Ready to search travel nurse jobs across 500+ travel nurse companies at once, without worrying about agency spam?
Hop in & buckle up! You're in the right place to run your travel nursing job search with confidence.
Now you can:
- Spot your best travel nurse deals in one search
- Make job decisions based on objective pay data
- Block job spam before it ever starts
Start with the whole market, not one recruiter's list
One search across every agency's open contracts - the best-paying and most recent come up first, and nothing's hidden behind a signup.
What the highest paying travel nursing jobs pay right now
I've done L&D travel nursing for 3 years, and my specialty happens to sit both close to my heart and near the top of the list below.
Nearly every "highest paying travel nursing jobs" table you'll find is a yearly average. This one isn't.
Below is the median weekly pay on contracts that are open today, with the number of openings beside each - so you can see what a specialty pays and whether you can realistically land one.
| Specialty | Median weekly pay | Open contracts |
|---|---|---|
| RNFA (RN First Assistant) | $3,114 | 31 |
| CVOR (Cardiovascular Operating Room) | $2,681 | 218 |
| IR (Interventional Radiology) | $2,550 | 83 |
| Cath Lab (Cardiac Catheterization) | $2,540 | 512 |
| L&D (Labor & Delivery) | $2,514 | 1,196 |
| PICU (Pediatric ICU) | $2,448 | 94 |
| OR (Operating Room) | $2,308 | 1,184 |
| NICU (Neonatal ICU) | $2,274 | 318 |
| ICU (Intensive Care Unit) | $2,223 | 1,065 |
| ED (Emergency Department) | $2,220 | 1,825 |
| Med-Surg | $2,113 | 1,180 |
| Telemetry | $2,101 | 433 |
Median weekly pay on contracts open as of August 5, 2026, standardized to 36 hours. Open-contract counts move daily - search your specialty above for what's live this minute.
For scale: travel RNs average $2,180 a week across the last 12 months, so most of this table sits at or above the national rate.
The spread from Med-Surg to CVOR is $568 a week. Over a single 13-week contract that's $7,384, which is the kind of gap worth planning a certification around.
CRNA sits in its own tier at about $5,814 a week. That's advanced-practice pay on a multi-year anesthesia degree though, not bedside RN work, so it isn't really on the same ladder as the rest.
What type of travel nurse makes the most money?
Within standard RN scope, the highest paid travel nurse jobs are CVOR and Cath Lab - the top of the market with real volume behind them.
Both pay noticeably above ICU and ED while asking for comparable years at the bedside. The reason is supply: far fewer nurses are trained in them.
RNFA posts higher than either, but there are rarely more than a few dozen contracts open at once. Great pay if one lands in your window, not something to build a year around.
What is the best specialty for travel nursing?
Depends what you're optimizing for.
The best paying travel nurse jobs sit in CVOR and Cath Lab. For the best combination of pay and availability, L&D is hard to beat right now - $334 a week above the national average with nearly 1,200 contracts open.
ED posts the most openings of any specialty at 1,825. Med-Surg and Telemetry have huge availability too, and the lowest pay on this list.
Landing a job in a higher-paying specialty
The gap between Med-Surg and CVOR isn't random. It tracks how many nurses are actually qualified to fill the role, which means it's a gap you can close.
- Get the specialty certification early - CCRN for ICU, CNOR for OR/CVOR, RNC-OB for L&D. Certified nurses consistently out-earn their non-certified peers, and it can be the deciding factor between 2 similar candidates.
- Build the bedside experience first - 1-2 years minimum, more for high-acuity units. How much experience you actually need breaks it down specialty by specialty.
Where the highest paying travel nurse jobs are
Alaska posts the highest average of any state at $2,568 a week, on just 4,837 contracts over 12 months. Excellent rate, far fewer shots at it.
California is the one that wins both - about $2,541 a week and the most contracts in the country.
Gross pay isn't take-home, though. California's rate looks great until you're paying California income tax and California rent, while Texas and Florida pay less on paper and let you keep more of it.
The full state ranking, the metro breakdown and the cost-of-living view all live in the travel nurse salary guide.
Do travel nurses really make more?
Yes, and it's worth seeing the comparison honestly rather than as an agency pitch.
Travel RNs average $2,180 a week over the last 12 months. Across a realistic 48-week year, allowing for the unpaid gaps between 13-week contracts, that's about $104,700.
Staff RNs earn a median $46.90 an hour, which is roughly $87,797 on the same 36-hour week - and that's all 52 weeks paid, so this comparison runs conservative against travel.
The gap is real, and it's narrower than it was during the crisis-rate years. The full salary breakdown has the trend back to 2019.
One thing to carry into every listing you open: the advertised weekly number is the least reliable part of it.
2 contracts can post the same $2,400 and leave you with very different take-home, depending on how much is taxable base, whether your hours are guaranteed, and what the cancellation clause says. Here's a full package split into its parts.
How does the travel nurse job search work here?
In just one search, cut directly to the most recent and best paid contracts open for your specialty.
Who wants to choose between pay and recency? You need both, straight up.
So your results arrive in 2 groups:
- Best jobs - paying in the 75th percentile or higher for your search, posted in the past 48 hours.
