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If you said the $2,400 one, you might be right. Or you might be about to make a $4,000 mistake. The number on the offer sheet is not your take-home pay. It's a starting point for math you actually need to do. And once you understand how travel nurse pay really breaks down by specialty and market, you'll never look at a blended rate the same way again.

This guide walks through the full travel nurse pay package breakdown: what each component means, how to compare two offers side by side, and the specific mistakes that cost nurses real money. If you want to understand what agencies are actually offering you, start here.

The Anatomy of a Travel Nurse Pay Package

Every travel nurse offer is built from the same basic ingredients. Agencies just mix them differently, and that's where the confusion starts.

A standard package has three parts: a taxable hourly base rate, a weekly housing stipend, and a weekly meals-and-incidentals (M&I) stipend. Some agencies also include a travel reimbursement (typically $300-$800 per assignment) and a completion bonus ($500-$3,000 depending on the contract length and specialty). The headline number you see in a job posting is usually the blended rate: all of it added together and divided by your hours to make the offer look clean.

That blended rate is not your hourly wage. It is not your take-home. It is math designed to look good in a job listing.

The Taxable Base Rate (and Why It's Intentionally Low)

This is the only part of your package that gets taxed like a regular paycheck. It's also the number that drives your overtime pay, your Social Security credits, and your ability to qualify for a mortgage.

Most agencies set the base rate somewhere between $18 and $30 per hour for RNs in 2025, though it varies by specialty and market. The Bureau of Labor Statistics pegs the median RN wage at around $42/hour for staff nurses. Travel base rates are intentionally set lower because the stipends make up the difference tax-free.

Here's what most nurses don't realize until they're staring at a paycheck: overtime is calculated on this base rate, not on the blended rate you had in your head. If your base is $20/hour, your OT rate is $30/hour. Not 1.5x your $55/hour blended rate. On a 48-hour week, that difference is roughly $300 in a single pay period. Over a 13-week contract where you're picking up extra shifts regularly, that's thousands you didn't realize you were leaving behind.

You can push back on this. Ask your recruiter to bump the base rate by $2-$3/hour, even if it means slightly lower stipends. The math on OT-heavy contracts often favors a higher base. Run the numbers both ways before you sign.

Housing and Meal Stipends: Where the Real Money Lives

Stipends are paid as non-taxable reimbursements, which means you keep more of them than you keep of regular wages. The IRS allows these stipends as long as you maintain a legitimate tax home and are working away from that home on a temporary assignment. The full rules are in IRS Publication 463, and it's worth a read if you've never looked at it (yes, even IRS documents, I know).

The GSA sets per diem rates by location that agencies use as a ceiling for stipend amounts. For most metro areas in 2025, the combined housing and M&I per diem runs $200-$350 per day depending on the city. Check the GSA per diem lookup tool for the current year's rates by city. These update annually every October and vary significantly between markets. San Francisco's per diem is a different planet from Tulsa's.

The catch: if you don't have a valid tax home, those stipends become taxable income. Suddenly that $2,400/week package shrinks fast. More on this in a minute.

A Real Side-by-Side Comparison: Two ICU Offers in Orlando

Here's where the math gets concrete. Take two real-world-style offers for the same 13-week ICU contract at AdventHealth Orlando.

Component	Agency A Offer	Agency B Offer
Taxable base rate	$20/hr	$28/hr
Weekly housing stipend	$1,400/week	$700/week
Weekly M&I stipend	$400/week	$250/week
Travel reimbursement	$500 (one-time)	$350 (one-time)
Completion bonus	$0	$1,500
Weekly gross (36 hrs)	$2,520	$1,958
Taxable portion (36 hrs)	$720	$1,008
Non-taxable stipends	$1,800	$950
Estimated weekly taxes (25%)	~$180	~$252
Estimated weekly take-home	~$2,340	~$1,706
13-week take-home (with bonuses)	~$30,920	~$23,728

Agency A's headline number is higher and the take-home is higher. But look at what's driving that: Agency A is loading the package with non-taxable stipends and keeping the base rate low. That's great for take-home, but it means lower OT pay, lower Social Security credits, and potential issues if a mortgage lender looks at your income history.

Agency B's structure is more conservative but gives you a stronger paper income. If you're planning to buy a house in the next 12 months, Agency B's package might actually serve you better even though you're taking home less per week.

This is the tradeoff that competing agency blogs don't explain.

Meet Danielle, a CVICU nurse from Nashville, Tennessee. She was on her second contract and got two offers for a 13-week assignment at HCA Florida Kendall Hospital in Miami. One agency offered $2,600/week blended. The other offered $2,100/week blended. She almost took the first one without looking further.

