Per diems are allowances a company can provide when an employee spends time working somewhere else than the regular working place or residence for more than 8 hours.

This article outlines how to calculate per diem compensation in Germany as per the rules defined by the Bundesministerium der Finanzen.

Circula automatically calculates per diem allowances following these rules, based on the information we ask you to enter in the app while submitting trips. More information on trips can be found in this article.
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If you are staying in Germany during your trip, you will receive:

Your daily allowance will be reduced:

❕Important: Please note that the amount to deduct is always calculated against a full day allowance amount, even in the case of half-day compensations. In this case, if the total to deduct is more than the daily allowance itself, the allowance is set to EUR 0 for that day.
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📝 Note:

Source: Reisekostenabrechnung.com

Assuming a three-day business trip in Germany. Our employee leaves his home for the trip on the first day at 6:30 pm. They spend the second day attending a workshop for a client, where the hotel breakfast is paid by the employer. On the third and last day, breakfast and lunch is covered by the employer, and then travels back home after 6:00 pm.

The employee will receive:

Total compensation: €14.00 + €22.40 + €0 = €36.40
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The same rules as described above apply for trips abroad, but with different compensation rates depending on the country and city. For a given trip day, the applicable rate is:

This time our employee goes on a two-day business trip to France. The employee leaves for their trip on the first day at 9:00 am and lands in Paris at 11:30 am where the employee spends the rest of the day at a conference. The second day, the employee takes the plane and lands in Germany at 1:00 pm. Adding that the company didn't provide an accommodation and the employee, therefore, gets an extra allowance instead.

The employee will receive:

Total compensation: €191.00 + €39.00 = €230.00
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Heavy travelers occasionally go on trips that include multiple destinations. While this doesn't affect the per diem calculation in some case, in others it has a heavy impact when the cities have different calculation rates.
Giving users the option to add multiple destinations to a trip reduces the steps for them to get to their proper per diem payment.
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The correct calculation in this case would be to use the full day rate of the city that the user was in before midnight every day.
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​Example*
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Destination: Paris
Start: Jan 3rd, 11 am
End: Jan 5th, 6:00 pm (= time of arrival 2nd location)
Destination: London
End: Jan 7th, 6:00 pm (= time of arrival at home)
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​The employee will receive:

Total compensation: 39 € + 58 € + 62 € + 62 € + 41 € = 262 €

* The numbers in these examples might be subject to change. The rates to be estimated in each case are implemented and automatically updated in the software.