Mobile apps feature per diems

Federal employees traveling on official business now can look up official per-diem reimbursement rates by using a new iPhone or BlackBerry mobile application from the General Services Administration, the agency announced on Aug. 4.

For employees traveling in the United States, per diems are the daily monetary allowances for lodging, meals and incidental permitted expenses, such as parking for an official conference, excluding taxes.

The free mobile applications, referred to as "Per Diem" in the shortened form, provide information on per-diem rates based on location by city and state, or by zip code, in the U.S. and U.S. territories.

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The apps are available at iTunes stores or BlackBerry App World. They are not featured yet at the USA.gov’s Mobile App Gallery.

The rates are set by GSA for the 48 contiguous states and by the Defense Department for locations in Alaska, Hawaii and the U.S. territories.

At least one user said he hoped GSA would make it easier soon to get per-diem rates for U.S. military installation locations in the Per Diem iPhone application.

“Not very useful if you have to know which county a military installation is in,” the user posted in a customer review of the GSA’s Per Diem application on the iTunes website.