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Traveling nurses can make $200K a year—here’s how the field changed during the pandemic

Apr 07 2023

Even as COVID-19 hospitalization rates have stabilized, hospitals nationwide face an ongoing staffing shortage. The mass retirement of baby boomers and widespread post-pandemic burnout among health care workers have left many workforces unequipped for the volume of patients they receive. The Department of Health and Human Services has projected this shortage will persist through 2030 .

To compensate for the shortage, many facilities have ramped up their use of travel nurses—a field the pandemic pushed into the spotlight. Travel nurses worked more than 23% of all total nurse labor hours in 2022 compared to 4% in 2019. Hospitals and health care facilities bear the brunt of these expenses. In 2022, hospitals nationwide spent nearly 40% of nurse labor expenses on travel nurses, a significant increase from 5% in 2019. This is partially due to the rise in hourly rates charged by travel nurse agencies. Over the past three years, the average rate charged to hospitals for a travel nurse has increased by 213%.

Increased earnings were not the only pandemic-related change in the traveling nurse profession. Incredible Health compiled a list of statistics about how the field of travel nursing changed during the pandemic using various news and government sources. Read on to learn about the other ways the pandemic impacted this lucrative career.

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On average, travel nurses earn $3,167 weekly

Travel nurses typically earn an hourly rate through travel nursing agencies rather than a salary. On average, they work 36 hours per week and 46 weeks per year. While travel nurses earn an average of $3,167 per week , according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, earnings range between $3,000 and $7,000. This is because work assignments vary considerably in scope and location. Of note, travel nurses can incur additional personal expenses from the nature of travel-based work, such as gas and other transportation-related costs. While travel nurses have higher average earnings than nurses employed at health care facilities, the higher pay rate is intended to compensate for such expenses.

Average annual pay for registered nurses rose by nearly 7% from 2019 to 2021

The COVID-19 pandemic drew attention to a nationwide nursing shortage. Still, the demand for nurses has been growing steadily over the past 10 years owing to the retirement of the baby boomer generation and expanded health coverage nationwide. Despite this, nurse turnover rates have increased from 18% in 2019 to 22% in 2021. To remain competitive in the hiring and retention of employees, hospitals are increasing wages. In 2021, the average annual pay for registered nurses was $82,750—a 7% increase over the 2019 average of $77,460. The nursing shortage and subsequent increases in annual pay are expected to persist for at least the rest of the decade .

Between April 2021 and September 2021, demand for travel nurses more than quadrupled

Since the pandemic began, the demand for travel nurses has become closely linked to COVID-19 hospitalization rates. The need for travel nurses peaked between April 2021 and September 2021—the same time period that also saw the highest number of hospitalizations from the delta variant, according to data from Aya Healthcare. However, the demand has since trended downward. Due to stabilized COVID-19 hospitalization rates and depletion of related government funding, travel nursing contracts are becoming less abundant than they were during the pandemic. Still, the profession is projected to continue growing. While travel nurses currently comprise just 1% of the nursing profession, this is expected to grow to 23.4% by 2028 .

Travel nurse pay not only includes a salary, but often additional bonuses and stipends

Because the nature of travel nursing often results in increased costs in living accommodations, agencies often include stipends in contracts. These are intended to reimburse for hotel, travel, and meal costs. Alternatively, some travel nurse companies provide their own housing or simply offer increased wages to compensate for living expenses. The amount of a stipend varies by agency, but the General Service Administration determines the maximum stipend allowable based on the local cost of living . Travel nurses also frequently receive crisis pay—additional pay for workers required to work extra hours or in hazardous conditions.

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Some travel nurse jobs do not offer health care and retirement benefits due to the short time period of contracts

Though travel nurses typically enjoy higher pay, there are some notable financial drawbacks to the nature of the gig. Assignments, on average, last 13 weeks , although this can vary considerably depending on facility need. Because travel nurses are usually paid as contractors, they often forgo employer benefits including health care insurance, paid time off, short-term disability coverage, and retirement. Insurance and retirement benefits are still available to subscribers at their own cost, independent of their employers, though. Additionally, travel nurses enjoy holiday and overtime pay rates at 1.5 times their taxable hourly wage.

The Pitfalls and Price of Being a Travel Nurse

There are more downsides to being a travel nurse than having to pay for gas or sacrificing health benefits. Interviews with well-seasoned travelers yield a litany of eye-opening details and downsides, including:

• Landing in a city or town where you know absolutely nobody, have no idea where to find the nearest market or mall, all with just two days notice
• Having to identify the hotel with the amenities you want at the lowest price, which may involve jumping from one location to another until you find the best option. A common complaint is the difficulty in finding a hotel that provides kitchen facilities: with no way to cook, nurses are forced to purchase expensive take-out meals
• Missing out on family celebrations, including holidays, kids’ sporting events and concerts, special birthdays and anniversaries, and parent-teacher meetings.
• Losing the opportunity to gain tenure leading to a leadership position at a single facility 
• Losing the collegiality and familial sense that comes with working at the same facility for years

In addition to what they give up, given the chance to vent, travel nurses note that upon their arrival they are assigned to the worst patients and schedules, and treated with disdain, disapproval, and disrespect by existing staff. They need to quickly get up to speed on the hospital’s particular processes while working hard to offset the resentment and lack of respect for their skills that staff nurses often display. Many report having their skills, experience, or education questioned, and though they are quickly able to prove themselves, the first several days can be very difficult. Rather than being embraced for the relief that they provide, they are commonly given a cold shoulder, especially by staff who are well aware that they are being paid significantly higher hourly wages than they are receiving. 

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I went from making $62,000 as an ICU nurse to $220,000 as a travel nurse. I loved my schedule, but being flexible is a must.

• Anna Reese started her career at John Hopkins and became a travel nurse after the COVID-19 pandemic.
• She says the hours can be long, but one of the many perks is that she has control of her schedule.
• Since becoming a travel nurse, her salary nearly tripled and she's been able to help more people.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Anna Reese, a 26-year-old travel nurse based in San Diego, California, about her job as a travel nurse. It has been edited for length and clarity.

I've wanted to be a nurse since I was young. My grandfather got a heart transplant when I was 13 and his nurses were inspirational — they were incredibly kind and made such an impact on his care, it made me want to do the same. 

After high school, I moved from North Carolina to attend the University of Colorado-Denver and got my BS in nursing. My first job after graduating in 2019 was at Johns Hopkins in its cardiovascular surgical ICU in Baltimore, Maryland.

It was a dream come true, and I was fortunate to receive the training to care for some of the sickest patients in the country.

I never planned on becoming a travel nurse until COVID-19

After working at Johns Hopkins for a year, conditions became difficult during the first wave of the pandemic. We were working with patients in very critical condition and with limited resources.

At that time, I noticed that in Los Angeles travel nurses were making $5,000 a week. It was an easy decision to sign on for the same job for better compensation, so I made the leap to travel nursing in September 2020. 

Before that, I made $62,000 a year as a staff nurse

I started at $4,100 a week as a travel nurse in Pomona, California, using staffing agencies like Aya Healthcare and job boards Vivian Health. I mainly use Aya Healthcare, and they take a portion of my pay while providing me with health insurance and benefits.

In 2021, I made $220,000 — more than triple my salary as a staff nurse. To hit that financial benchmark, I worked a lot of overtime. A full-time nurse usually works three 12-hour shifts per week. In California, overtime is anything after eight hours each day, and nurses get paid double time after 12 hours. I prefer to work 36 to 48-hour weeks, with the option to pick up overtime.

One of the major perks of being a travel nurse is having control of your schedule

Related stories

I've moved directly from contract to contract to pay off debt and save, but many travel nurses work a 13-week contract and take a month or two off before signing the next because the pay is so good. 

You need at least one to two years of experience as a nurse before you can start working as a travel nurse. After that, it's possible to apply and start immediately, because there's such an increased need for ER and ICU nurses. 

As an ICU nurse, I'm tasked to care for the most critical patients

I clock in at 7 a.m. and end my day anywhere from 7 p.m. to 11 p.m. My job is to identify the less critical patients, stabilize them, and transfer them out of the ICU when they're ready.

From 11 a.m. to 3 p.m., I admit new critical patients — for example, a heart-attack patient or a COVID-19 patient who's in respiratory failure and needs to be put on a ventilator. It usually takes hours to stabilize them, and all the while, I'm monitoring their vital signs, drawing blood for labs, putting them on the ventilator, monitoring their medications, and more. It's always a hectic day. 

On my days off, I've been posting on TikTok about my experiences as a travel nurse and sharing education on nursing and critical care. I started in September 2020, and it's been exciting creating an online community and meeting like-minded souls. It's brought me a lot of happiness, especially with the stress of COVID-19.

@reesesrn Reply to @justinebo2 #ad #travelnurse #ayahealthcare #travel #icunurse #ernurse ♬ Thot Shit - Megan Thee Stallion

Being flexible is a must, as contracts can be canceled or pushed back, even if you already flew across the country

One of the downsides of being a travel nurse is having to still pay your rent or mortgage back home, so you've got to be good with your finances. 

Also, it's not always easy to jump into hospitals struggling for staff and dealing with other issues. There was one assignment where I was the only travel nurse and felt unwelcome and isolated.

