Key Points
- The average travel nurse salary is $101,132 a year ($48.62 an hour) on ZipRecruiter, and its middle 50% of earners make between $73,500 and $122,500.
- Weekly travel nurse packages average $2,052 to $2,234 on Indeed, Vivian, and Aya, and they often include tax-free stipends that don't count as salary.
- The top 10% of travel nurses earn more than $132,500 a year, close to the $137,470 threshold for the top 10% of all RNs in BLS data.
- RNs employed by staffing agencies earned a median of $90,840 in May 2025, below the $97,550 median for all RNs, and BLS wage data leaves out the meal and lodging payments that make up part of a travel package.
- Specialty and location separate high and low earners, with cardiac cath lab and labor and delivery packages averaging $2,725 and $2,523 a week on Vivian.
Average Annual Travel Nurse Pay
How much does a travel nurse make? An average of $101,132 a year, according to ZipRecruiter as of October 13, 2026. That works out to about $8,427 a month or $1,944 a week. The estimate comes from job postings, so it shifts from day to day.
BLS doesn't track travel nurses as a separate occupation, so the closest official benchmark is RNs who work for staffing agencies.
In May 2025, the 102,110 RNs employed in employment services, the BLS industry that includes temporary help and staffing agencies, earned a median of $90,840 and a mean of $95,660 a year, according to the BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (OEWS) survey.
Not every RN in that group travels, and BLS counts only straight-time wages, so its figures leave out the meal and lodging stipends that fill out many travel packages.
Travel Nurse Hourly Wage
The average travel nurse hourly wage is $48.62 on ZipRecruiter. In BLS data, RNs at staffing agencies earned a median of $43.67 an hour in May 2025, compared with $46.90 for all RNs.
Hourly rates in travel postings need a closer look, though. Aya, for example, notes that its "travel pay includes both taxable wages and tax-free expense reimbursements," so a modest hourly rate on an offer can still belong to a well-paid package.
Weekly and Monthly Travel Nurse Pay
Travel nurse jobs are usually posted by the week. Here's what three large job platforms showed in fall 2026:
- Vivian Health: $2,216 a week, based on 289,196 active jobs (updated October 13, 2026)
- Aya Healthcare: $2,234 a week, with postings from $1,112 to $4,362 (as of October 13, 2026)
- Indeed: $2,052 a week, based on 290,900 salaries from job postings over 36 months (updated September 28, 2026)
A $2,216 weekly package comes to about $9,600 a month if you work every week. ZipRecruiter's monthly average is lower, at $8,427.
Weekly figures also run higher than ZipRecruiter's annual estimate divided by 52, which is $1,944. Two things help explain the gap. Weekly packages often include tax-free stipends, and they assume you're on assignment. Weeks between contracts aren't paid, so working 46 weeks at $2,216, for example, would gross about $101,900 for the year, before taxes.
Median vs. Mean Travel Nurse Pay
The mean is the total of every salary divided by the number of workers, while the median is the middle point, where half earn more and half earn less. A small group of very high earners pulls the mean up, so the median is usually the better guide to typical pay.
BLS data shows the pattern clearly. For all RNs, the mean is $101,420 and the median is $97,550, a gap of $3,870. RNs at staffing agencies show a wider spread, with a $95,660 mean and a $90,840 median. Our registered nurse salary guide breaks down staff RN pay by state and setting.
Job sites mostly publish averages. ZipRecruiter calls its $101,132 figure an average in its text, though its pay chart labels the same number as the median, so treat it as a midpoint estimate.
Weekly averages on Vivian, Aya, and Indeed are built from posted rates, so a handful of crisis or strike postings can lift them. Aya's highest posting, $4,362 a week, is nearly double its $2,234 average.
Top 10% Travel Nurse Earners
The top 10% of travel nurses earn more than $132,500 a year, based on ZipRecruiter's 90th percentile. Spread over 52 weeks, that's about $2,548 a week, and ZipRecruiter's highest reported salary is $139,000.
For comparison, the top 10% of all RNs, staff and travel combined, earn more than $137,470 a year, according to the BLS Occupational Outlook Handbook.
Weekly peaks run far higher than those annual figures, but they last only as long as the assignment. Aya's highest posting, $4,362 a week, is one contract, not a year of pay, so it shouldn't be read as an annual salary.
Every one of these earners started with an RN license. If you're still working toward yours, Dreambound lists associate and bachelor's nursing programs you can compare before you commit.
