Free Business Travel Request Form (Excel)

What is a business travel request form

A travel request form is the pre-trip approval step: an employee lays out where they need to go, why, and roughly what it will cost, and a manager signs off before anything is booked or spent — distinct from a day-by-day itinerary (built after booking) or an expense reimbursement (filed after the trip, with actual receipts).

This template covers that approval moment: traveler, department, destination, purpose, dates, an estimated cost breakdown, and a status field for the approver.

What's in the travel request template

The Travel Request sheet has header fields for the traveler, department, destination, and business purpose, then departure and return dates, followed by an estimated-cost section: airfare or transport, hotel nights and rate, meal days and per-diem, ground transport, and any other cost.

An Approval section at the bottom holds the approver's name and a status field so the request can move from Pending to Approved or Denied.

A separate Request Log sheet lists every request submitted — traveler, destination, dates, estimated cost, and status — so a department can see requests pending approval and total approved travel spend in one place.

What calculates automatically

Trip length in days calculates from the departure and return dates the moment both are filled in. Hotel total (nights x rate) and meals total (meal days x per-diem) calculate as soon as you enter those numbers.

The total estimated cost adds airfare, hotel, meals, ground transport, and other costs together automatically, so the number an approver sees is always current — no manual re-adding when a traveler changes their hotel nights or meal days.

In the Request Log, pending requests and approved travel spend total automatically as you log each new request and update its status.

Travel request vs itinerary vs expense reimbursement

These three documents cover three different moments of a business trip. The travel request (this template) is filed before booking, to get the trip and its estimated cost approved. Once the trip is booked, a travel itinerary lays out the day-by-day flights, hotels, and activities. After the trip, an expense reimbursement form totals the actual receipts against what was spent.

If you need the day-by-day trip plan, see the free travel itinerary template. If you need to reconcile actual spend against receipts after the trip, see the free expense reimbursement form. Using all three in sequence gives a complete, consistent paper trail for business travel from request to reimbursement.