How Does Travel Nursing Work? Contracts, Pay, Housing and Taxes Explained

How does travel nursing work? A hospital that’s short on nurses pays a staffing agency to fill the gap. The agency hires an experienced RN for a fixed contract, often 13 weeks, and the nurse travels to that hospital, works the contract, and then extends, moves to a new assignment or takes time off. You’re usually the agency’s employee, not the hospital’s, and your pay is split into a taxable wage and tax-free stipends.

That’s the short version. Below is how each piece works, from getting hired to getting paid, with links to the tools that help you check an offer.

The Three Parties: You, the Agency and the Hospital

Travel nursing runs on a three-way arrangement:

• The hospital has a staffing gap: a seasonal surge, a staff nurse on leave, a new unit opening. It sends the job to the agencies it works with and pays them a bill rate for each hour you work.
• The agency recruits and screens nurses, submits them to the hospital, and employs whoever is hired. It pays your wages and stipends, withholds your taxes, offers benefits, and keeps the rest of the bill rate as its margin.
• You sign a contract with the agency for a specific job: hospital, unit, shift, start date, length and pay.

Because the agency is your employer, questions about pay, insurance or problems on assignment go to your recruiter. The unit’s charge nurse and manager direct your daily work. Our bill rate breakdown shows where the hospital’s money goes.

Getting Hired: From Profile to Start Date

The usual path looks like this:

1. Build a profile with one or more agencies: license, work history, certifications, references and skills checklists.
2. Pick jobs to submit to. Your recruiter sends your profile to the hospital for each job you want.
3. Interview with the unit manager, usually by phone or video and often short.
4. Get an offer and review the contract: pay breakdown, guaranteed hours, shift, cancellation terms, time off you’ve requested.
5. Clear onboarding: background check, drug screen, health records, any state license you still need.
6. Start the assignment, usually after a day or two of hospital orientation.

Most hospitals expect one to two years of recent experience in your specialty, because travelers get very little orientation. See how to become a travel nurse for the full requirements and travel nurse interview questions to prepare.

How Travel Nurse Pay Works

A travel pay package has two parts:

• A taxable hourly wage for your guaranteed hours. Income tax, Social Security and Medicare come out of this part.
• Tax-free stipends for housing and for meals and incidentals, if you keep a valid tax home and are working away from it.

Stipends are capped by the federal per diem rates the GSA publishes for each area. For fiscal year 2027 (October 1, 2026 to September 30, 2027), the national standard rate is $113 a night for lodging and $68 a day for meals and incidentals, a weekly ceiling of $1,267. Higher-cost areas have higher rates; look any city up on our per diem rate pages.

Agencies keep the taxable wage fairly low and put as much as they legally can into stipends, because stipends aren’t taxed. That’s why a travel offer can look like a low hourly rate but a high weekly total. Our travel nurse pay package breakdown walks through a real-style offer line by line, and the take-home pay calculator shows what you’d keep.

Housing: Agency Housing or Your Own Place

You have two choices on most contracts:

• Agency housing. The agency finds and pays for a furnished place, and keeps the housing stipend.
• The housing stipend. The agency pays you the stipend, and you find your own furnished rental, extended-stay hotel or room.

Taking the stipend usually pays more if you can find safe housing for less than the stipend, because you keep the difference. Agency housing is simpler on short notice. See housing stipend vs. agency housing for the math, and Furnished Finder alternatives for where to look.

Licensing: Compact States and Endorsement

You need a license that’s valid in the state where you’ll work. If your primary home is in one of the 40 states that have implemented the Nurse Licensure Compact, your license is multistate and covers the other compact states. For non-compact states, such as California and New York, you apply for a license by endorsement before you start. Check yours with the compact license lookup, and see the full compact nursing license states list.

Taxes: Why Your Tax Home Matters

Tax-free stipends depend on keeping a tax home: a main home you keep paying for and return to between contracts. If you don’t have one, the IRS treats you as itinerant and your stipends become taxable wages. See travel nurse with no tax home for what that costs.

You’ll often file more than one state return, too: one in the state you worked in and one in your home state. Most states with an income tax give a credit for tax paid to another state, so the same income usually isn’t fully taxed twice.

When the Contract Ends

Near the end of a contract you’ll usually have three options:

• Extend at the same hospital, often for another 8 to 13 weeks. See should you ask for a raise when you extend.
• Move to a new assignment somewhere else.
• Take time off. There’s no paid time off between contracts, and benefits may lapse, so plan for health insurance between contracts.

Contracts can also end early. Hospitals can cancel, usually with notice, so read the cancellation terms before you sign.

Frequently Asked Questions

How does travel nursing work?

A hospital that needs short-term help pays a staffing agency, and the agency hires an experienced nurse for a fixed contract, often 13 weeks. The nurse is usually the agency’s W-2 employee, is paid a taxable hourly wage plus tax-free housing and meal stipends if they keep a tax home, and moves on or extends when the contract ends.

Do travel nurses work for the hospital or the agency?

Usually the agency. The agency employs you, pays you and provides benefits; the hospital directs your daily work and pays the agency a bill rate that covers your pay and the agency’s costs and margin.

How long is a travel nursing contract?

Thirteen weeks is the most common length, but contracts from 4 to 26 weeks exist. Many travelers extend at the same hospital if both sides agree.

Do travel nurses have to find their own housing?

Not necessarily. You can take the agency’s housing, or take a housing stipend and find your own place. Taking the stipend usually pays more if you can find housing for less than the stipend.

How do travel nurses get paid?

Weekly, in most cases. The package is a taxable hourly wage for your guaranteed hours plus tax-free housing and meal stipends. The stipends are tax-free only if you keep a valid tax home and stay within the GSA per diem rate for the area.

How much experience do you need to be a travel nurse?

Most hospitals and agencies ask for one to two years of recent experience in the specialty you’ll travel in, plus an active RN license for the state and the certifications the unit requires.