Wilmington Per Diem Rates and Calculator 2026-27
From October 1, 2026, through September 30, 2027, the Wilmington per diem is $74 a day for meals and $127 a night for a hotel, depending on the month.
Type your trip dates below to see what you can write off or get paid back, and get a free PDF.
Wilmington per diem rates for each month, October 2026 to September 2027
The GSA, the government office for travel, sets these rates for Wilmington (New Castle County). The IRS lets you use the same meal rate instead of adding up your meal receipts.
| Month | Hotel per night | Meals per day |
|---|---|---|
| October 2026 | $127 | $74 |
| November 2026 | $127 | $74 |
| December 2026 | $127 | $74 |
| January 2027 | $127 | $74 |
| February 2027 | $127 | $74 |
| March 2027 | $127 | $74 |
| April 2027 | $127 | $74 |
| May 2027 | $127 | $74 |
| June 2027 | $127 | $74 |
| July 2027 | $127 | $74 |
| August 2027 | $127 | $74 |
| September 2027 | $127 | $74 |
How the $74 meal rate splits across a day in Wilmington
| Breakfast | $18 |
| Lunch | $20 |
| Dinner | $31 |
| Tips for hotel staff and baggage carriers (incidentals) | $5 |
| A full day | $74 |
| The day you leave and the day you come home (3/4) | $55.50 |
Wilmington per diem rates for trips from October 2025 to September 2026
Use these for trips you take before October 1, 2026. Meals were $74 a day.
| Month | Hotel per night |
|---|---|
| October 2025 | $127 |
| November 2025 | $127 |
| December 2025 | $127 |
| January 2026 | $127 |
| February 2026 | $127 |
| March 2026 | $127 |
| April 2026 | $127 |
| May 2026 | $127 |
| June 2026 | $127 |
| July 2026 | $127 |
| August 2026 | $127 |
| September 2026 | $127 |
Per diem rates for the rest of Delaware
| City | Meals per day | Hotel per night |
|---|---|---|
| Lewes | $74 | $126 to $216 |
Everywhere else in Delaware, the per diem is $113 a night for a hotel and $68 a day for meals.
See every place on the Delaware per diem page, or the per diem rates for every city.
How to figure a Wilmington per diem, with a 3-night example
Say you fly to Wilmington on Monday, November 9, 2026, and come home on Thursday, November 12.
| Day | Meals | Hotel |
|---|---|---|
| Monday, Nov 9 (3/4 day) | $55.50 | $127 |
| Tuesday, Nov 10 | $74 | $127 |
| Wednesday, Nov 11 | $74 | $127 |
| Thursday, Nov 12 (3/4 day) | $55.50 | home |
| Total | $259 | $381 |
If you work for yourself, you write off half the meals, $129.50, plus what you paid for the hotel. At $127 a night, that is $511, which saves you about $180 in taxes.
If your boss pays you back, they can pay you up to $640 for this trip, and all of it stays tax-free.
Keep every receipt from your Wilmington trip, even when you use the per diem
The per diem means you can skip adding up every meal. Keep the receipts anyway.
The IRS still wants to know when you traveled, where you went, and why. A lunch receipt from Wilmington on a Tuesday shows you were in Wilmington that Tuesday. When you sit down to do your taxes, your receipts remind you of every day you were away, so you count them all.
If you work for yourself, the IRS requires the hotel receipt, because you write off what the hotel cost. Keep the plane ticket and the rental car receipts with it.
Snap each receipt with the Shoeboxed app as you go, or forward the ones that come by email. Our software reads the store, the date, and the total, and we keep the receipt for as long as you have an account. If you drive to the airport, the Shoeboxed mileage tracker logs those miles too.
How truck drivers write off $80 a day for meals on the road
If you drive a truck and sleep away from home, the IRS gives you a special meal rate of $80 a day anywhere in the lower 48 states, and $86 outside them. One rate covers every stop, so you skip looking up each city.
Drivers who log their hours for the DOT write off 80% of it. Most people get 50%. Count every day you were away overnight. The first and last day of each trip count at 3/4, or $60.
Say you spend 250 days on the road in 25 trips. That comes to $19,000. You write off 80%, or $15,200, which saves you about $5,490 in taxes.
If you use the $80 rate for one trip, use it for every trip that year. Click "I drive a truck" in the calculator at the top of this page to figure yours, and track the rest of your truck costs in our free owner-operator expense spreadsheet.
How many nights away on business our drivers spent in 2026, from 296 Shoeboxed drivers
From February to October 2026, 84 of the 296 people who use the Shoeboxed mileage tracker spent at least one night away from home on a business trip. Half of them spent 3 nights or more. One driver spent 100.
84 of 296
drivers spent at least one night away on business
603
nights away on business, all drivers together
$37
what one full day in Wilmington adds to your write-off at the $74 meal rate
$20,502
what those 603 days are worth as a write-off at the $68 standard meal rate
We counted a night away when a driver's last drive of the day ended more than 50 miles from home, the next morning's first drive started more than 50 miles from home, and the driver labeled a trip that day as business.
How to get paid back for a Wilmington trip with a per diem expense report
If your boss pays you back with a per diem, the money stays tax-free up to the government rate. Click "My boss pays me back" in the calculator at the top of this page, type your dates, and print the expense report. Write in why you went, sign it, and hand it in.
My son works on a wildland fire crew in Montana. When the crew travels to a fire, he gets $68 a day for meals. He called me with questions about it, and I wrote up the answers in Is per diem taxable?
Own a small business? Pay your team a per diem and keep it tax-free for them
Pay up to the government rate and follow three IRS rules, and the per diem stays tax-free for your employee. IRS Publication 463 calls this an accountable plan:
- The trip is for work.
- Your employee tells you the dates, the place, and the reason within a reasonable time.
- Your employee gives back anything you paid that they can't account for.
Anything you pay above the government rate counts as wages on their W-2. With a per diem, the IRS lets your employees skip turning in meal and hotel receipts. Ask them to keep the receipts anyway, so the dates are easy to prove.
Common Wilmington per diem questions
From October 1, 2026, through September 30, 2027, the government per diem for Wilmington (New Castle County) is $74 a day for meals, and $127 a night for a hotel. The hotel rate changes by month.
Keep every receipt from every trip in one place with Shoeboxed
Snap them with the app, forward the ones that come by email, or mail the paper ones to us in a Magic Envelope. We keep them all, ready for your accountant.
See how Shoeboxed keeps your receipts