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Statutory travel allowances on the rate tables the tax authorities publish, and the trips you priced with them. It prices one business trip against a bundled rate table and shows the arithmetic that produced the number: the allowance per day, the partial-day fraction the scheme's own ladder gave, every deduction for a meal somebody else paid for, and the total in the scheme's own currency. Three schemes ship with it, the Polish delegation regulation at home and per country, the HMRC benchmark scale rates for travel inside the UK, and the US GSA CONUS standard M&IE with the lodging cap. Start and end are instants rather than wall clocks, so a trip across a clock change is 23 or 25 hours, and the Polish 24-hour period and the US calendar day give different and equally correct answers to the same trip. Trips can be saved under a name with a TRIP-YYYY-NNNN id, listed with a total per currency, reported per scheme and per month, and handed to the expense tracker as ready-made expense_add arguments. The tables are files inside the package rather than a feed, so the same trip priced twice gives the same answer, and every rate carries its authority, instrument, source URL and effective date.
The trip you are pricing is usually the trip you are also invoicing and expensing, and all three servers read one profile and one data directory here, so "price 58 hours in Krakow and save it" and then "add that to the Acme expenses" is two sentences in one window; trip_export hands the expense tracker its own expense_add arguments rather than writing behind its back.
| You say | Tool |
|---|---|
| What is the per diem for 58 hours in Krakow, leaving Tuesday at 8am, with breakfast provided on the first day and two hotel nights? | perdiem_calc |
| Price the same trip under the HMRC benchmark rates instead. | perdiem_calc |
| Save that as the Krakow audit trip and show me what I have claimed this quarter. | trip_record |
A destination that is not in the bundled table is refused by name rather than priced at a neighbour's rate. Measured through a real client on 2026-09-05: asked for a Polish per diem for Oman, the model called perdiem_calc, got back the server's own refusal (Poland domestic plus 34 countries abroad are bundled, so a missing country means not verified here rather than no rate exists), called perdiem_rates to check the coverage for itself, and then said plainly that it would not guess a number. An earlier build of this server answered that same trip with Romania's EUR 42.00 diet, because "romania".includes("oman") is true; the fallback is a prefix match now. In the same session a 58-hour Krakow trip came back at PLN 258.75, PLN 123.75 of diets plus PLN 135.00 of lodging ryczalt, with the arguments assembled from the prose unprompted.
The file is claude_desktop_config.json, and the key inside it is mcpServers.
| Scope | Path |
|---|---|
| macOS | ~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json |
| Windows | %APPDATA%\Claude\claude_desktop_config.json |
One click, with no JSON. Download per-diem.mcpb from the
bundle catalog and open it. Claude Desktop installs it as an extension and runs
it on the Node runtime it ships with, so neither your PATH nor your node version comes into it, and there
is no file to edit. Everything below is the manual route, for when you want the entry in the config file
itself.
The config block, which needs both strings absolute:
{
"mcpServers": {
"per-diem": {
"command": "node",
"args": ["/absolute/path/to/mcp-servers/servers/per-diem/dist/index.js"]
}
}
}If node came from nvm, asdf or homebrew, use the absolute path that which node prints
rather than the bare word, because a stdio server started by this app inherits a limited PATH:
"command": "/Users/you/.nvm/versions/node/v22.14.0/bin/node"The node command above wants a built file. From a clone, once:
git clone https://github.com/theluckystrike/mcp-servers.git
cd mcp-servers && npm install
npm run build -w packages/mcp-license -w servers/per-diemThat writes servers/per-diem/dist/index.js, and its absolute path is the one argument
the config needs.
The npm packages are not published yet, so the form below returns a 404 today. It is here because it is what the entry becomes the day the publish lands, with nothing else changed:
{
"mcpServers": {
"per-diem": {
"command": "npx",
"args": ["-y", "@theluckystrike/mcp-per-diem"]
}
}
}Save, then completely quit Claude Desktop and start it again. A window reload is not enough.
Nothing is published to npm yet, so the working install paths are the ones above: the .mcpb bundle from the bundle catalog, a clone and build, or the hosted URL.
The same server runs at https://mcp.zovo.one/mcp/per-diem over MCP streamable HTTP, no install. Mint a free token with curl https://mcp.zovo.one/mcp/token, or use a Pro key. It has no filesystem, so a file comes back as a one-hour download link.
{
"mcpServers": {
"per-diem": {
"url": "https://mcp.zovo.one/mcp/per-diem",
"headers": { "Authorization": "Bearer <token>" }
}
}
}Two documented facts decide whether the entry works: every path in claude_desktop_config.json must be absolute, and a stdio server started here inherits only a limited, platform-dependent subset of environment variables. If node came from nvm or homebrew, paste what `which node` prints instead of the bare word. The .mcpb route avoids both: Claude Desktop ships a built-in Node.js environment.
Free: Rate lookups and calculations are unlimited on every tier, on all three schemes: the tables are public regulation, and metering the reading of a regulation would be charging for the tax authority's work rather than for this server's. 5 trips saved a calendar month, counted by start date, and unlimited trip lists. Pro is $19 once, verified offline.
macOS: ~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json. Windows: %APPDATA%\Claude\claude_desktop_config.json. There is no published Linux path. Settings, Developer, Edit Config opens the right copy and creates it if it does not exist.
In order: did you fully quit and restart, not just close the window? Is every path absolute? And is the command resolvable, given the limited environment a stdio server inherits here? If node came from nvm, paste what which node prints.
Yes. An .mcpb bundle, the format renamed from .dxt, opens with Claude and shows an installation dialog. One you built yourself goes in through Settings, Extensions, Advanced settings, Install Extension.
MCP Per Diem in detail · The same server in Claude.ai and Claude Desktop connectors and Claude Code · Every server in Claude Desktop · Guides · Claude Desktop docs · Buy Pro
Per diem and travel allowances from chat, on the rate tables the tax authorities publish