When she broke down the math, the $2,600 offer had a $16/hour base rate and $1,800 in weekly stipends. The $2,100 offer had a $26/hour base rate and $1,100 in stipends. Danielle was six months out from applying for a home loan. She took the $2,100 offer, documented her income carefully, and qualified for her mortgage the following spring. The "lower" offer was the right call for her situation.

Why Your Tax Home Changes Everything

The stipends in your package are only non-taxable if you have a legitimate tax home, meaning a permanent place you maintain and return to between contracts. The IRS defines this as your main place of business or work, not just where you grew up or where your parents live.

If you've been traveling continuously for years without maintaining a real home base, the IRS can reclassify your stipends as taxable income. That's not a hypothetical. It happens, and the back taxes plus penalties can run $5,000-$15,000 or more depending on how many contracts are affected.

The practical rules:

• You need to pay rent or mortgage on a home you actually return to between assignments
• Your travel assignments need to be temporary (typically under 12 months at any one location)
• You should be able to show you have meaningful ties to your tax home (voter registration, car registration, a room you actually sleep in)

The IRS tax home rules are the authoritative source here. When in doubt, talk to a CPA who specializes in travel nurses, not your uncle who does taxes on the side. Seriously. A travel-nurse-specific tax pro like those at TravelTax will pay for themselves in one consultation.

This is also why the stipend arbitrage math matters so much. If your housing stipend is $1,400/week and you find a furnished studio in Orlando for $1,100/week through the Travel Nurse Scout housing finder, you keep $300/week tax-free. Over a 13-week contract, that's $3,900 in your pocket that never touches your paycheck. That's the real play.

For a deeper look at finding housing that makes this math work, the travel nurse housing guide covers exactly how to find furnished rentals that come in under your stipend.

Pay Package Gotchas That Cost Real Money

Most of these don't show up on the offer sheet. You have to ask.

The OT calculation trap is the biggest one. As mentioned above, agencies calculate overtime on your base rate, not your blended rate. On a 48-hour week, the difference between OT on a $20/hour base versus what you'd expect from a $55/hour blended rate is roughly $300-$525 in a single week. Over a 13-week contract with regular overtime, that's $3,900-$6,825 you didn't realize you were leaving on the table. Always ask: can you raise my base by $2-$3/hour if I'm planning to pick up OT?

Call-off stipend proration is the sneaky one. Many contracts include language that reduces or eliminates your stipends for any week where you're called off below your guaranteed hours. Check the exact language in your contract. Phrases like "stipends are paid in proportion to hours worked" or "housing reimbursement requires completion of scheduled shifts" are red flags.

If you get called off two shifts in a week, you might lose half your housing stipend for that week. That's $700 gone on a high-stipend package. Before you sign, ask your recruiter: what happens to my stipends if I get called off? Get it in writing. If the answer is proration, factor that risk into your comparison, especially at facilities known for high call-off rates (ask other travelers on the unit or check charting volume trends if you can).

Completion bonuses sound great until you read the fine print. A $2,000 completion bonus on a 13-week contract is nice. But if the contract also has a cancellation clause that lets the facility cancel with two weeks' notice, you might never see it. Ask these questions before you factor a bonus into your math:

• Is the bonus paid at week 10 or week 13?
• What happens if the facility cancels early?
• Is there a clawback if you leave before the contract ends? (Typical clawback amounts range from $500-$2,500 depending on the agency and how early you leave.)

Company-provided housing vs. taking the stipend is another decision point that changes your math entirely. If the agency offers company housing, you skip the apartment search but lose the stipend arbitrage. Company housing typically costs the agency $900-$1,200/week in most metros. If your stipend would have been $1,400/week and you could have found a place for $1,000, you just lost $400/week in pocket money by taking the company option. On the flip side, company housing means zero deposit, zero lease hassle, and someone else deals with the landlord. If you're heading to a new city for the first time and don't have time to apartment hunt, it can be worth the trade. Just know what it costs you.

Here's a quick way to test a recruiter before committing: ask them to walk you through exactly how your OT is calculated and what happens to your stipends on a call-off week. A recruiter who knows their packages will answer without hesitation. One who stumbles is either new or hoping you don't ask. Either way, that tells you something.

How to Actually Compare Two Offers Step by Step

Don't compare headline numbers. Compare take-home math. Here's the process.

