Leave in Conjunction with TDY Has More Rules Than People Expect
LICOT travel has gotten complicated with all the informal advice that gets passed around about simply extending your trip on personal time. As someone who has planned several LICOT trips — some that went smoothly and one that generated a paperwork correction I’m still faintly embarrassed about — I learned the actual rules for combining official travel with personal leave. Today, I’ll share it all with you.
Leave in Conjunction with Official Travel — LICOT — is the authorized practice of using personal leave before or after a TDY assignment to extend your time at or near the TDY location for personal purposes. It’s a legitimate and frequently used benefit. It also has specific rules that determine what the government covers and what comes out of your pocket, and the line between those two things requires more attention than most people give it before they start booking.
What the Government Pays For (and What It Doesn’t)
The government pays for the most direct and cost-effective travel to and from your TDY location. If adding personal leave days before or after the TDY increases the cost of that official travel — different routing, higher fares due to different travel dates — you’re responsible for the difference. If LICOT actually reduces the government’s travel cost (a common situation when flights are cheaper with a Saturday stay), that works in your favor and in the government’s.
That’s what makes the cost comparison step endearing to travelers who’ve done LICOT correctly — you’re not just adding vacation to work travel, you’re doing the math to make sure the official portion costs no more than it would have without the personal extension, then documenting that calculation.
The Approval Process
LICOT requires commander approval and proper documentation in DTS. It’s not an informal arrangement — the leave portion needs to be on the books, and the DTS authorization needs to reflect the official travel component only, with the personal portion clearly identified. Getting this wrong in either direction (not documenting, or documenting incorrectly) creates voucher problems on return that are annoying and avoidable.
Per Diem During the Leave Portion
I’m apparently someone who had to be told explicitly that per diem stops the day official TDY ends, not the day you physically depart the location. The leave days are personal time, which means no lodging reimbursement, no M&IE, no rental car reimbursement for the personal portion. If you’re staying at the TDY hotel during your leave days, you’re paying the commercial rate for those nights.
Plan the Return Date Carefully
Probably should have led with this, honestly: the return date from LICOT affects your reporting date at home station. Leave doesn’t end when you land — it ends when you report for duty. Cutting the travel calculation too close means arriving back and reporting immediately, which is legal but usually inadvisable after personal travel. Building in a day between return flight and first duty day is good planning, not laziness.
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