Sometimes staff nurses can feel jealous and frustrated that we're getting paid more. The best solution was to put my head down and clock high-quality work. Also, I always ask the recruiter how many other travelers will be on assignment with me — I prefer not to be the only one. 

I'm passionate about my work, but I'm terrified of running out of the resources necessary for our patients during COVID-19

I can't even count the number of times different hospitals ran out of basic supplies and resources for weeks at a time. I've been on hold with coroners for hours because so many people were dying. We need structural change to our healthcare system in this country. I hope that we have better working conditions in the future.

Otherwise, nursing is an incredible job that allows me to make a massive difference in the lives of countless people. There's so much that nurses can do to serve others with just their two hands. Correction: An earlier version of this story incorrectly stated that Reese's first travel nurse job was earning $5,000 a week in Los Angeles; it was $4,100 a week in Pomona, CA. The story also misstated Reese's overtime calculations and the amount of commission taken by one of her agencies, Aya Healthcare.

Have a story to tell? Email [email protected].

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Travel nurses' gold rush is over. Now, some are joining other nurses in leaving the profession altogether.

Working as a travel nurse in the early days of the Covid pandemic was emotionally exhausting for Reese Brown — she was forced to leave her young daughter with her family as she moved from one gig to the next, and she watched too many of her intensive care patients die.

“It was a lot of loneliness,” Brown, 30, said. “I’m a single mom, I just wanted to have my daughter, her hugs, and see her face and not just through FaceTime.”

But the money was too good to say no. In July 2020, she had started earning $5,000 or more a week, almost triple her pre-pandemic pay. That was the year the money was so enticing that thousands of hospital staffers quit their jobs and hit the road as travel nurses as the pandemic raged. 

Two years later, the gold rush is over. Brown is home in Louisiana with her daughter and turning down work. The highest paid travel gigs she’s offered are $2,200 weekly, a rate that would have thrilled her pre-pandemic. But after two "traumatic" years of tending to Covid patients, she said, it doesn’t feel worth it.

“I think it’s disgusting because we went from being praised to literally, two years later, our rates dropped,” she said. “People are still sick, and people are still dying.”

The drop in pay doesn’t mean, however, that travel nurses are going to head back to staff jobs. The short-lived travel nurse boom was a temporary fix for a long-term decline in the profession that predates the pandemic. According to a report from McKinsey & Co., the United States may see a shortage of up to 450,000 registered nurses within three years barring aggressive action by health care providers and the government to recruit new people. Nurses are quitting, and hospitals are struggling to field enough staff to cover shifts. 

Nine nurses around the country, including Brown, told NBC News they are considering alternate career paths, studying for advanced degrees or exiting the profession altogether. 

“We’re burned out, tired nurses working for $2,200 a week,” Brown said. People are leaving the field, she said, “because there’s no point in staying in nursing if we’re expendable.”

$124.96 an hour

Travel nursing seems to have started as a profession, industry experts say, in the late 1970s in New Orleans, where hospitals needed to add temporary staff to care for sick tourists during Mardi Gras. In the 1980s and the 1990s, travel nurses were often covering for staff nurses who were on maternity leave, meaning that 13-week contracts become common. 

By 2000, over a hundred agencies provided travel contracts, a number that quadrupled by the end of the decade. It had become a lucrative business for the agencies, given the generous commissions that hospitals pay them.  A fee of 40 percent  on top of the nurse’s contracted salary is not unheard of, according to a spokesperson for the  American Health Care Association , which represents long-term care providers. 

Just before the pandemic, in January 2020, there were about 50,000 travel nurses in the U.S., or about 1.5 percent of the nation's registered nurses, according to Timothy Landhuis, vice president of research at Staffing Industry Analysts, an industry research firm. That pool doubled in size to at least 100,000 as Covid spread, and he says the actual number at the peak of the pandemic may have far exceeded that estimate.

By 2021, travel nurses were earning an average of $124.96 an hour, according to the research firm — three times the hourly rate of staff nurses, according to federal statistics. 

That year, according to the 2022 National Health Care Retention & RN Staffing Report from Nursing Solutions Inc., a nurse recruiting firm, the travel pay available to registered nurses contributed to 2.47% of them leaving hospital staff jobs.

But then, as the rate of deaths and hospitalizations from Covid waned, the demand for travel nurses fell hard, according to industry statistics, as did the pay.

Demand dropped 42 percent from January to July this year, according to Aya Healthcare, one of the largest staffing firms in the country. 

That doesn’t mean the travel nurses are going back to staff jobs.

Brown said she’s now thinking about leaving the nursing field altogether and has started her own business. Natalie Smith of Michigan, who became a travel nurse during the pandemic, says she intends to pursue an advanced degree in nursing but possibly outside of bedside nursing.

Pamela Esmond of northern Illinois, who also became a travel nurse during the pandemic, said she’ll keep working as a travel nurse, but only because she needs the money to retire by 65. She’s now 59. 

“The reality is they don’t pay staff nurses enough, and if they would pay staff nurses enough, we wouldn’t have this problem,” she said. “I would love to go back to staff nursing, but on my staff job, I would never be able to retire.” 

The coronavirus exacerbated issues that were already driving health care workers out of their professions, Landhuis said. “A nursing shortage was on the horizon before the pandemic,” he said.

According to this year’s Nursing Solutions staffing report, nurses are exiting the bedside at “an alarming rate” because of rising patient ratios, and their own fatigue and burnout. The average hospital has turned over 100.5% of its workforce in the past five years, according to the report, and the annual turnover rate has now hit 25.9%, exceeding every previous survey. 

There are now more than 203,000 open registered nurse positions nationwide, more than twice the number just before the pandemic in January 2020, according to Aya Healthcare.

An obvious short-term solution would be to keep using travel nurses. Even with salaries falling, however, the cost of hiring them is punishing.

LaNelle Weems, executive director of Mississippi Hospital Association’s Center for Quality and Workforce, said hospitals can’t keep spending like they did during the peak of the pandemic.

“Hospitals cannot sustain paying these exorbitant labor costs,” Weems said. “One nuance that I want to make sure you understand is that  what a travel agency charges the hospitals  is not what is paid to the nurse.”

Ultimately, it’s the patients who will suffer from the shortage of nurses, whether they are staff or gig workers. 

“Each patient added to a hospital nurse’s workload is associated with a 7%-12% increase in hospital mortality,” said Linda Aiken, founding director of the University of Pennsylvania’s Center for Health Outcomes and Policy Research.

Nurses across the country told NBC News that they chose the profession because they cared about patient safety and wanted to be at the bedside in the first line of care. 

“People say it’s burnout but it’s not,” Esmond said about why nurses are quitting. “It’s the moral injury of watching patients not being taken care of on a day-to-day basis. You just can’t take it anymore.”

Jean Lee is an associate reporter with NBC News’ Social Newsgathering team in Los Angeles. She previously reported for the NBC News consumer investigative unit.

How Much Do Travel Nurses Make In A Year? | Salary 2023

Travel nursing has been all the rage for the last few years. Travel nursing positions come with plenty of perks, such as high travel nurse salaries, incentives like sign-on bonuses, and the opportunity to work in glamorous places like Hawaii and Florida.

But, do travel nurses really make more money? The answer is yes…usually. However, the exact amount of money you can make as a travel nurse really depends on a variety of different factors.

Below is a breakdown of a travel nurse’s salary and why travel nurses tend to get paid more than nurses in traditional roles.

Find available, high-paying travel nurse opportunities.

Do Travel Nurses Make More Money?

In general, travel nurses have the opportunity to make more money than staff nurses for two main reasons:

1. High need = higher pay

Travel nurse staffing agencies work specifically with hospitals, clinics, and other healthcare facilities that have a high demand for nurses, which means they are willing to pay more to reach adequate staffing levels or to cover a known leave of absence.

2. Additional monetary incentives.

Unlike regular staff nurses, travel nurses are paid a “total pay package” that includes an hourly base wage pay plus additional monetary incentives, like the following:

• Sign-on or referral bonuses
• Travel reimbursements
• Stipends for housing
• Food, mileage, or job-related expenses

Because these extra stipends are classified as reimbursements and not income, they’re non-taxable, so a travel nurse can bring home a higher total pay when compared to a staff nurse, who pays taxes on all of the income they bring home.

How Much Do Travel Nurses Make?

The average salary for travel nurses in 2023 was $126,384, according to Indeed.com . That is significantly higher than the average salary for staff nurses of $93,042 per year, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS).

The exact salary you can expect to make as a travel nurse will vary widely based on where you choose to work, the type of nursing position it is, and the length of the contract.

For example, you may make more in a month as a travel nurse compared to a staff nurse, but if you only work one- or two-month-long assignments, your annual pay will be lower. However, if you take several assignments in a 12-month period, then you could make significantly more in one year than you could as a staff nurse.

Your total travel nursing pay package will look different than that of a staff nurse because it’s made up of your “base wage” pay — the hourly rate you earn for your nursing duties — and additional stipends, which are classified as non-taxable reimbursements and not considered income. As an example, a standard total travel nurse pay package could look something like this:

*Assumes $20 per hour at 40 hours per week, minus taxes

You should consult your own certified financial planner if you have concerns before you start travel nursing. It may help you evaluate if a travel nurse pay package is right for you based on your overall financial goals.

