What a trip to San Juan costs
San Juan, Puerto Rico · SJU
San Juan is a domestic flight for US travellers — no passport, US dollars, US phone plans — with a Caribbean cost of living once you land.
Cheapest fare we can see right now
$124
Round trip from Miami (MIA) to San Juan, nonstop, airline code F9.
This fare is for Nov 9, 2026 to Nov 11, 2026 — 2 nights. Cached fares apply to their own dates, so this is not a price for dates you pick.
Fares by US origin
Cheapest cached round-trip fare per origin. Origins with no cached fare are left out entirely rather than estimated.
- Miami (MIA)Nov 9, 2026 · 2n · nonstop$124
- Atlanta (ATL)Oct 17, 2026 · 4n · 1 stop$143
- Chicago (ORD)Nov 13, 2026 · 3n · 1 stop$148
- Tampa (TPA)Oct 20, 2026 · 4n · nonstop$182
- Boston (BOS)Feb 20, 2027 · 7n · nonstop$264
- New York (JFK)Nov 17, 2026 · 14n · 1 stop$305
The whole trip, 2 nights
Built on the $124 fare above, over the 2 nights that fare actually covers. Everything below the fare is a planning estimate, not a quote.
- Flightcached fare
- $124
- Stay, 2 nightshostel to mid hotel · estimate
- $50–$200
- Food, 2 daysestimate
- $56
- Transfers and local transportflat allowance
- $40
- All in
- $270–$420
The published rate for San Juan
The US Department of Defense (DTMO) publishes a per diem rate for SAN JUAN & NAV RES STA, Puerto Rico. It is public domain, city-level and dated — the only sourced cost figure on this page besides the fare. San Juanis a non-foreign US location, so it is not in the State Department’s foreign table that covers the rest of this site; the Department of Defense publishes it instead, and that is the table quoted here.
- Lodging ceiling, per nightmost the government will reimburse for a room
- $295
- Meals and incidentals ceiling, per daythe two figures below added together — this table publishes them separately
- $148
- Local meal rate, per daypublished as its own column
- $118
- Local incidental rate, per daypublished as its own column
- $30
- Combined daily ceiling
- $443
Read that as a ceiling, not a price. It is set so a US Government employee can book a safe, available, full-service hotel at short notice and eat on expenses — a class of trip almost nobody reading this page is taking. You should expect to spend well below it, which is why the planning bands above sit where they do. Rate effective 1 April 2026, from the 1 September 2026 edition of the US Department of Defense (DTMO) table. This table publishes a meal rate and an incidental rate as two columns rather than one combined meals-and-incidentals figure, so the combined number above is those two added together — the same sum the publisher uses to reach its own maximum per diem.
What different budgets reach
Whole-trip budgets, not airfare. Each assumes a fare around the $124 above, then spends what is left on rooms and food at our planning bands for San Juan. A fare for different dates or a longer trip may cost more.
About $636 left after the fare — roughly 4 nights in a mid-range hotel, or 12 nights hostel-style, food included either way.
About $1,036 left after the fare — roughly 8 nights in a mid-range hotel, or 19 nights hostel-style, food included either way.
About $1,636 left after the fare — roughly 12 nights in a mid-range hotel, or 21+ nights hostel-style, food included either way.
Where the money actually goes
- Because it is domestic, fares behave like US domestic fares: they move with season and day of week more than with international demand.
- Daily costs are the highest of the twelve destinations here; food and stay both price close to the US mainland.
- Old San Juan, Condado and the areas outside the city price very differently for the same number of nights.
Price San Juan against your own budget
Set your number and your airport. We price flight, stay, food and transfers together, then show what is left per day.
Run San Juan on $1,200Free · no account · planning ranges, not quotes
San Juan sits in our Tampa → Caribbean corridor — same pricing, whole region at once.
San Juan trip costs: common questions
How much does a trip to San Juan cost?
The cheapest cached round-trip fare we can currently see is $124 from Miami (MIA), for Nov 9, 2026 to Nov 11, 2026 — 2 nights. Adding TripByCost planning estimates for that trip length — $50 to $200 for a room, $56 for food and a $40 transfer allowance — puts the whole trip somewhere around $270 to $420. The fare is a real cached price; the stay, food and transfer figures are planning estimates, not quotes.
Which US airport has the cheapest flight to San Juan?
Of the origins priced on this page (MIA, ATL, ORD, TPA, BOS and JFK), the cheapest cached round-trip fare right now is $124 from Miami (MIA), followed by $143 from Atlanta (ATL). These are cached fares that travellers found in the last few days, not a live search of every US airport, so treat it as a snapshot rather than a permanent ranking.
Can you do San Juan on $800?
About $636 left after the fare — roughly 4 nights in a mid-range hotel, or 12 nights hostel-style, food included either way. That assumes the cheapest fare we can currently see ($124 round trip from MIA); a fare for your own dates may cost more. The room and food figures are TripByCost planning bands for San Juan, not quotes.
Is San Juan expensive?
For planning, TripByCost budgets San Juan at roughly $25 a night for a hostel bed and $100 a night for a mid-range hotel room, plus about $28 a day for food. Those are our own planning bands rather than surveyed or quoted prices, and real prices move with season, neighbourhood and how far ahead you book. The one published figure we can point at is the per diem rate the US Department of Defense (DTMO) publishes for SAN JUAN & NAV RES STA, effective 1 April 2026: up to $295 a night for lodging and $148 a day for meals and incidentals (published there as $118 for meals plus $30 for incidentals, in two separate columns). That is a reimbursement ceiling for US Government staff on business travel, not a typical price — expect to spend well under it.
Where these numbers come from
Fares are cached fares from the Travelpayouts / Aviasales data API — real prices travellers found in the last few days, shown with the dates they apply to. They are indicative, they expire, and they are not a live availability search, so always confirm with the airline or a booking site before you commit. Last refreshed 2026-09-22; refreshed at most every 6 hours.
The published rate comes from the US Department of Defense non-foreign OCONUS per diem rates (DTMO). Public domain — a work of the US Government. We hold the 1 September 2026 edition (Ch. 726), fetched 2026-09-01. San Juanis a non-foreign US location, so it is not in the State Department’s foreign table used elsewhere on this site — the Department of Defense publishes it instead, and we cite the table the figure actually came from rather than the one most of the site uses. Each city’s rate carries its own effective date, shown with it. These are government reimbursement ceilings for business travel, not prices. The lodging figure is the most the US Government will pay back for a hotel room, which is far above a hostel and above most mid-range tourist hotels; the meals figure is a per-day expenses cap. A budget traveller should expect to spend considerably less than both. We publish the rate because it is real, dated and checkable, not because it is what your trip will cost.
Stay, food and transfer figures in the trip stack are TripByCost planning bands, not surveyed prices and not quotes. No free public dataset publishes hostel or budget-hotel prices, and none can honestly be derived from a government hotel ceiling, so these remain our own estimates and we would rather say so than dress them up. They exist to answer “does this trip fit?” at planning stage. Real prices vary with season, neighbourhood, how far ahead you book and how you travel. Nothing on this page is an offer, and we do not sell flights or rooms.
TripByCost is free. We may earn a commission when you book stays, tours, eSIMs, or insurance via partner links — at no extra cost to you. We never earn anything on a flight. Rankings stay budget-first, not highest commission.