1. Get the full breakdown in writing: base hourly rate, weekly housing stipend, weekly M&I stipend, any travel reimbursement, and any completion bonus with its exact terms.
2. Calculate your weekly taxable income: base rate x hours worked per week.
3. Estimate your taxes on that taxable portion only. Use 22-30% as a rough estimate depending on your total annual income and filing status.
4. Add back your non-taxable stipends.
5. Subtract your actual housing cost (not the stipend amount, what you'll actually pay in rent).
6. That's your real weekly take-home.

Do this for both offers. Then compare.

Now meet Marcus, an ER nurse from Phoenix, Arizona, a compact state, which meant he could take assignments in most of the country without waiting on a new license. (If you're not sure whether your state is compact, the compact license guide has the full list.) He was comparing two offers for a contract at Ascension St. Vincent's in Indianapolis.

Agency one offered $2,800/week blended with a $22 base. Agency two offered $2,550/week blended with a $27 base. Marcus was planning to extend in Indianapolis for a second contract if things went well, and he wanted to negotiate from a position of strength.

He asked both recruiters directly what the bill rate was. One gave him a straight answer: $82/hour. One deflected. He went with the transparent agency, negotiated his base rate up by $2/hour on the extension, and ended up with an extra $288 per 13-week contract just for asking. That's extension negotiation in practice. It starts with understanding your package well enough to have the conversation.

For a broader look at how pay varies by market and specialty, the salary benchmarks by state and unit type give you useful context before you start comparing offers.

If you're still deciding which agencies to work with while you're running this math, Triage Staffing is known for transparent package breakdowns and recruiter communication that doesn't require you to pry for basic numbers. Worth having them in the mix when you're collecting offers.

And if you want a second set of eyes on your numbers, Trusted Health lets you compare offers side by side on their platform, which takes some of the manual math out of the process. Not a replacement for doing your own calculations, but a solid gut-check tool.

FAQ

What is a blended rate in travel nursing?

A blended rate is the total weekly compensation divided by your hours worked, expressed as a single hourly number. It includes your taxable base pay and your non-taxable stipends combined. It's useful for quick comparisons but misleading as a standalone number because it doesn't tell you how much is taxable or what your actual take-home will be. Two packages with the same blended rate can have wildly different take-home amounts depending on the base-to-stipend ratio.

Are housing stipends always tax-free?

Only if you maintain a legitimate tax home and are working temporarily away from it. If you've given up your permanent home and are traveling indefinitely, the IRS may treat your stipends as taxable income. This is one of the most expensive mistakes in travel nursing and the most preventable. Read the IRS Publication 463 guidance on travel expenses and consult a travel nurse tax specialist before your first contract.

Should I always push for a higher base rate?

Not always. A higher base rate means more taxes on that portion of your income. For nurses with a solid tax home who plan to stay in travel nursing long-term, a lower base with higher stipends usually produces more take-home per contract. But if you're applying for a mortgage, building Social Security credits, or plan to transition back to staff nursing, a higher base rate has real value beyond the weekly paycheck. The right answer depends on your 12-month financial plan, not just this contract.

What is the bill rate and why does it matter?

The bill rate is what the hospital pays the agency for your time, typically $75-$110/hour depending on specialty and market. The agency keeps the margin between the bill rate and your total compensation package. Knowing the bill rate helps you understand how much room the agency has to improve your offer. Asking for it is a legitimate negotiation move, and agencies that refuse to share it are worth questioning. If a recruiter tells you the bill rate is $90/hour and your total package costs $65/hour, you know there's $25/hour in margin. That doesn't mean you'll get all of it, but it tells you there's room to talk.

So Which Package Should You Take?

Take the one that pays you the most after taxes, fits your housing situation, and doesn't blow up your financial goals for the next 12 months.

That answer sounds obvious, but most nurses pick the higher headline number and skip the math. The nurses who build real wealth in travel nursing are the ones who run the numbers on every offer, understand how stipends work, and know what questions to ask a recruiter before signing anything.

The stipend arbitrage alone (finding housing below your stipend rate through tools like the housing finder) can add $3,000-$5,000 to a single 13-week contract. Multiply that across a year of contracts and you're looking at $12,000-$20,000 in extra take-home just from being intentional about housing costs. That's not a raise. That's a strategy.

Run the math. Ask about the bill rate. Check your tax home status. And if you're building a roster of agencies to compare offers from, the full agency comparison guide breaks down which agencies are worth having in your corner for 2025.

What's actually holding you back from comparing offers side by side right now: is it not having the breakdown in writing, or not knowing what to do with the numbers once you have them?