Find travel nursing assignments by speaking with a recruiter today!

Do Travel Nurses Get Benefits?

Some travel nurse staffing agencies also offer travel nurses additional benefits, such as retirement options and health, dental, vision, and life insurance. Keep in mind, retirement options that include a 401(k) may not be the most effective option if your taxable income is already low. It may make more sense to invest in a Roth IRA or other retirement account. But again, consult with your tax professional before making any major decisions.

Most travel nursing companies also require that you work a certain number of months before the 401(k) becomes available for travelers.

Why? One of the main benefits of a 401(k) is that it allows you to contribute your income before it’s taxed, but a large portion of most travel nurses’ total pay packages is non-taxable. Contributing to a 401(k) can decrease a travel nurse’s overall taxable income considerably and may lead to issues down the road — if they need to qualify for a home loan, for example.

Highest Paying Locations for Registered Nurses

Where you choose to work as a travel nurse also plays a large role in how much you will make. Certain cities and states offer higher pay because they have such a high demand for nurses, while other areas pay more based on the time of year.

For example, if you’re willing to travel to Alaska in the winter, you have the opportunity to make more money than if you worked in Hawaii in the winter months. Travel nurses who are willing to relocate to “less popular” areas throughout the year stand to increase the amount of overall pay they can make over the course of the entire year.

You could also seek out assignments in the highest-paying states and cities for travel nurses . For example, based on data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics , the top 10 highest-paying cities for RNs (not specifically travel nurses) currently are:

Source: ZipRecruiter

The Top Highest Paying States for RNs in 2023 – based on all specialties

• District of Columbia

Source: BLS

Keep in mind that the Bureau of Labor Statistics data lists average salaries for RNs, so the potential for travel nurses specifically in those areas is even higher. However, you also have to consider the cost of living in those areas and if the stipends you’ll receive for housing, food, and other expenses will adequately cover those costs.

Read more: Best Cities for Travel Nurses

A Note on Nursing Specialties

Working a travel nursing assignment in a high-paying state or city is one way to increase your take-home salary. However, you can also increase your pay as a travel nurse by working in an in-demand specialty.

The average travel nurse’s salary does vary based on specialty. For example, travel nurses who work in the following in-demand specialties have the opportunity to make more pay (or negotiate for higher pay). Did you hear that? You can negotiate!

Some of those specialties include:

• Critical Care
• Labor and delivery
• Orthopedics

If you have experience in an in-demand area, you should highlight that on your travel nursing application, as well as bring it to the attention of the travel nurse recruiter to maximize your pay.

Additionally, you may be able to make even more money if you seek out specialty certification in your area on your own prior to signing with a travel nursing agency.

Having a nurse who is “ready to go” in a specialty area may be more lucrative to a staffing agency than a nurse who is simply willing to be trained, but not yet certified.

Travel Nursing Salary: Beyond a Paycheck

Travel nursing can be a profitable way to boost your savings and overall take-home pay. But the benefits don’t stop with just your paycheck. Travel nursing has so many other perks:

• Expand your resume
• Gain valuable hands-on nursing experience
• Learn skills on the job
• Increase your confidence
• Find hospitals or coworkers you may want to work with as a staff nurse in the future
• And ultimately, advance your career

As a travel nurse, you’ll have the opportunity to work in fields you may not have access to close to home or receive additional training to further your nursing skills as well. Also, because travel nursing is flexible and can accommodate both short and long-term positions, many nurses can try temporary nursing assignments whether they’re single, partnered, married, child-free, or have a family.

And, of course, travel nursing is a great way to experience other parts of the country to live in, see, and explore.

RNs can earn up to $2,300 per week as travel nurses. Speak to a recruiter today!

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Health Care

Nurses can earn much more as traveling nurses. but the job comes at another cost.

Blake Farmer

A nurse who left her hospital job for much higher wages as a traveling nurse found the lifestyle hard on her family. But permanent jobs but those don't pay much better than they did pre-pandemic.

ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:

The pandemic has proven just how valuable highly trained nurses are. Hospitals across the country are now paying several times their normal wages to traveling nurses helping in COVID hotspots. But big wage increases are not the norm for nurses who stay in their permanent jobs. Blake Farmer of member station WPLN in Nashville has the story of one traveler finding it hard to return to the old status quo.

BLAKE FARMER, BYLINE: Nursing has been a second career and a calling for Sara Dean of Nashville. She loved the hospital where she worked when the pandemic hit, but then she saw how much nurses were getting paid to travel - as much as $10,000 a week.

SARA DEAN: That's a life-changing number. That's a number that helps you pay off debt, move out of your grandma's basement or whatever you want in that case. I'm not saying we were struggling. We were a two-income household, but we made ends meet.

FARMER: So she took a leave of absence and signed her first three-month contract in New Mexico. Her boyfriend worked remotely. Her daughter was in virtual school. The money got better and better. At one point in rural Alabama, Dean's overtime rate was more than $200 an hour, and she was working 60 hours a week saving the lives of COVID patients. But after nearly two years, it was really cheerleading that brought them home.

DEAN: Harper, let's go.

FARMER: Dean yells up the stairs to her 12-year-old while blending a protein shake. They're on their way out the door to tumbling practice.

HARPER: I didn't really have that many friends. I just - I miss it so much, being able to be surrounded by different people all the time.

FARMER: Seventh-grade Harper is the ultimate boss, Dean says.

DEAN: And she's the one that says, no more traveling. I don't want to travel anymore. I want to go home. But that also puts me in a bind.

FARMER: Many hospitals won't hire local travelers, even though they're hurting for nurses. They want RNs to accept full-time positions, and the hourly rates aren't even close to the $120 an hour or more that travelers make.

DEAN: This makes me sound like I'm in it for the money, but essentially, I'm in it for what's best for my family.

FARMER: She's the primary breadwinner, and she's applying at hospitals that are still employing hundreds of travelers. So Dean is holding out for an acceptable offer. Parth Bhakta is the CEO of Vivian Health, which posts travel nursing jobs. The company is also helping some hospitals find a way to get out of relying so much on temporary staff, especially since staffing agencies tack on 50% or more.

PARTH BHAKTA: You're caught kind of between a rock and a hard place here in terms of, you know, what do you do in this situation? I think ultimately, health systems need to figure out how to retain their workers more and ultimately probably have to pay and incentivize their existing staff more.

FARMER: There are signing bonuses these days. Some hospitals are even trying out temporary positions that are almost like taking a travel contract. But they're still spending heavily on travelers, even as they ask regulators to investigate price gouging. The average pay bump last year for full-time nurses was only marginally more than usual, which is why pandemic travelers face such a difficult transition.

DEAN: Come on, kiddo.

FARMER: Sara Dean offers some encouragement as her preteen perfects her back handspring. She's taking advantage of her time at home. Meanwhile, she's trying out something entirely different - working part time at a spa near her house that offers rejuvenating IVs.

DEAN: I have done nothing but death and dying for two years. It is refreshing to do preventative health.

FARMER: Beyond how to pull back their nurses from traveling, hospitals are facing burnout like they've never seen. An estimated half million nurses are expected to leave the bedside entirely this year. For NPR News, I'm Blake Farmer in Nashville.

SHAPIRO: And that story was produced in partnership with Kaiser Health News and National Public Radio.

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How to Make the Most Money as a Travel Nurse

What is a travel nurse.

• How to Become
• Travel Nurse Salary
• Salary by State
• Travel Nurse vs Staff Nurse Salary
• Salary Factors
• Making the Most Money
• Highest Paying Assignments

A  travel nurse is a registered nurse (RN) who works in short-term roles at hospitals, clinics, and other healthcare facilities worldwide. Daily  travel nurse duties are often similar to traditional RN roles, but their flexibility allows them to fill gaps in areas with nursing shortages. As a result, the average travel nurse's salary can be quite high!

>> Click here to see available high-paying travel nurse opportunities!

During the COVID-19 pandemic, travel nurses were seeing some of the highest pay packages ever because of the overwhelming need for nurses, especially in hot spots like New York, Florida, and California. While pay packages might not be as high as they were a few years ago, there is still significant money to be made for those interested in pursuing travel nursing.

But, there are still a number of factors you need to consider when it comes to your travel nurse salary. Here's what you need to know to navigate pay as a travel nurse.

How to Become a Travel Nurse 

Travel nurses do need a few requirements before being considered, including being a registered nurse with a license in good standing, and typically 2 years of nursing experience. They don't need any additional certifications or credentials other than the ones they need for their specific specialty. 

While a BSN is not required to become a travel nurse, it will open more opportunities to nurses such as Magnet hospitals and Level 1 trauma centers. Without a BSN, your options might be more limited. 

How Much Money Do Travel Nurses Make? 

Under normal circumstances, many travel nurses have the potential to earn over $3,000 per week. Travel nurses can bring in over  $50 per hour, plus company-paid housing accommodations. Making it entirely possible for travel nurses to make well over $100K per year.

