Two travel contracts can advertise the same weekly number and leave you with very different amounts in the bank. This page explains what sits inside a travel nurse pay package, what moves it up and down, and what to ask before you compare two offers.
A travel nurse pay package is usually not one number. It is several, and they are treated differently.
A package with a low base and a high stipend can look identical to one with a high base and a low stipend. They are not the same thing, and the difference shows up when you file taxes, work overtime, or try to get a mortgage.
Ask both agencies the same questions and write the answers side by side. The gap between two offers is rarely where the advert says it is.
What is the taxable hourly base, separately from the stipends?
How many hours are guaranteed, and what happens if the unit cancels a shift?
If housing is a stipend, what do one bedroom rentals actually cost in that city?
What is the overtime rate, and is it based on the base or the full package?
Is any of this conditional on completing the contract?
What happens to pay if the contract is cancelled early?
Two more that are not about money, and change the answer anyway:
Who will your recruiter be, and will it be the same person for the whole contract?
Are you their employee, and who is responsible if something goes wrong on the unit?
Non taxable stipends exist to cover the cost of keeping a home while you work somewhere else. If you do not maintain a permanent tax home, those payments can be treated as taxable income, and that is decided by your circumstances rather than by the agency.
This is worth understanding before you take your first contract, and it is worth an hour with a tax professional who works with travel nurses. We can tell you how a package is structured. We cannot tell you how it will be taxed for you.
We do not publish rates, and neither should anyone else honestly. A number written on a page today is wrong by next month, and wrong for most of the people reading it in any case. Ask a recruiter for the figure that applies to your specialty, your states and your start date.
There is no single useful average, because specialty, state, shift and urgency move the number more than anything else does. A figure quoted for one specialty in one state tells you very little about another. Published national averages also mix taxable wages with non taxable stipends, which makes them look higher than the wage actually is.
Because the split between taxable wage and non taxable stipend is different. The one with the higher taxable base gives you more overtime, more towards a mortgage application and more unemployment cover. The one with the higher stipend looks better on paper.
Procedural and critical care usually sit at the top, and states that cannot recruit locally pay above those that can. Urgency often matters more than either: a vacancy that has to be filled this week is worth more than the same vacancy starting in six.
A raised rate offered when a facility has an urgent shortage. It is temporary, it usually comes with shorter notice and less flexibility, and it ends when the shortage does.
Only if you maintain a permanent tax home and meet the conditions for being away from it. That depends on your own circumstances, so it is worth speaking to a tax professional who works with travel nurses before your first contract.
Less than most nurses expect. Agencies are paid a bill rate by the facility and the room to move is narrower than the marketing suggests. What differs more is how the package is split, what is guaranteed, and what happens when something goes wrong.
Two minutes on the phone beats an hour comparing adverts.
