A federal requirement that all air travel funded by the U.S. government must use an airline owned by an American company increases the State Department’s travel costs by an estimated $700,000 to $1.5 million annually, according to a new report.
The Fly America Act requires that U.S.-funded travel must use a domestic airline even when a foreign airline offers a cheaper ticket. It can be waived for State employees or family members under certain circumstances.
This requirement increases the State Department’s travel costs and also presents “challenges” for State personnel, such as mandatory evacuations, when booking a flight on short notice can be difficult, according to a report released Thursday by the Government Accountability Office.
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For urgent travel, such as ordered departures from foreign posts and personal emergency travel, Act-compliant flights can be difficult to find on short notice and approvals for exceptions may take time to process, officials told GAO.
As for routine travel, complying with the law poses challenges to flight availability, travel with pets and the State Department’s administrative process to apply for an exception.
In the 2025 fiscal year, the State Department approved only 6% of employees’ applications for an exception, and rejected approximately 14% of waiver requests.
In the 2025 fiscal year, the department approved exceptions that allowed foreign carriers for about 6% of trips between the U.S. and foreign destinations. It approved about 73% of waiver requests and rejected approximately 14%.
Waivers can’t be approved after the fact, GAO found, citing a traveler denied reimbursement after buying a foreign-carrier ticket for a parent’s funeral.
Of 1,000 simulated ticket pairs examined by GAO, each containing the least expensive unrestricted fare and most direct flight available for an Act-compliant ticket and a noncompliant ticket, the State Department’s costs were increased by an average of $455 per ticket. This includes the cost of travel time, valued at $63.61 an hour, with a fare-only difference of $463.
A cheaper foreign fare is not an exception, the report found.
Across all 1,000 pairs, compliant tickets were about $286 cheaper on average than noncompliant ones.
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