Travel Nurse Salary by State

Source:  Ziprecruiter

>> Show Me Online Nursing Programs  

How Does Travel Nurse Pay Differ From Staff Nurse Pay? 

Staff nurses  in a hospital are usually paid a set salary based on education and experience. They typically receive incremental pay increases at various time frames. Staff nurses can also see pay increases with overall cost of living increases.

Travel nurse pay is totally different and can be a bit of a gray area. Typical pay packages are composed of various components, including hourly pay, non-taxed travel nurse housing stipends, non-taxed per diems, travel reimbursements, and more. It’s important to speak to your recruiter about specific pay package breakdowns. 

>> Related: Top 10 Six-Figure Nursing Jobs

What Factors Impact Your Pay as a Travel Nurse?

There are a number of factors that can influence how much you can expect to make as a travel nurse. These include:

Location -  The specific location of the assignment most heavily influences travel nurse pay. Simply put, pay rates often reflect the cost of living in the area and also regional trends.

Which states pay the most for travel nurses?  Historically speaking, the highest-paying states for travel nurses include California, Texas, Massachusetts, Washington, and New York.

Southern states  tend to have lower living costs and, in turn, lower travel nurse pay.

Areas that are considered “destination locations”  (like, Hawaii and Florida) may pay lower. Though, with rapid-response assignments, this isn’t always the case.

Specialty -  The travel nurse’s specialty also impacts pay. Non-specialty nurses, such as the medical/surgical and psychiatric specialties, are typically paid a lower rate than specialized nurses. Furthermore, specialized nurses with highly sought-after skills  and credentials have the ability to earn more lucrative pay with seemingly endless opportunities. 

• Shift -  If you haven’t noticed, night shift assignments are more prevalent in the world of travel nursing. The good news is that many hospitals offer higher rates for their night shift assignments. If you want to make the most money, flexibility is key. A word of caution, if the night shift is not your thing, no amount of money is worth your safety, happiness, or license. If you provide better patient care during the day shift, stick to that. Your patients will thank you. 
• Practice level/Education - Travel RNs make more money than stationary RNs. But those who also pursue advanced practice nursing credentials stand to earn even more. For example, the average travel nurse practitioner's salary is around $131,543 per year but can go up to $218,000.

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How To Make The Most Money As A Travel Nurse 

While the factors listed above do influence travel nurse pay, the following types of assignments almost always pay exceptionally well. Oftentimes, these types of assignments are not influenced by location, specialty or shift.

Everything else aside, if you’re looking to make the most money as a travel nurse, seek out these specific assignments: 

1. Rapid Response and “Crisis” Assignments

These assignments boast some of the highest rates in the travel nursing industry due to their urgent requirements. As the name suggests, these assignments require nurses to arrive at work fast -- usually within 2 weeks.

Nurses working in these assignments may have limited options in terms of location. They are also typically shorter than the general 13-week assignment - if you're ready to go, you can get started right away  in areas that need you the most. 

Assignments range from 36 to 48 hours per week but are certainly more lucrative for the nurse working 48, particularly given overtime pay rates. 

Crisis Examples

• A crisis assignment is not always because of a natural or man-made disaster. However, in some cases they are. For example, one agency was able to send nurses within 48 hours to provide support to hospitals treating patients in the aftermath of Hurricane Harvey.  
• More often, though, facilities in need of rapid response solutions include those managing unexpected census spikes, unit openings, emergency responses, EMR upgrades, and more.
• However, some facilities may leverage flexible-length assignment options to manage patient care during short-term staff shortages.
• Crisis assignments might also occur if a large number of nurses on the unit are on maternity leave at the same time, or can occur if there is an outbreak on the unit (GI illness) and the hospital needs staff immediately.

This type of assignment may be appealing to hospitals because they do not require the 13-week commitment that many other travel companies require. This means that agencies offering these types of assignments have the ability to offer travelers a larger selection of shorter and higher-paying assignments. A great option especially if you’re looking for a position to better fit your lifestyle. 

So, what's the catch? 

As mentioned, rapid response assignments require a quick turnaround. Therefore, it is absolutely crucial for nurses to have their paperwork in order if they want to reap the benefits of top pay. Credentials, tests, licenses, and other documents should be submitted to the agency as quickly as possible. Frequently, there are a limited number of positions available for these types of assignments and some agencies will be first-come, first-serve.

What Travel Nurse Agencies Say About Rapid-Response Assignments

We reached out to travel nursing agencies for more information about their rapid-response assignments. They said that most agencies will occasionally help nurses acquire licenses and certifications, including paying for new state licenses for nurses who complete an assignment with the company there. 

Agencies also offer the option to cover housing costs if the nurse stays in one of their preferred hotels. Alternatively, many travel nursing agencies provide a housing stipend calculated to cover the cost of a nurse acquiring his or her own housing during the assignment. Lastly, they also cover the travel costs nurses incur at the start and end of an assignment. 

Hospital vs Agency Bonuses

Hospital bonuses  are paid separately from the bill rate, are usually offered as completion bonuses. This means they are not paid until after you complete your assignment. These bonuses usually range from  $250-$5000.

Agency bonuses  may be taken out of the bill rate and affect your overall pay. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, especially if you enjoy getting a large amount of money as a lump sum. 

How do you know the difference between hospital and agency bonuses? For starters, you can ask your recruiter where the bonus comes from -- hospital or agency? 

• Retention Bonus

Some agencies will pay nurses bonuses once they end up working with that agency for multiple assignments. This is commonly referred to as a retention bonus and each agency will have its own requirements. These bonuses usually range from $100-$2,000 or more. 

• Referral Bonus

A referral bonus is a fee the agency pays to travel nurses who refer other nurses to work for their agency. The funds often come out of a separate budget allocated to referral fees and should not affect the travel nurse’s pay package. 

Referral bonuses typically range from  $500-$4,000  per nurse referral. Some of the best agencies in the industry pay nurses lucrative referrals bonuses once their referral completes an assignment.

Strikes occur when a labor contract or bargaining agreement between a hospital and a union is up for renewal. When the two sides aren’t able to come up with an acceptable compromise, the union may strike. 

In such a case, patients still need care. Therefore, hospitals will usually hire travel nurses to fill the temporary need. Due to the urgency, travel nurses who work strikes make much more money than they do when working on typical travel nurse assignments. 

How to Find the Highest-Paying Travel Nurse Assignments

First of all, you can always  ask recruiters directly about their highest-paying assignments.  Let them know that money is a motivator and that you are not interested in assignments that pay less than a certain amount. The best travel nurse recruiters will be honest with you about pay while giving you their best pay packages from the beginning. 

We suggest working with agencies that are known to pay high rates and who specialize in rapid-response and strike nursing. Hospitals pay these agencies higher rates to urgently provide highly specialized staff on a short-term basis. Those high rates are passed along to their travel nurses. 

Top 11 Tips For Travel Nurses (From a Travel Nurse Recruiter!)

1. crisis contracts.

Crisis contracts were extremely popular during the pandemic. Travel nurses were able to garner premium pay and had the opportunity to make significant amounts in a short period of time. While these specific types of crisis contracts are not readily available, healthcare companies around the country still need to fill gaps, especially for short periods of time. 

2. Find Your Own Housing

We suggest taking a housing stipend and securing your own housing. This will give you the freedom to choose your price point. Agencies will often house nurses in pricier accommodations (they have a reputation to uphold.) Additionally, agencies sign corporate leases -- leases that come with a “corporate” price tag. Some agencies are able to offer free housing if you stay in one of their preferred hotels. Most other agencies do not cover this cost outright, though, they’ll help you set it up.

3. Be Flexible

If money is your motivation, flexibility is key. Sometimes the highest paying assignments pay higher because they are not the most ideal. They may be in a less-than-desirable location or on a hard-to-fill time shift, such as nights or variables. Though it’s not always the case, nights, variables and weekends may come with higher pay or shift differentials.

4. Work With Agencies Who are Known for Their High Pay and Transparency

Every agency is different and will structure its pay packages differently as well. Transparency is key. The most trustworthy agencies will publish their compensation packages publicly and will disclose take-home pay. This focus on transparency allows nurses to skip the negotiating or fact-finding step and rapidly decide if the position is right for them. 

Industry jargon and terms like “blended rates” get confusing. Negotiations can increase confusion and lead to mistrust between nurses and recruiters. That’s why working with agencies that do not allow for negotiations may prove to be the best agencies to work for. They likely give the nurse their best rate from the “get-go” and therefore actually have no room left for negotiations. If you’re able to negotiate with a recruiter, why weren’t they offering you their best rate from the beginning? Something to consider.

5. Make Sure Your Profile is Up-to-Date

Top-paying travel nursing assignments come with a timestamp -- they are in high demand and competition is fierce. Truth is, agencies can’t simply submit you for a job just because you want to be considered. They literally have to “sell” your skills to the hospital.

How do they do this?  Through your paperwork, commonly referred to as your “profile” -- resume, references, skills checklists, license, etc. Having organized paperwork that can quickly (and easily) be submitted to a new agency will increase your chances of landing high-paying assignments. The quicker you get your paperwork to your recruiter, the faster they can submit you to a top-paying job.

