diem $362.00, effective date 09/01/2026. M&IE is meals plus incidentals, $106.00 + $27.00 = $133.00, and the maximum is lodging plus M&IE. The effective date is when that row last changed, not when the table was issued: RAF Lakenheath still shows 07/01/2024, Naval Support Activity Bahrain 05/01/2022, while Aviano and Rota both changed on 11/01/2026.

Some rows are seasonal. Okinawa Prefecture has two: $333.00 lodging and $120.00 M&IE from July 1 through August 31, and $186.00 and $105.00 from September 1 through June 30. The proportional meal rate is the column the JTR uses on a day "the cost for one or two meals is included" in a conference registration fee (par. 030201).

How the JTR turns a row into a voucher

The rule is the same overseas as at home. JTR par. 020301 pays "the actual amount paid for lodging, limited to the lodging portion of the locality per diem rate," plus the M&IE rate. Lodging is a ceiling; a room for less than the ceiling pays what the room cost. M&IE is flat. On the departure day it is "75% of the M&IE rate of the traveler's stopover point or TDY location that night" (par. 020310-A), and on the return day it is "75% of the M&IE rate for the preceding day" (par. 020310-E.1). The location that sets the rate is, "ordinarily," where you are at midnight (JTR 0203).

A 10-day TDY at eight overseas bases

The table below prices one trip: arrive at the base on day 1, nine nights in lodging, fly home on day 10. Lodging is at the ceiling, which is the most the voucher can pay. M&IE is eight full days plus two days at 75%. Okinawa uses the September-to-June row, the one in force in November. Overnight flights, government meals and a cheaper room all change the result; the per diem calculator handles those.

The spread is threefold. The same ten days pay up to $3,472.00 at Rota and $1,143.00 at Camp Humphreys, and Lakenheath has the highest lodging ceiling of the eight but less M&IE than Ramstein, Rota or Bahrain. The 75% figures are exact to the cent; par. 020310 gives no rounding rule for them.

Same trip, every rank: what you float before the voucher pays

Per diem does not change with rank: an E-3 and an O-5 on the same Ramstein orders draw the same $362.00 ceiling. What changes is how much of a month's pay the trip represents while the hotel bill waits for the voucher. The table sets the Ramstein trip maximum against 2026 monthly basic pay.

For an E-3 the full trip is more than a month of basic pay, a bill that sits on a card or in a checking account until the voucher settles. For an O-5 it is under a third. The sooner the voucher is filed, the shorter that wait.

The $351.00 gap between $2,973.50 and the maximum is lodging the Airman never spent, so nothing is lost: lodging repays the receipt, and the M&IE is the same $1,263.50 either way. A room above the ceiling is the opposite case, and the excess is the traveler's unless an actual expense allowance was approved.

If the trip is a PCS, not a TDY

Moving to an overseas base, the same rows reappear in a different allowance. Once you arrive, Temporary Lodging Allowance (TLA) pays for the hotel until housing is found, and it is built on these locality rates; the TLA calculator reads the same DTMO table through its locality picker. The cost of living once you are settled is a separate allowance with its own table, priced by the OCONUS COLA calculator.

Rates are the DTMO OCONUS table effective November 1, 2026 and 2026 basic pay. Always verify with your finance office before making financial decisions.