Travel Nurse Pay Calculator
See your true weekly take-home — taxable wages plus tax-free stipends — with IRS compliance checks and a staff RN comparison.
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Your true take-home breakdown
Fill in your contract details and hit Calculate →
See your true weekly take-home — taxable wages plus tax-free stipends — with IRS compliance checks and a staff RN comparison.
Your true take-home breakdown
Fill in your contract details and hit Calculate →
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Enter your hourly taxable rate, weekly hours, and weekly housing and M&IE stipends. Add your assignment state and city and the calculator looks up the 2026 GSA per diem rates for that location — giving you an instant compliance check on whether your stipends are within IRS safe-harbor limits. It then computes your true weekly take-home after federal income tax, Social Security, and Medicare.
The staff RN comparison shows you what a nurse earning an equivalent gross salary on a standard W-2 (with fully taxable compensation) would take home after taxes — making the real financial advantage of the travel nursing stipend structure visible in dollar terms.
The travel nurse pay structure isn't a tax loophole — it's a straightforward application of the IRS accountable plan rules that apply to all business travel reimbursements. When you work away from your tax home, the costs you incur (housing, meals) are genuine duplicated expenses. The IRS allows employers to reimburse these costs tax-free, the same way a company reimburses an employee for a hotel on a business trip.
The GSA publishes per diem rates for hundreds of cities and counties across the United States. These rates represent what the federal government considers a reasonable daily reimbursement for lodging and meals. For travel nurses, staying at or below these rates means your stipends are presumed reasonable by the IRS — a critical protection if your return is ever reviewed.
GSA rates vary significantly by location. Major metro areas like San Francisco, New York, and Boston have substantially higher housing rates than rural or mid-tier markets. A contract in San Francisco may legitimately offer a much higher weekly housing stipend than one in rural Ohio — and both can be fully compliant.
Within GSA
Your stipend is at or below the GSA rate for your location. Presumed reasonable — lowest audit risk.
Above GSA
Your stipend exceeds the GSA rate. Not automatically taxable, but requires stronger documentation of actual costs.
Location unknown
GSA rate not available for your specific city. Consider using the state default rate as a benchmark.
The entire tax advantage of travel nursing rests on one requirement: you must maintain a legitimate tax home. Without it, stipends are taxable income — and owe back taxes, penalties, and interest if the IRS reclassifies them. Here's what the IRS considers:
Strong evidence of a tax home
Red flags that undermine tax home status
Travel nurses typically receive two types of compensation: taxable hourly wages and tax-free stipends. Stipends cover housing and meals & incidental expenses (M&IE) — duplicated costs you incur because you're working away from your tax home. Because they reimburse a genuine expense, the IRS doesn't treat them as income, so no federal income tax, no state income tax, and no FICA taxes apply. A nurse earning $800/week in taxable wages and $1,200/week in tax-free stipends has a true take-home much closer to $2,000 than their $800 wage suggests.
Your tax home is the area where your principal place of business or employment is located — not necessarily where you live. To receive tax-free stipends legally, you must maintain a genuine tax home and be traveling away from it temporarily. The IRS looks for three factors: (1) you have duplicate living expenses because of your assignment, (2) your work is temporary (typically under 12 months), and (3) you have a business reason to maintain a home elsewhere. If you don't have a legitimate tax home, your stipends are taxable income — and the IRS has been increasingly aggressive about this distinction.
The General Services Administration (GSA) sets per diem rates for federal government employees traveling on official business. These rates — updated annually by location — are the IRS's standard for what constitutes a reasonable reimbursement. If your housing and M&IE stipends are at or below the GSA rate for your assignment location, they're presumed reasonable and tax-free. Stipends above GSA rates aren't automatically taxable, but they attract more scrutiny. The $184,500 Social Security wage base limit also affects how high-earning contracts are taxed at the FICA level.
Yes — and IRS enforcement on travel nurse tax compliance has increased. Common audit triggers include: no documented tax home (renting month-to-month with no fixed address), taking assignments in your home metro area, assignments extending past 12 months at the same facility, and stipends significantly above GSA rates. The simplest protection is documentation: keep lease agreements or mortgage statements for your tax home, keep all housing receipts at your assignment location, and use a CPA familiar with travel nurse taxation each year.
W-2 travel nurses are employed by a staffing agency that handles payroll taxes and may offer benefits. 1099 travel nurses are independent contractors responsible for self-employment tax (15.3% on top of income tax) and must pay quarterly estimated taxes. Despite the higher gross pay often offered on 1099 contracts, most travel nurses come out ahead on W-2 — especially when you factor in the employer's share of FICA, workers' comp, and malpractice insurance. If your agency offers 1099, scrutinize the numbers carefully with a tax professional.
Travel nursing gross compensation is typically 20–50% higher than comparable staff positions, but the comparison is misleading without accounting for taxes. The key advantage is the tax-free stipend structure: a staff nurse earning $75,000 pays taxes on the full $75,000, while a travel nurse earning the same amount as $30,000 in wages plus $45,000 in tax-free stipends effectively earns closer to $65,000 in after-tax purchasing power on the same gross. Our calculator does this comparison explicitly — it shows your travel take-home against an estimated equivalent staff RN salary.
On a W-2 travel contract, most job-related expenses are not deductible at the federal level after the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act eliminated the miscellaneous itemized deduction. Your agency's tax-free stipend structure already accounts for most housing and meal costs. Expenses you may still deduct: licensing fees paid out of pocket, professional liability insurance you purchase independently, professional dues, and CE course costs if not reimbursed. If you're on a 1099 contract, many more business expenses become deductible as Schedule C write-offs.
Never compare contracts by gross weekly pay alone. The real comparison is: (1) taxable hourly rate — this affects your overtime base, benefits, and 401(k) eligibility; (2) weekly stipends and whether they're GSA-compliant; (3) whether the agency pays your health insurance or deducts it; (4) guaranteed hours per week (36 or 48?); and (5) travel and licensure reimbursements. A contract advertising $2,800/week gross may take home less than one showing $2,400/week if the lower contract has a higher taxable wage and fewer benefit deductions.