NOTE: All official international student travel MUST BE REGISTERED through UW Global Travel Security. If UW is involved in travel in any way (funding, salary, credits, support, sponsorship etc.) it is ‘official travel’.
- Before applying for departmental travel support, explore other opportunities including the ones described here.
- Discuss your travel with your PhD advisor, preliminary advisor or other faculty mentor. If your faculty adviser is providing travel support, ask them to email Pam Kelley Elend (pke2@uw.edu) stating the dollar amount they approve, and which funding source they're using.
- If you wish to apply for departmental graduate student travel funding, send the to the Graduate Program Chair via this request gateway. Please submit only one trip per request. If you have multiple trips, submit a separate request for each trip. Put in your best guess for the estimate of the costs.
- Have your faculty mentor send an e-mail to the Graduate Program Chair explaining how the travel is essential to your training. If they are providing partial support, they should mention it.
- You have to apply for departmental travel funding, arrange for a faculty support letter and get the approval from the GPC before your travels. Don't put any of your own money on the line before you get the approval.
- After your approved travel has occurred, complete this reimbursement intake form and send it along with receipts to Pam Kelley Elend (pke2@uw.edu) in the main office for processing. If possible, include any emailed files in non-zipped form. Please submit only one trip at a time. If you have multiple trips, submit the intake form and receipts for each trip in separate emails.
Receipts and intake form should be submitted no later than 85 days after the end of your travel.
Required Receipts:
Receipts are required, regardless of amount, for all airfare, rail, lodging, ride share/taxi, car rental, supplies required for business (purchased during travel) or immunization costs.
- Airfare receipt must show flight class, itinerary, and cost. UW will only reimburse economy/coach fares.
- Lodging receipts must be an itemized "folio" receipt, including lodging name, check in/out dates, and daily rate. Sharing lodging with another student? See "Sharing/Splitting Lodging" below.
- Rail receipts must include company name, travel dates(s), class, and cost.
- UW policy does not allow for ride share upgrades (Uber Comfort, etc.) without justification.
- Car rentals must include rental company, dates, and cost. The UW cannot reimburse supplemental insurance.
- For any travel purchase paid in currency other than USD, include dates/cost.
Note also that any airfare being paid for by a faculty member's federal grant MUST be booked on or have a flight codeshare with a U.S. carrier or a European Union carrier. (Non-federal funding does not have this requirement.)
See the Department Travel Policy linked at the top of the Department Reimbursement page for more details.
Sharing/Splitting Expenses:
Per UW policy, reimbursement is paid only to the purchaser of travel expenses. If you will be traveling with another graduate student and you wish to split the cost of an expense, but only one of you will be paying the vendor for the full cost, the student who pays for the expense will be the one reimbursed, but the cost of the reimbursement will be split between each student's approved travel funding.
For example:
- Both Student X and Student Y will share an AirBnB for a trip to JMM. The full cost of the AirBnB is expected to be $1,000. Therefore, BOTH X and Y must apply for departmental travel funds, each requesting $500 for lodging. They do so, and these two requests are then approved.
- Student X books the AirBnB with their credit card, so AirBnB charges Student X's card for $1,000.
- It's reimbursement time! Student X requests reimbursement using the standard grad travel reimbursement intake form. Student X indicates on the form that the $1,000 AirBnB charge covered lodging for both Student X and Student Y, and the cost should be split between X and Y's approved grad travel funding.
- Student X then receives a $1,000 reimbursement to cover the cost they paid to AirBnB. Of this $1,000, $500 is deducted from Student X's approved grad travel funding, and $500 is deducted from Student Y's approved grad travel funding. As each student was approved for $500 in funding for this trip, their approved funding is now spent out.