Side note,  many nurse managers hire travel nurses on a "first come, first serve" basis. Why? Because your agency has already vetted you, the hospital doesn’t need to do more research to determine if you’re qualified. The hospital needs your skills to fill a temporary staffing need. If you treat every high-paying job with extreme urgency your chances of landing the job will increase. We recommend keeping your paperwork up to date and storing it online on the cloud using something like Dropbox or Google Drive. This will make it easy to simply share your paperwork folder with your recruiter.

Another tip, if you don’t have a scanner, download a scanning app -- works like a charm and you don’t have to lug around a bulky machine. Many agencies are getting tech-savvy and developing mobile apps that allow nurses to directly upload documents to their profile with the company, where they can be stored and updated when the app notifies nurses of their expirations, etc.

6. Work With Multiple Agencies

The truth is, no agency will have assignments available in every location in the US. More truth, some hospitals pay each agency at a different rate and local agencies may have better relationships with the hospitals in their area. Bottom line, it’s a good idea to work with multiple agencies, this will increase your opportunities.

Word of advice -- if you work with multiple recruiters, don’t be shady. Be honest with them about each other. Don’t "pit" them against each other. And, by all means, keep in touch with them even if you don’t choose their assignment (this time). Chances are they’ll want to work with you again in the future. Who knows, you might even make a new friend!

7. Maintain Multiple State Licenses

Did you know that many hospitals will not even look at your professional profile if you are not licensed in their state? It’s true. You’ll increase your chances of continuously landing high-paying jobs by maintaining active licenses in multiple states.

For example, rates in northern states usually increase during the winter months -- so, a license in Massachusetts is a must! If you want to work in a certain state, you need to have a license. Period. Even better – have a compact nursing license? This will automatically set you up for success. 

If you don’t have a license in that state, and you want to travel there soon, apply now! Some states have quick licensure turnaround of just 48 hours. Other states, like California, can take up to 6 months to process licensure paperwork.  Some agencies do assist or reimburse for licensing fees.

8. Work Agency Per Diem and Pick Up Extra Shifts

Travel nurses who want to make even more money will often work local agencies’ per diem shifts. They’ll also volunteer to work extra shifts during their assignments.

9. Communicate With Your Recruiter

Recruiters are the connection between you and the highest-paying travel nursing assignments. It’s important to communicate with them about your compensation needs. Looking for a high-paying assignment? Ask. Need a sign-on or completion bonus? Ask. Can’t live happily with an income below a certain amount? Tell them. Remember, a closed mouth doesn’t get fed.

10. Ask for Sign-On, Completion, and Retention Bonuses

Some travel companies may offer bonuses. Bonuses are paid either on day #1 of your assignment, upon completion of the assignment, or when you work multiple assignments with your agency. Inquire about bonuses. 

11. Refer Your Friends to Agencies

In the travel nursing industry, referrals are golden. Nurses are much more likely to trust their friend’s opinion of an agency they’ve actually worked for than they are an advertisement or recruiter. This is why agencies pay nurses referral bonuses to refer their friends. Referral fees differ but some agencies pay as high as $4,000 per nurse referral! 

Find Nursing Programs

Travel nurse faqs, what does a travel nurse do.

• A travel nurse is employed by a temporary staffing agency to work a contract with a healthcare facility for a short amount of time, usually around 13 weeks. 

What is the highest paid travel nurse? 

•  Any specialty area travel nurse, such as OR, ICU, MICU/SICU will have a higher earning potential. Additionally, APRNs such as a CRNA, will earn the highest wages. 

Is travel nursing worth the money?

• Travel nursing can be highly profitable, but you’ll want to consider all of the factors involved with the job, such as short-term contracts, inconsistent benefits and pay, new environments, and sometimes, high stress. 

What do you need to be a travel nurse? 

• In addition to being a Registered Nurse, typically, you need at least one year of experience on the floor to become a travel nurse. 

Is it hard to become a travel nurse? 

• Travel nursing can be competitive, but if you want to become a travel nurse, there are endless opportunities. You can increase your appeal by earning certifications in specialty areas. 

How much money do travel nurses make? 

• The take-home pay for travel nurses can vary widely based on the area’s need, the nurse’s specialty and any certifications, and other factors, but most travel nurses make well over six figures. 

Why do hospitals hire travel nurses? 

• Hospitals and other healthcare facilities may hire travel nurses when they are lacking their own staff, when the patient census becomes too high for their current staffing, or when a medical crisis, like COVID-19, or an emergency occurs. 

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As COVID surges, ‘travel nurses’ are in more demand than ever, and can make $5,000 per week

Jesse Mogler had been working as an emergency room nurse for less than a year when the pandemic started. During that time, he says, he worked with travel nurses—maybe one or two per shift—in the busy ER of San Juan Regional Medical Center in Farmington, N.M. They were often less experienced than staff nurses, he says, and helping to orient them to the practices of the specific ER took time from more senior nurses on the floor. Still, the travel nurses were helpful, especially on the unpopular late shifts.

By the time he left, over a year later, the COVID-19 pandemic was in full swing, and the floor was primarily staffed by travel nurses—especially during the evening and overnight shifts. By midnight, he says, sometimes even the nurse in charge of running everything—known, appropriately, as the charge nurse—was a “traveler.”

Mogler, who finished nursing school in 2018, found that he was rapidly becoming one of the most experienced nurses on the floor. He was charged with looking after a higher number of patients than ever before, sometimes overseeing six to 10 emergency cases, he says.

In school, he says, teachers constantly reinforce that preventable accidents or deaths among the patients a nurse is assigned to can result in an inquest and the loss of your nursing license—to say nothing of the trauma of knowing you had a role in unnecessary suffering. “It increasingly felt like every shift, we [were] about one traumatic accident, one trauma or critical patient away from unnecessary deaths,” he says. “It was risky to be a patient. It was risky to be a nurse.”

Looking for higher compensation for an increasingly draining job (as well as the ability to move on quickly from an environment that felt unsafe), he posted on a travel nurse job board and got a rush of text messages and voicemails from recruiters. He started his first contact in October and will be working in Durango, N.M., until the end of 2021—making four times the hourly rate he made as a staff nurse.

COVID has transformed many aspects of health care—from early ventilator shortages to endlessly delayed routine procedures. But one of the most striking effects the virus has had is on the career market for the people that care for you. The explosion of travel nurses has massively increased pay for those willing to work for the highest bidder. Healthcare job board Vivian estimates that the average travel RN salary in the U.S. is presently almost $3,200 per week, based on 59,000 active job listings in the past 90 days. That works out to almost $90 per hour for the average 36-hour travel nursing week, according to Vivian. It’s also more than twice the median hourly pay of a staff nurse in the United States in 2020, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. But a rotating cast of for-hire staffers has also, some say, destabilized hospitals where employees soon entering year three of the pandemic were already at a breaking point. As ICUs begin to fill up again with a winter COVID-19 surge and the Omicron variant, as well as flu season, this shaky system keeping hospitals afloat will be put to the test. 

Becoming a “traveler”

Travel nurses were around as far back as the 1970s, says Peter Buerhaus, a nursing policy expert from Montana State University. “They have never been a large component of the nursing workforce,” he says. The field, once used to bridge brief localized nursing shortages, started growing pre-pandemic: A market report from Grand View Research published in early 2020 found that in 2019 alone the market for travel nurses grew by 7%, driven in part by hospitals’ ongoing attempts to cut permanent-staffing costs.

The market has ballooned in size since the pandemic began. Staffing Industry Analysts (SIA) estimates that the U.S. travel nurse staffing industry grew 35% in 2020, from $6.2 billion in 2019 to $8.4 billion. By the end of 2021, SIA predicts a further 40% expansion, to $11.8 billion.

“While the volume of travel nurses on assignment grew in 2020 and 2021, much of the market size growth has been due to large increases in pay rates due to the imbalance of demand with supply,” notes Timothy Landhuis, North America director of research at SIA.

The active Facebook group “ Traveling Nurse Jobs $5,000 a week and up ” has more than 100,000 members and is peppered with listings and posts from recruiters. Job boards and groups like the Facebook group are the main ways that travel nurses find work. The business of AMN Healthcare, one of the largest health care staffing firms, is driven predominantly by word of mouth, CEO Susan Salka told a Bank of America virtual conference on the state of health care in May.  

Health care staffing firms have posted impressive returns during the pandemic. AMN reported a whopping 60% bump in revenue over 2020 in its third quarter 2021. Cross Country Healthcare, another prominent firm, was even higher, with a 93% year-over-year increase in Q3 2021.

Usually, travel nurses are restricted to the specific states or regions where their nursing licenses are valid. During the first wave of the pandemic, those restrictions were waived by state governments, and travel nursing provided a framework to move people across state lines to where they were needed most, says Polly Pittman , director of the Health Workforce Research Center at George Washington University. By the time of the third wave, when COVID-19 was ubiquitous, nurses could still work almost anywhere. A bidding war ensued.

“I think travel nurses have an important function, in moderation,” says Pittman. But a large body of research shows that overuse of travel nurses isn’t good—for hospital bottom lines, for staff morale, or for patients.

