According to the rules, employees are entitled to a daily allowance when traveling on business. They must be paid for each calendar day of the trip. An important point: the deadline for paying daily allowances on a business trip. There are certain standards here, which we will talk about in our new article.
Why do we need daily allowances
When an employee goes on a business trip, even if the company has paid for tickets and accommodation in advance, various additional expenses (for example, food) are possible.
According to the Labor Code of the Russian Federation (Article 168), the employer must accrue daily allowances:
- for all days when the employee was on a work trip;
- for weekends and holidays (that is, officially non-working days) days, if during this time he was actually on the trip – and the travel time is also counted.
Daily allowance may not be paid in case of a one-day trip around Russia. At the same time, the employing company, instead of daily allowance, can pay special compensation for such business trips.
Daily allowance rate
Each employer has the right to set the amount of daily allowance independently. However, there are some subtleties here. For example, according to the rules, only daily allowances are not subject to personal income tax, the amount of which does not exceed 700 rubles when traveling around Russia and 2.5 thousand rubles when traveling abroad.
Therefore, employers often officially record these numbers in internal documents. But nothing prevents them from paying employees more; in this case, they will only have to calculate and withhold personal income tax.
Daily allowance payment period
On the one hand, employers can determine the procedure and amount of payments themselves, on the other hand, there are certain rules. There is no strict deadline for the payment of daily allowances in 2019, but an advance of funds to pay for travel expenses must be made before the start of the trip (clause 10 Regulations on the specifics of sending on a business trip). According to the rules, the advance must include not only housing costs and travel expenses (if the employee pays for it himself), but also, in fact, daily allowance.
That is, exactly how many days before the start of a business trip the employer can decide for himself to pay an advance with part of the daily allowance, having written this down in internal documents. But this must be done before the start of the trip. Otherwise, after the employee returns, he will have to pay compensation for the delay in payment. Here everything is similar to the situation with delayed salaries.
Conclusion
Although companies have some freedom when arranging business trips, there are also rules that must be followed. If the amount of travel allowances is always at the discretion of the employer, then the period for payment of daily allowances is more strictly regulated. They must be paid in advance, it is important to remember this.
