SparkReceipt can work out the per diem for a business trip: the daily allowance a traveller can claim on top of mileage. It comes from the trip's start and end time and a rate set, the amounts and rules your account uses, such as "Domestic" or "Germany". Turn on Add per diem on a Business trip, choose a rate set, and SparkReceipt lists the days with their amounts. Tick the meals that were provided and the day is reduced. The per diem shows on the trip, goes into trip reports and can go on an expense claim.
Per diem works in the web app and in the iPhone and Android apps, on every plan that has Trips. Putting it on an expense claim needs a paid plan, like any claim.
Set up per diem rates
An account keeps its per diem rates as rate sets. Keep one set per country or set of rules, for example one for domestic trips and one for a country you travel to often.
Web app. Go to Account settings → Vehicles. The Per diem rates section is below Mileage rates. Click Add rate set.
Mobile app. Open the menu, tap Account settings, then Mileage Tracker, then Per diem rates, and tap Add rate set.
The account owner, admins and Accountants can add, edit and delete rate sets. Everyone else on the account can see them and pick them on their trips.
Start from a country's rates
A new rate set can start from a country's published domestic rates, or from scratch:
- Finland: 24-hour periods. The rates for 2026, and the rates in force from 1 January 2027.
- Sweden: calendar days. A trip without an overnight stay gets nothing.
- Germany: calendar days.
- United Kingdom: calendar days, with HMRC's benchmark scale rates.
- United States: calendar days, with the GSA standard rate for meals and incidentals. A trip without an overnight stay gets nothing.
Picking a country fills in the form. Check the amounts against your own rules before you save. A rate set never changes on its own: when a country publishes new rates, edit your set or add a new one. For travel abroad, and for countries not in the list, choose Start from scratch and enter the amounts yourself.
What a rate set holds
- Name and Currency. Every amount in the set is in its currency.
- Days counted as: 24-hour periods from departure (a new period starts every 24 hours after the trip starts) or Calendar days (midnight to midnight in the account's time zone).
- Full day: the amount for each full 24-hour period, or for each whole day between the departure and return days.
- Trips under 24 hours or One-day trips: tiers by hours, for example 25 for more than 6 hours. The highest tier the trip reaches sets its amount. Without tiers, such a trip earns nothing. Each tier counts its hours as At least or More than.
- Hours after the last full period (24-hour periods only): tiers for the hours left over after the last full period.
- Departure and return days (calendar days only): one amount for the first and last day of a trip over several days. Leave it empty to price those days by the one-day trip tiers on their own hours.
- Provided meals: how a provided meal reduces the day. Either Each meal takes a percentage off, with a percentage for breakfast, lunch and dinner, or A number of provided meals reduces the day, for example a full day with two provided meals is halved.
Deleting or editing a rate set doesn't change the trips that already use it. Each trip keeps a copy of the rates it was priced with.
Add per diem to a trip
Per diem can be added to Business trips. It doesn't show on Personal trips.
Web app. Open the trip and find the Per diem card, or edit the trip. Tick Add per diem and choose a Rate set. On the trip page each change is saved straight away. In the trip editor, the days and amounts appear once you save the trip with its start and end time.
Mobile app. Open the trip, turn on Add per diem and choose a Rate set. The amounts update when you save, or once the trip syncs if you're offline.
SparkReceipt then lists the trip's days. Each day shows its hours and its kind: Full day, Partial day, Travel day (the departure or return day of a trip over several calendar days) or No allowance, and the amount. The Per diem total is shown next to the mileage amount. The two are kept apart, because they are separate allowances.
A trip that is still recording shows "Per diem is calculated when the trip ends." GPS-recorded trips get per diem the same way as trips added by hand.
If there are no rate sets yet, the trip tells you so. Ask the account owner, an admin or an Accountant to add one.
Provided meals
Under each day, tick Breakfast, Lunch or Dinner when that meal was provided, for example a lunch included in a ticket or paid for by a client. The day shows its amount less the deduction for meals. Which meals count as provided depends on your country's rules.
When the rate set changes
A trip keeps the rates it was priced with. If someone edits the rate set later, the trip says "The rates in" the set "have changed since this trip was priced." Click Use the new rates to reprice the trip. If the rate set was deleted, the trip shows Saved rates and keeps its amounts until you choose another set.
Turning Add per diem off removes the per diem from the trip. Your meal ticks are kept, so turning it back on brings them back.
Claim per diem on an expense claim
A trip's per diem goes on an expense claim as its own item, next to the trip's mileage. When you add a Business trip to a claim, SparkReceipt adds both. In the web app's Add items list, the trip shows its per diem amount under the mileage, or Per diem only when the trip has no mileage rate. The mileage and the per diem can even go on different claims.
On the claim, the item's type is Per diem, with the reference "Per diem, Trip #" and the trip number, the number of days, the rate set's name and whether meals were deducted. The claim PDF, Excel and CSV list it the same way.
A draft claim checks the per diem again when you submit it. If the trip's per diem was turned off or now comes to nothing, the item shows No per diem anymore: turn per diem back on in the trip, or remove the item. A submitted claim keeps the amount it had.
When an approved claim is published to QuickBooks Online, Xero, Procountor or SimplBooks, each per diem is one line, "Per diem, Trip #" with the trip number and days, booked with no tax to the Per diem expense category you choose in the integration's settings. See How do I publish an expense claim to my accounting software?.
Per diem in trip reports
Trip reports show each trip's per diem next to its mileage. Trips without per diem leave those columns empty.
- PDF trip report: a Per diem column, and a per diem total for each currency in the summary.
- Excel and CSV: the columns Per diem days, Per diem meal deductions, Per diem and Per diem currency.
- A single trip's PDF: a Per diem section with each day's hours, provided meals, allowance, meal deduction and amount, and the per diem total.
Good to know
- Calendar days follow the account's time zone, not your phone's.
- Moving a trip to another account keeps its per diem amounts as Saved rates, because rate sets belong to one account.
- SparkReceipt doesn't decide what is tax-free. The presets follow each country's published domestic rates as closely as a rate set can, but conditions such as distance from home, the length of an assignment or a foreign destination are yours to check. Reporting per diem to a tax authority, such as the Finnish Incomes Register, stays with you or your accountant.
- SparkAgent doesn't add or change per diem. Set it on the trip in the app.