During the pandemic, big hospital systems that can afford to pay have been able to hire the nurses they needed, says Pittman. Smaller health care facilities that provide care to some of those most vulnerable to COVID-19—like San Juan Regional, a community hospital with about 250 beds—have struggled to maintain staff and find the funds to pay for travelers.

Paying travel nurses has a serious effect on hospital bottom lines, which also impacts quality of care . NSI Nursing Solutions, a national health care staffing and retention agency, conducted a survey of over 3,000 hospitals in 2021 and estimated that hospitals could save an average of $3 million for every 20 travel nurse positions eliminated.

And it hurts relationships with the regular workforce. The widespread use of travel nurses during this pandemic has left staff nurses asking why hospitals can’t find the money to pay them better and hire more staff nurses to reduce their load, multiple sources including Pittman told Fortune . “It creates this downward spiral of low morale,” Pittman says.

Exhausted and overburdened, many staff nurses are leaving the profession altogether or, like Mogler, turning to travel nursing. “If you have a regular nurse making $50 an hour and a travel nurse making $150 an hour, that’s a big gap,” says Martha Dawson, president of the National Black Nurses Association. “I can’t hold that against the nurse, because for them that’s the current system that provides them with earning power.”

“A smoldering fire”

Jewel Scott, a postdoctoral nursing scholar at the University of Pittsburgh, compares nursing before the pandemic to a smoldering fire. If you were right beside the profession, you could see the heat of issues like low staffing ratios, ever-increasing responsibilities, and lack of institutional support flickering. Farther away, though, they were invisible. “Then COVID-19 hit, and [it was like] somebody poured a gallon of gasoline on the fire,” Scott says.

Once upon a time, nearly all nurses got a single one-year qualification—known as the LPN, or licensed practical nurse—and spent their entire career at one or two facilities. Nursing has professionalized significantly in the past 40 years, as health care generally has become more high-tech and specialized. Today, most American nurses get a three-year degree, which makes them RNs, or registered nurses, and many go on to further qualifications. They can become nurse practitioners, who work without the supervision of a doctor, go into more specialized positions like nurse anesthetist, and some even get Ph.D.s and go into academia.

All of those factors mean that acute care RNs, the mainstay of hospital and nursing home staffing, are in much shorter supply than they used to be. “There are always background shortages of nurses,” says Buerhaus. Local shortages can result from factors like several nurses on a ward all going on parental leave at the same time, or poaching by a competitor hospital, he says.

But trends in the past few decades have exacerbated structural shortages—and made the national workforce more vulnerable. The baby boomers who make up the bulk of the RN workforce have been retiring in large numbers since their generational workforce peaked in 2000. Pre-pandemic, about 70,000 of these nurses retired per year.

As a fraction of the total workforce, that’s not a huge percentage. “But when you think about the 20 and 30 years of experience that are leaving the workforce, that’s a big number to replace,” Buerhaus says. For the past few years, he and his colleagues have been hearing from hospitals that experienced nurses in complicated, demanding areas like intensive care and emergency care have been difficult to hire.

At present, about 3.08 million registered nurses are employed around the country, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Demand is predicted to grow by 9% by 2030—that means almost 300,000 nurses. But even though the mainstay of the labor force is retiring and demand for nurses is growing, nursing schools around the country are turning away qualified applicants—over 60,000 last year, the American Association of Colleges of Nursing reported in April.

There just aren’t enough faculty available to staff nursing schools—especially faculty who are people of color. They make up less than 10% of full nursing professors, Scott notes. About one-quarter of nurses identify as people of color. Studies show that outcomes are better for students who learn from people with a mix of ethnocultural backgrounds, regardless of the student’s race. Students who are people of color especially benefit because they have the opportunity to be mentored by people who share their lived experiences and feel more like they belong. 

In her case, Scott says having a Black nursing professor, Marva Price , reach out to talk to her about pursuing graduate studies led her to seek out further qualifications and eventually become a nursing professor herself. “Without a doubt, representation matters,” she says.

And training nurses isn’t just about what happens in the classroom. Few hospitals have invested in nurse training on the job, says Joanne Spetz , director of the UCSF Institute for Health Policy studies. Now that the older nurses who were carrying so much weight are leaving, she says, there’s nobody who can do that vital teaching.

When the pandemic hit, these background issues became an urgent problem. “Hospitals were hit by this very fast, overwhelming demand for this very narrow specialty,” Buerhaus says. Trainee nurses and novice nurses were pressed into service in critical care, alongside the experienced nurses who remained. It’s a vicious cycle. “Poor staffing causes nurse attrition, and nurse attrition sustains poor staffing,” reads a recent commentary from the American Association of Critical-Care Nurses. This cycle has become more intractable during COVID-19. A recent McKinsey & Company survey suggests that as many as 22% of the country’s nurses may plan to leave direct patient care in the next two years. The top issue for the survey’s more than 300 respondents: insufficient staffing. “During the pandemic, what is considered to be a safe number of patients to care for has been stretched to the absolute limit,” says Sue Anne Bell , a University of Michigan nursing professor who specializes in disaster preparedness and has been deployed to communities for four months during the pandemic.

In addition to lowering nurse job satisfaction, turnover dramatically increases labor force costs. Each RN lost to a hospital costs on average $40,038 in 2021, the NSI report finds. Those individual losses add up quickly: With each percentage point a hospital improves its turnover rate, it saves an average of $270,800 annually. Nurse turnover also detracts from quality of care, a team of researchers wrote in a recent quantitative study, “with potentially increased rates of medication errors, falls, or other nurse-sensitive outcomes including health care–associated infections.” 

A “national crisis”

In that sense, travel nursing has created a tricky problem: While it elevates and provides relief for a small subset of burned-out nurses, it magnifies the issues making the job so hard in the first place. The long-standing issues that paved the way for the current crisis also aren’t going away anytime soon, says Georges Benjamin, president of the American Public Health Association. They could be solved over time, he says, although it would take sustained effort.

But the first step in solving a problem is acknowledging that it exists. On Sept.1, the American Nurses Association submitted a letter to the Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra. The association asked him to declare “a national nurse staffing crisis and take immediate steps to develop and implement both short- and long-term solutions.”

“We do hope to hear from Secretary Becerra soon,” ANA president Ernest Grant told Fortune a week after the letter was submitted As of this article’s publication in December, the ANA had received no response.

As for Mogler, the nurse that left his staff job for a travel position, he struggles with his choice. “I don’t feel great having left a very sick and needy population in a very understaffed hospital and coworkers who…were not able to take the same transition I did,” he says.

But the risk of handling a too-big workload and the feeling that his hospital wasn’t supporting him or his colleagues were too big an incentive to leave. As it is, he says, “I’m going to transition from one contract to the next until either the money is no longer worthwhile or situations start to improve and staff nursing becomes more appealing.”

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How to Make 6 Figures as a Travel Nurse

Table of Contents

For many travel nurses, earning a healthy salary is high on the priority list. The allure of high pay (among other perks) draws RNs to travel opportunities, and some set a goal to cross the $100K threshold.

The great news—this goal is within reach depending on your degree, certifications, specialty, location, experience, and registered nurse resume. Most nurses who make over $100k have advanced practice degrees and work in a nurse practitioner or clinical nurse specialist role.

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Travel nurses can increase their salary based on the amount of experience they have and how many hours they are willing to work. As a traveler, some of the highest paid registered nurse jobs are in the least desirable areas in medically underserved communities. Travel nurses who want to earn $100k understand that where they work will influence their pay. The beauty of travel nursing is the ability to pick and choose assignments based on pay and location.

Continue reading to explore how to make 6 figures as a nurse.

How Can You Make 6 Figures as a Travel Nurse?

Making 6 figures as a travel nurse is entirely possible depending on your specialty, location, and the flexibility to act quickly when the highest paid nursing jobs are posted.

Talk to your recruiter about opportunities to maximize your pay, in the meantime, we will share these truths about making 6 figures as a travel nurse:

Truth #1: Specialty Matters

In many (if not most) cases, $100K assignments are available to select specialties. For example,  L&D nurses and cath lab nurses are prime candidates for $100K jobs. This is because these skills are typically more sought after by facilities, which usually means higher pay for the traveler.

Truth #2: Assignment Location Matters

Optimal candidates for $100K travel nursing jobs should be minimally selective about location—you need to be willing to go where the money is. For example, while southern Florida may be your dream destination for a travel assignment, six-figure jobs may be more common in rural areas in medically underserved communities where it’s more difficult for healthcare facilities to attract nurses. For the highest paid nursing jobs, you’ll need to focus more on the dollar amount and less on the locale.

Truth #3: Timing Matters

High-paying travel nursing jobs typically attract a large pool of applicants. To land $100K assignments, candidates need to act quickly (jobs open today likely won’t be there tomorrow). This means working with an experienced recruiter that you trust, and giving him or her the green light to submit you for high-paying jobs as soon as they become available. When pursing $100K assignments, there really isn’t time for indecisiveness.

One surefire way to make over 6 figures as a nurse is to go back to school and find msn programs to obtain your master of science in nursing. Once your degree is completed you can take the nurse practitioner certification in your field of study and become an advanced practice registered nurse.