Lowest 10% Travel Nurse Earners
Few sources publish a 10th percentile for travel nurses alone, and the ones that do rest on small samples, so the lowest earners are best measured with nearby benchmarks:
- A quarter of travel nurses earn less than $73,500 a year on ZipRecruiter, and its lowest reported salary is $40,500.
- Indeed's low end for travel nurse postings is $1,563 a week.
- The lowest-paid 10% of all RNs earn less than $68,940 a year, based on BLS data for May 2025.
Low annual pay for a travel nurse can reflect fewer weeks worked, a lower-paying specialty or region, or a package that pays most of its value as stipends instead of taxable wages.
What Separates High and Low Travel Nurse Earners
Pay differences between travel nurses come down to a handful of factors, and several of them stack.
Specialty
Specialty is one of the clearest dividing lines. Here are Vivian's weekly averages for travel nurse jobs in October 2026:
- Cardiac cath lab: $2,725
- Labor and delivery: $2,523
- NICU: $2,344
- ICU: $2,222
- Emergency department: $2,185
- Medical-surgical: $2,143
Specialty units also set their own experience bar. Vivian notes that most NICUs want a year or more of experience in pediatrics, postpartum or labor and delivery, or another intensive care area. If ICU work interests you, our look at the pros and cons of ICU nursing covers the trade-offs.
Location and Licensing
Where you take assignments changes your pay, and where you're licensed decides which assignments you can take. The Nurse Licensure Compact lets RNs with a multistate license practice in 43 jurisdictions without getting a separate license for each one.
California is the largest state outside the compact. Staff RNs there earn the highest state median in the country, $140,270 in May 2025, but California isn't a compact member, so working there requires a California RN license.
Stipends and Your Tax Home
A travel package usually has three parts: a taxable hourly wage, a housing stipend, and a meals and incidentals stipend. According to Nomad Health, stipends are tax-free up to the maximum amount set by the federal General Services Administration (GSA).
For fiscal year 2027, which began October 1, 2026, the standard GSA rate is $113 a night for lodging and $68 a day for meals and incidentals, and many cities have higher rates. Here's how a $2,216 weekly package could split at the standard rate:
- Lodging stipend: $791 (7 nights at $113)
- Meals and incidentals stipend: $476 (7 days at $68)
- Taxable wages: about $949
Those stipends are tax-free only if you have a tax home you're traveling away from. Under IRS Publication 463, your tax home is generally your regular place of business, and an assignment counts as temporary only if it's realistically expected to last a year or less. If you have neither a regular place of business nor a place where you regularly live, the IRS considers you itinerant, and your tax home is wherever you work.
Because the rules are detailed, it's worth checking your situation with a tax professional before you rely on stipends.
Crisis and Strike Assignments
Crisis and strike work can pay far more per week, but it's short and unpredictable. During the January 2026 New York City nurses' strike, about 15,000 nurses walked off the job at NewYork-Presbyterian/Columbia, Montefiore Medical Center, and Mount Sinai. One staffing firm, Continuum Health Center, offered travel nurses $9,006 a week for five 12-hour shifts, according to Bloomberg News reporting, which described that rate as on the higher end of what temporary nurses typically get.
Experience and Market Timing
Agencies set a minimum before your first contract. Aya requires at least one year of experience in your specialty, preferably in a hospital setting, and says assignments typically run about 13 weeks. Lining up your next contract quickly, or extending the one you're on, keeps your annual total up.
Timing matters, too. Demand for RNs overall is still growing, with BLS projecting 6% growth from 2025 to 2035 and about 180,800 openings a year, but travel pay has cooled from its recent highs.
BLS data shows the mean wage for RNs in employment services fell from $110,230 in May 2023 to $95,660 in May 2025. In 2025, the SIA and NATHO travel nurse survey found that hours billed by responding agencies fell 12.5%, while the average bill rate that hospitals pay agencies stayed near $90 an hour.
Travel Nurse Salary by State
Washington pays travel nurses the most, with an average of $114,542 a year ($55.07 an hour), and Florida pays the least at $75,575 ($36.33 an hour), according to ZipRecruiter's state estimates for 2026.
Weekly package data ranks states differently. On Vivian, the highest weekly averages in October 2026 were in Alaska ($2,783), Rhode Island ($2,636), Massachusetts ($2,560), California ($2,550), and South Dakota ($2,543). California shows why the sources disagree: its weekly packages rank near the top, while ZipRecruiter's annual estimate for the state, $99,808, falls just below the national average.
Source: ZipRecruiter job-posting estimates, 2026, U.S. states and DC only. South Dakota's figure matches the national average exactly, which may reflect limited state data.
