Agencies quote a single "blended rate" that mixes taxable wages with a tax-free stipend. This breaks the two apart and shows what you actually take home from one offer, including what a lost tax home would cost you.
Tax figures current as of July 2026A tax home is a permanent residence you maintain, pay for, and return to between assignments. Not sure? "No" is the safer assumption until confirmed with a tax pro. See what actually counts →
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A residence you pay to maintain (rent or mortgage), keep genuine ties to (utilities, state registration), and actually return to between assignments. A relative's address you don't pay toward, or a home you've stopped returning to, doesn't qualify, even if it's listed on your license.
Under IRS rules, an assignment loses its "temporary" status if you work in the same metropolitan area for more than 12 months within a 24-month window. Once that happens, your tax home shifts to the assignment site and all future stipends become taxable income.
Agencies deliberately keep the taxable portion low and the stipend high, since stipends are tax-free (with a valid tax home) for both you and the agency's payroll tax exposure. It's standard industry structure, not a red flag on its own, as long as the split is reasonable relative to GSA rates.
No. Travel nurses often owe tax in both their work state and their tax home state, with rules that vary by state pair. This tool is federal-only; treat the number here as a starting point, not the final word on your total tax bill.
No. The IRS does not have an official "50-mile rule." To receive tax-free housing stipends legally, you must incur duplicated living expenses: paying to maintain your primary tax home while also paying for temporary lodging at your assignment site.
Multiply your taxable hourly wage by your hours worked, then add your weekly housing and M&IE stipends. The tricky part is taxes: stipends only stay tax-free if you have a valid tax home, otherwise the whole package gets taxed as ordinary income. That's exactly what the calculator above does automatically, worked through in full detail under "How Travel Nurse Pay Packages Actually Work" below.
Averages vary by source and year, but recent data puts blended travel nurse pay somewhere between $49 and $60 per hour, compared to a roughly $45/hr median for staff RNs. That's a blended figure combining taxable wages and stipends, though, not just the taxable rate on a contract, and it says nothing about any specific offer. Plug your own numbers into the calculator above for a real answer instead of an industry average.
If you're transitioning from a staff nursing position to travel nursing, your first pay package can be incredibly confusing. Unlike staff positions that pay a single flat hourly wage, travel nurse compensation splits into two distinct parts: taxable hourly wages and tax-free stipends.
Our travel nurse pay calculator is built to break down that split so you can see your true take-home pay, not just the headline blended rate agencies advertise.
To make travel packages easier to compare, nurses and recruiters talk about a blended hourly rate: your taxable wage combined with your tax-free stipends, expressed as one hourly number.
Blended hourly rate = (Total weekly taxable pay + total weekly stipends) ÷ weekly contract hours
A blended rate of $65/hour sounds very lucrative, but remember it's a gross figure. It doesn't account for the income tax taken out of your base rate, and it says nothing about the duplicate living expenses you have to cover to legally qualify for tax-free stipends in the first place.
To legally receive tax-free stipends, the IRS requires you to maintain a permanent tax home. Under IRS Publication 463, a tax home is generally the main area where you regularly live and work. As a traveler, you need to show you're duplicating your living expenses by funding two households at once:
The "itinerant worker" risk: if you don't maintain a legitimate tax home, for example by renting out your home base entirely or traveling full-time in an RV without duplicating expenses, the IRS can classify you as an itinerant worker. Your tax home then becomes wherever you're currently working, and your stipends become fully taxable. That shift in FICA and federal income tax can easily cost $5,000 to $15,000 or more a year, which is exactly what this travel nurse tax calculator models when you toggle your tax home status above.