Nurse practitioners make over 100k, and there are various options depending on which specialty you would like to pursue. Nurses can choose to be oncology nurse practitioners, orthopedic nurse practitioners, cardiac nurse practitioners, gerontological nurse practitioners, psychiatric nurse practitioners, neonatal nurse practitioners, pediatric nurse practitioners, general nurse practitioners, or certified nurse midwives depending on their area of interest. Nurse midwives make about $114,00 a year, compared to a labor and delivery nurse who may make around $70-80k per year.

To give you an idea, these are currently the 16 highest paid nursing jobs:

• Certified Registered Nurse Anesthetist – $202,000
• Neonatal Nurse Practitioner – $131,000
• Cardiac Nurse Practitioner – $120,000
• Orthopedic Nurse Practitioner – $119,000
• Oncology Nurse Practitioner – $119,000
• General Nurse Practitioner – $118,000
• Family Nurse Practitioners – $116,00
• Certified Nurse Midwife – $114,000
• Clinical Nurse Specialist – $113,000
• Psychiatric Nurse Practitioner – $112,000
• Pediatric Nurse Practitioner – $112,000
• Pain Management Nurse – $110,000
• Nurse Researcher – $104,000
• Gerontological Nurse Practitioner (GNP) – $100,000
• Nurse Administrator – $97,000
• Nurse Educator – $79,000

As you can see, all of these higher-paid nursing jobs require an advanced degree. If you have no interest in becoming a nurse practitioner, we will discuss other options for increasing your pay as well.

What's the Average Salary for a Travel Nurse?

According to Zip Recruiter ,( as of February 2023), the average travel nurse salary is $106,030 per year, and approximately $50.98 an hour, $2,039/week, or $8,835/month. Travel RN salaries currently range between $80,000 to $127,500, with top 10th percentile earners making $150,500 annually.

According to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics the highest paying paying states include:

• District of Columbia

Top 5 highest paying paying cities (ranging from $139,000 to $155,000) include:

• San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara, CA
• San Francisco-Oakland-Hayward, CA
• Vallejo-Fairfield, CA
• Santa Rosa, CA

What are the Travel Nurse Expectations

Expectations for travel nursing are the same as any registered nurse, you must have a nursing degree and an active RN license in the state you are working in. Most travel nurse jobs prefer you to have about 1-2 years of previous experience.

Follow these tips to become a travel nurse:

Get your nursing degree

Just like any other nursing position, you must first graduate from an accredited nursing program. A BSN is typically required for most registered nurse jobs and is preferred by most travel nurse agencies. Pass the NCLEX exam and obtain your license                                                                                                  

After graduating from nursing school, nurses must pass the NCLEX ( National Council Licensure Examination), the Nationwide examination for all nurses in the United States. Once you’ve passed the NCLEX, you need to become licensed in the state you intend to practice in. Nurses with compact state licenses have an advantage when it comes to travel nursing.

Obtain required certifications

All nurses must have a valid BLS (Basic Life Support) certification. As a travel nurse, it is a good idea to be certified in ACLS (Advanced Cardiac Life Support) as well as PALS (Pediatric Advanced Life Support) and NRP (Neonatal Resuscitation Program) certifications. These certifications will boost your registered nurse resume and allow you to work across several different specialties.

Specialty certifications

While there isn’t a specific national certification for travel nursing, having an advanced RN certification will give you an advantage as a travel nurse. The NCC website lists each certification exam provided and how to apply. For example, if you are a neonatal intensive care nurse, you may want to have a certification exam administered in neonatal intensive care nursing.

Earn experience as a nurse

Most travel nurse agencies want nurses to have at least 1-2 years of experience before their first travel assignment. Use your time as a staff nurse to learn and experience everything you possibly can about patient care. The skills and knowledge you obtain will give you the confidence you need as a travel nurse.

What More Should I Know?

Nursing is such a versatile profession and the opportunities for growth and advancement are endless. If your goal is to make it to $100k as a nurse it will take some dedication and possible relocation.

If relocation is not on your radar, you may want to find MSN programs that work for your schedule and become an advanced practice nurse. Nurse practitioners make $100k and above depending on what type of nurse practitioner certification they have.

Other routes may include becoming legal nurse consultants or pain management nurses.

Travel nursing is a great option for nurses who aren’t looking to permanently locate or obtain an advanced practice degree but want to increase their income. Travel nurses have the unique opportunity to accept contracts in the highest paying cities or highest paying states to increase their paychecks.

As a travel nurse, there are several steps you can take to earn a six-figure salary:

• Choose high-paying assignments: Look for travel nursing assignments in areas with high demand for nurses, such as major cities or rural areas with a shortage of healthcare workers. These assignments typically pay more than those in less desirable locations.
• Specialize: Consider specializing in an area of nursing that is in high demand, such as critical care, emergency medicine, or oncology. These specialties often offer higher salaries.
• Take advantage of bonuses: Many travel nursing companies offer sign-on bonuses, completion bonuses, and referral bonuses. Hospitals may also offer bonuses during an increased census. Be sure to ask about these incentives and take advantage of them when possible.
• Be willing to work the night shift or pick up overtime: Shift differential varies per health care system, but night shift nurses are compensated for the unconventional hours that they work. If you're able to work extra shifts, you can increase your earnings significantly and really boost your paycheck.
• Keep your expenses low: One of the benefits of travel nursing is that your housing and travel expenses are often covered by your employer. However, it's still important to keep your other expenses, such as food and entertainment, under control to maximize your earnings.
• Be open to opportunities: Research the 10 highest paid nursing jobs or the top 5 highest paying cities and accept a travel job that's included on the list.

Kickstart Your Travel Nursing Career with Health Carousel

Health Carousel Travel Nursing offers full circle support to help travel nurses further their careers and improve their salaries. We offer comprehensive benefits packages and encourage our travel nurses to make smart financial investments. Health Carousel Travel Nursing recruiters are well-versed in travel nursing salaries and which locations are the highest paying states.

HCTN has created an On Demand app to make it easy to see how much you could earn each week with our travel registered nurse jobs. Download the app and create a profile to see how to make 6 figures as a nurse.

Frequently Asked Questions

What kind of nurse makes 6 figures.

Registered nurse jobs in California typically make 6 figures a year in the current labor market. Other nurses making 6 figures include clinical nurse specialists, legal nurse consultants, and advance practice nurses. Consider obtaining your nurse practitioner certification in a specialty that interests you. Nurse practitioners make over 100k and a common NP certification includes orthopedic nurse practitioners, nurse anesthetists, nurse midwives, oncology nurse practitioners, orthopedic nurse practitioners, psychiatric nurse practitioners, family nurse practitioners, and neonatal nurse practitioners.

Nurses who find msn programs with data science programs can also make 6 figures in nursing informatics positions.

Can an RN make 100k?

The chances of making $100k as a nurse is very high considering the average travel nurse salary ranges from $80,000 to $127,500. Travel nurses in the top 10th percentile are making about $150k in their registered nurse jobs. Travel nurses just need to be savvy in accepting assignments in the highest paying cities to increase their chances of making over $100k.

Nurse practitioner salaries typically range from $100-200k a year. These types of advance practice nurses include psychiatric nurse specialists, general nurse practitioners, certified nurse midwives, pediatric nurse practitioners, family nurse practitioners, neonatal nurse practitioners, and gerontological nurse practitioners.

How can a nurse make 7 figures?

To make 7 figures as a nurse, you usually have to have a side hustle like blogging, youtube, or offering courses. Many nurses work their staff nurse jobs in addition to their side business until that business takes off. Nurses need to make smart financial investments and have a creative open mind to try and reach 7 figures.

What nurse makes 200k a year?

According to the BLS a certified registered nurse anesthetist makes about 200k a year. Nurse anesthetists have high paying nursing careers due to the meticulous nature of their jobs. Nurse anesthetists make more than any other advance practice registered nurse.

Lauren Rivera is a nationally certified neonatal intensive care nurse with over 15 years of experience. She serves as a nurse expert offering support and educational classes for women from preconception through childhood. Lauren is also a freelance health and wellness writer with works published on several nursing sites. She develops and curates content for various healthcare companies, and writes continuing education modules for other healthcare professionals.

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Can travel nurses make 200k.

Travel nursing is a career that has become increasingly popular in recent years. It allows nurses to travel to different parts of the country and work in various healthcare facilities. One question that many people have is whether travel nurses can make 200k per year. This article will explore the answer to that question.

What is a Travel Nurse?

A travel nurse is a registered nurse who works on a temporary basis at healthcare facilities in different parts of the country. They typically work for a staffing agency that places them in short-term assignments that can last from a few weeks to a few months. Travel nurses can work in a variety of healthcare settings, including hospitals, clinics, and long-term care facilities.

How Much Money Can a Travel Nurse Make?

The salary of a travel nurse can vary depending on a number of factors, including their specialty, location, and experience. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the median annual salary for registered nurses in the United States is $73,300. However, travel nurses can earn significantly more than that.

On average, travel nurses can expect to make between $40 and $60 per hour. This means that they can earn anywhere from $80,000 to $120,000 per year if they work full-time. However, some travel nurses can make even more than that.

What Factors Affect a Travel Nurse’s Salary?

