Travel Therapy
Prep Toolkit
Check your tax home eligibility and track everything you need before your first travel contract.
Do You Qualify for Tax-Free Stipends?
Tax-free stipends are what makes a travel package different from a staff salary, and they rest on your tax home. Answer 5 questions to see if your situation qualifies. This is general guidance, not tax advice. Once you know where you stand, the next step is an offer that shows which part is stipend: Find my next contract.
First Assignment Checklist
Everything you need to do before, during, and after your first travel therapy contract. Check off items as you complete them — your progress saves automatically.
What IRS Publication 463 (2025) says about your tax home
Last verified: October 10, 2026 against IRS Publication 463 (2025) and the GSA per diem page. The checker above is a self-check, not a ruling: the rules below are the IRS's words, quoted, and a tax professional applies them to your facts.
Tax-free stipends rest on one idea: you are traveling away from your tax home. The IRS defines it:
“Generally, your tax home is your regular place of business or post of duty, regardless of where you maintain your family home. It includes the entire city or general area in which your business or work is located.”
The three factors
If you have no regular place of business, the IRS looks at where you live instead, using three factors:
- You perform part of your business in the area of your main home and use that home for lodging while doing business in the area.
- You have living expenses at your main home that you duplicate because your business requires you to be away from that home.
- You haven’t abandoned the area in which both your historical place of lodging and your claimed main home are located, you have a member or members of your family living at your main home, or you often use that home for lodging.
How they are weighed, in the publication's words:
- If you satisfy all three factors, your tax home is the home where you regularly live.
- If you satisfy only two factors, you may have a tax home depending on all the facts and circumstances.
- If you satisfy only one factor, you are an itinerant; your tax home is wherever you work and you can’t deduct travel expenses.
So the checker's questions follow those factors: whether you keep up a home you return to, whether you pay to keep it while you are away, and how tied you still are to it.
Temporary or indefinite
Where the assignment is matters as much as where home is. A stay is temporary for tax purposes only while it is expected to last 1 year or less:
“Generally, a temporary assignment in a single location is one that is realistically expected to last (and does in fact last) for 1 year or less.”
And once an assignment is indefinite, the allowances stop being travel money:
“If your assignment is indefinite, you must include in your income any amounts you receive from your employer for living expenses, even if they are called “travel allowances” and you account to your employer for them.”
Extending in one place counts toward that limit. Our contract guide quotes the IRS example of an extension that pushes a stay past a year.
Stipends and the federal rate
The IRS ties stipends to the federal per diem rate. In its words:
“The regular federal per diem rate is the highest amount that the federal government will pay to its employees for lodging and M&IE (or M&IE only) while they are traveling away from home in a particular area.”
“If your allowance is less than or equal to the federal rate, the allowance won’t be included in box 1 of your Form W-2.”
The rates themselves are set by the U.S. General Services Administration:
“We establish the per diem rates that federal agencies use to reimburse their employees for lodging and meals and incidental expenses incurred while on official travel within the continental United States.”
A standard rate applies to most of CONUS. Look up the rate for an assignment's city on GSA's per diem page before you compare two offers.
What the checker cannot tell you
It cannot see your records. Keeping a tax home is something you show with your own documents: where you pay to keep a home, how often you are there, and what ties you to the area. Bring those to a tax professional before your first contract, and again whenever an assignment might run long.
Frequently asked questions
What is a tax home?
In IRS Publication 463's words: Generally, your tax home is your regular place of business or post of duty, regardless of where you maintain your family home. It includes the entire city or general area in which your business or work is located.
What if I meet only two of the three factors?
IRS Publication 463: If you satisfy only two factors, you may have a tax home depending on all the facts and circumstances.
What if I meet only one factor?
IRS Publication 463: If you satisfy only one factor, you are an itinerant; your tax home is wherever you work and you can’t deduct travel expenses.
How long can an assignment last and still be temporary?
IRS Publication 463: Generally, a temporary assignment in a single location is one that is realistically expected to last (and does in fact last) for 1 year or less.
Are stipends taxable on an indefinite assignment?
IRS Publication 463: If your assignment is indefinite, you must include in your income any amounts you receive from your employer for living expenses, even if they are called “travel allowances” and you account to your employer for them.
Sources
- IRS, Publication 463 (2025), Travel, Gift, and Car Expenses (read 2026-10-10).
- GSA, Per diem rates (read 2026-10-10).
- Related: the pay transparency board and the travel therapy tax guide.