A number of factors can affect how much money a travel nurse makes. These include:

Can a Travel Nurse Make 200k?

While not all travel nurses make 200k per year, it is certainly possible for some to earn that much or even more. The key is to be strategic in choosing assignments and to have a specialty that is in demand.

One way that travel nurses can earn more money is by taking assignments in areas with a high cost of living. For example, a travel nurse who takes an assignment in San Francisco or New York City can expect to earn significantly more than one who takes an assignment in a more rural area.

Another way that travel nurses can boost their earnings is by having a specialty that is in demand. Nurses who have certifications in specialties such as critical care or emergency nursing can earn even more money than those who work in other specialties.

In summary, travel nursing can be a lucrative career choice for registered nurses. While not all travel nurses make 200k per year, it is certainly possible for some to earn that much or even more. The key is to be strategic in choosing assignments and to have a specialty that is in demand.

How Registered Nurses Make 300K Per Year or More!

In a previous article, I covered how registered nurses earn six figures yearly.

It focused on strategies registered nurses use to make between 100k – 200k yearly.

However, nurses earn significantly more using the most beneficial approaches, work ethic, locations, and expertise to maximize their income.

This article centers on how registered nurses make 250k to 300k or more annually!

This article covers working in high-paying locations, using overtime and double-time, obtaining an advanced degree, and other strategies.

These strategies allow nurses to make 100K, 200k, 250k, or even 300k per year combined.

That said, earning this money requires effort, focus, and discipline.

It’s not for everyone, but truly committed nurses can make 300k annually with the right strategies and effort.

1. Work in A High Paying State/Location and Hospital

Working in a high-paying location like California dramatically influences how much nurses make.

Some nurses earn over 100k per year simply by working in the best-paying states.

Moreover, picking a well-paying hospital provides higher hourly wages that accumulate over time.

Combined, working in a high-paying state and a great-paying hospital provides an excellent base to build wealth.

To illustrate, registered nurses earn over $80,000 per year on average. However, nurses in Hawaii, California, and other states earn over $100,000 annually.

Although this isn’t 300k, there are numerous ways nurses increase wages to accumulate significantly higher incomes.

For example, working overtime and double time, utilizing nurse differentials, and taking special assignments allow nurses to make more money.

Many nurses also earn advanced degrees to pursue more specialized work and higher salaries.

Conversely, those working in low-paying states or low-wage facilities have more difficulty earning an extraordinary income.

It’s because some states/locations have a lower cost of living and lower demand for healthcare professionals.

As a result, nurses in these locations make less money on average.

To counter this, some nurses move to high-paying locations or work as travel nurses to earn more.

2. Overtime, Double-Time, and Increased Base Rate

Overtime and double-time allow nurses to earn 1.5x to 2x their standard hourly wage.

As a result, some nurses double their salary by working plenty of overtime every week.

It’s particularly beneficial among nurses who have few responsibilities outside of work.

Besides, some facilities provide an increased base rate for particular commitments such as overtime.

This further increases income, allowing nurses to work fewer hours and earn a similar income or make extra money working additional hours.

3. Take On Special Assignments

Some healthcare facilities offer nurses particular jobs and assignments that allow them to earn high incomes than average.

For example, the nurse in the video below accepted a nursing assignment that required her to work weekends.

Moreover, the pay scale moved from a traditional hierarchy to a per diem model .

However, more than other schedules, this position allows her to generate a high hourly income.

This video does a great job of detailing the steps she took to earn nearly 300k in one year!

As a result, I recommend watching it if you want to learn how to use various strategies to make the most money as a nurse.

Nurse Differentials

Shift differentials impact how much-registered nurses take each paycheck, depending on their agreed work shift.

For example, nurses who work nightshift and weekends usually earn more than nurses who only work weekdays and day shifts.

As a result, nurses who earn the most money take advantage of various shift differentials. 

The differential pay nurses make in the healthcare facility.

Therefore, it’s essential to know the facility’s differential rate to determine whether it’s worth working nights and weekends.

That said, nurses earning differential pay can also take advantage of overtime and double-time pay.

It allows them to boost their hourly rate and earn more each paycheck substantially.

4. Work In A High Paying Profession

It’s no secret obtaining an advanced degree and working in a high-paying profession affords nurses impressive incomes.

It’s particularly true in advanced practice registered nursing professions such as CRNA (certified registered nurse anesthetists).

Advanced practice registered nurses (APRNs) have the broadest scope of practice within the nursing profession.

For example, nurse practitioners act as primary care providers, diagnose medical conditions, prescribe medications, and open clinics.

It allows them to earn substantial salaries and establish themselves as their patient’s primary providers.

Because of the extensive education and expertise APRNs obtain, they generate six-figure incomes.

Nurse anesthetists are among the highest-paid nurses in the entire career spectrum.

Nurse anesthetists earn over 200k in some states. However, they make significantly more when you combine their salary with the income incentives mentioned previously.

Besides that, independent legal nurse consultants and nurse entrepreneurs earn excellent incomes based on their performance.

To illustrate, nurse consultants charge several hundred dollars per hour on the high end.

It allows them to make lots of money quickly, providing services to businesses, law enforcement, and lawyers/law firms.

Moreover, nurse consultants who start their own company can grow it to generate several hundred thousand dollars annually.

However, growth is obtained by hiring nurse consultants and distributing the profits.

As a result, those earning the highest incomes must have an entrepreneurial spirit and develop a business that makes money even when they’re not working.

Alternatively, nurse entrepreneurs earn substantial incomes by starting businesses that offer products and services.

This article explains how an RN built a seven-figure side business in their spare time.

Best of all, they did it online, allowing them to make money while they slept.

Finally, read how nurses earn six figures and how nurses become millionaires to learn more about making money.

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Can an RN make $200K a year working 24 hours a week?

Specialties NP

Published May 14, 2019

FullGlass, BSN, MSN, NP

2 Articles; 1,741 Posts

Hello there. One of the NPs at my clinic told me he is thinking of quitting being an NP and going back to being an RN so he can make more money. He has 4 years of RN experience and 4 years of NP experience. He said a friend of his in the San Francisco Bay Area got a job as an RN with Kaiser working 24 hours per week and making $200K per year. When I asked him for more specifics on his friend's job, he didn't know. Honestly, if RNs can make $200K a year working 3 days a week, everyone would want to be an RN ! I think there are a lot of MDs that would take that job! Is this even possible or is my friend confused?

• + Add a Comment

missmaddie, BSN, RN

Sounds confused. Maybe 24 hours of overtime a week?

renzlao, MSN, APRN

I was in SF working as a travel nurse. I got offers closed to $100 per hour per diem. No benefits. I knew staff nurses who made $200,000 but they took so many overtime. More than 8 hours - time and half. More than 12 is double time.

Possible in California with OT but you will need that kind of salary to afford anything. Travel nurses make bank in Cali!

12 hours ago, renzlao said: I was in SF working as a travel nurse. I got offers closed to $100 per hour per diem. No benefits. I knew staff nurses who made $200,000 but they took so many overtime. More than 8 hours - time and half. More than 12 is double time.

I seriously doubt there is a floor RN position that will pay $200K per year for only 24 hours per week.

I agree. 24 hours not possible. But working more with lots of OT they do. Majority of them actually don’t even live in SF. One lives in NY. One lives in San Diego. They traveled back and forth. The one that earned more than 200k worked for 17 days straight! ?

Corey Narry, MSN, RN, NP

8 Articles; 4,370 Posts

That's exaggerated. I have a copy of the current Kaiser CNA Contract and there's no way a Per Diem nurse can make 200K a year just working 24 hours a week. I will believe someone ( RN or NP ) working 36 hours a week making that much money though. You also have to factor in California taxes and Northern California cost of living in that.

27 minutes ago, juan de la cruz said: That's exaggerated. I have a copy of the current Kaiser CNA Contract and there's no way a Per Diem nurse can make 200K a year just working 24 hours a week. I will believe someone ( RN or NP ) working 36 hours a week making that much money though. You also have to factor in California taxes and Northern California cost of living in that.

I agree. $200K isn't that much if you have to live in the SF Bay Area. At any rate, if I could make $200K by just working 24 hours a week, I'd take that gig! This person is just confused IMHO and seems to have some very unrealistic expectations in general. For example, he didn't seem to understand that because he is working 4 10-hour days, he will have to see more patients each day than an NP working an 8 hour day! He also doesn't seem to understand how to factor in cost of living when evaluating salary in a given location.

A family of four earning below 117,000 a year is considered below poverty line in SF.

When I was there. I paid $1,500 to rent a room. ?

guest769224

1,698 Posts

The night shift per diem rates in San Fran are > $105/hr (Kaiser + differentials) so.... But still 24 hrs/week sounds incorrect.

HeartThrobNurse

Hello, aside from being a Nurse Practitioner there are limited salaries up to that level. In order to make $200k or higher, perhaps you may consider being an MD or choosing a new profession. I don't think NP 's make that much either... Maybe a special open heart surgeon with many years under his belt or the mayor.lol

There are some well paying areas though. I read that nurse researchers, nurse midwives and nurses with supervisory roles (ex; DON) make a decent income.

Leader25, ASN, BSN, RN

1,344 Posts