- Other jobs - everything else. Still there, just further down.
Level up your travel nurse job hunt to God Mode with the most comprehensive job market overview available.
Our lightning fast AI scans job offers around the clock, filtering DAILY through an average of 15,000 new jobs offers from more than 500 travel nursing agencies.
No bait and switch job offers here.
We check each contract with the source while you're searching, so you're never calling about a job that filled last week:
- 3 dots - we're verifying that listing right now
- A green checkmark - updated in the past few minutes
- A double green checkmark - updated and the pay changed, so re-read it before you act
Which travel nurse jobs show up first, and why
You get a full overview on the travel nurse jobs that pay you best, not who pays us best.
We don't accept extra compensation from companies to move subpar jobs to the top of the list. Nobody buys placement here. Our AI automatically filters your job search results to show the most recent jobs paying in the 75th percentile or higher.
You never have to apply to a job blindly again.
Every rate is measured against what your specialty in your locations has actually paid over the past 6 months - so "good pay" means good for the market you're shopping in, not good compared to some national number.
That means each listing tells you:
- Where the rate lands - 99th percentile, above average, average, or below average
- How far above or below, in dollars per week ie. 👍 $1,074.00/week higher than average
- Which other agencies are offering that same contract, and what each of them pays
That last one is the difference between hoping you got a fair rate and knowing. The same job goes out through several agencies, each keeping a different cut, and 1 button messages as many of them as you want.
Compare contracts with confidence.
Every pay figure is adjusted to a standard 36-hour week before anything is compared, so a 48-hour contract won't look like a raise when it's the same hourly rate for 12 more hours of your life.
Searching more than 1 state? You get a pay map comparing every state you picked, so you can see where the money is this month and click straight into it.
What happens to my contact information?
When I jumped into travel nursing, all my inboxes were soon overloaded by travel nursing agencies. Most of whom I never gave my info to. Sound familiar? 😑
This is a common complaint from all travel nurses.
Your privacy is so important to us that we built our whole system around safeguarding it.
Here are the steps we take to protect your privacy on your travel nursing job hunt:
- You don't have to login or share your contact information to view all the best travel nursing jobs on the market.
- Every account comes with a free private
@SNurseMail.comaddress, so agencies never see your personal email. - Your data isn't for sale, ever. Your personal information is only shared with a travel nursing agency when you choose to share it.
An agency you message gets your first name and last initial, your specialties, years of experience, licenses, that private address, and your phone number. Nothing more, and nobody else.
Your number is on that list, so set up a free burner number before your first message. It takes about 2 minutes.
Already buried in recruiter calls and emails from somewhere else? You can dig out - my guide to stopping agency spam calls and emails walks through revoking consent and clearing what's already in the pipeline.
How to find travel nurse jobs
Every travel contract is booked through an agency. They credential you and submit you to the facility, so there's no version of this where you apply to the hospital yourself.
What you do control is how many agencies you're talking to, and whether you know what a contract is worth before you pick up the phone.
The method that works is 2 moves:
- Zoom out. Look at the whole market for your specialty first - every agency's open contracts in one place - so you know the going rate before anyone quotes you one.
- Zoom in. Pick the contracts worth your 13 weeks, then start conversations with several agencies on the same contract so they're competing for you instead of handing you one take-it-or-leave-it number.
That's the god-mode view: the entire board first, then the handful of jobs on it actually worth your time. The full method is in the agencies vs. platforms section of my travel nursing guide - agencies get you on the contract, a platform gives you the leverage, and you want both.
One thing worth knowing before you start: timing matters more than nurses are usually told. From speaking with hundreds of agencies, I've found the highest-paying contracts in in-demand specialties fill within 48 hours - so a list you pulled last week is mostly jobs that are already gone.
Still deciding where to run that first search? I put the options side by side in which travel nurse job board is best.
Travel nursing jobs for beginners and new grads
If you're searching traveling nurse jobs for beginners or new grad travel nurse jobs, here's the straight answer: most facilities want 1-2 years of recent bedside experience in the specialty you're applying to.
Travel nursing jobs for beginners exist, but they're a smaller slice of the board than the agency ads suggest.
That requirement comes from the facility, not the agency, and it isn't gatekeeping for its own sake.
A traveler gets a few days of orientation instead of a few months, so the unit is counting on you already knowing the work. Nobody is protecting turf; they're protecting a patient load nobody has time to hand off slowly.
Some specialties flex on it and some never will. How much experience you actually need breaks down which is which.
What that means for your search right now:
- Search anyway. Listings show their experience requirement, so you'll see which units are open to you rather than guessing.
- Count the experience you have, not the title. Recent bedside months in the specialty are what gets read, not total years since you were licensed.
- A recruiter saying no isn't the market saying no. The same contract goes out through several agencies, and they don't all screen identically. Message a few on the same job.
- Time it against your unit. If you're 4 months short, that's a date on a calendar, not a closed door.
Travel nursing jobs near me
Filter by state or metro and you'll see what's open close to home, with the same pay comparison on every listing.
Worth knowing before you take one: a contract near your permanent address may not qualify for tax-free stipends.
That isn't an agency rule, it's the IRS. Tax-free housing and meal money depends on genuinely maintaining 2 households and being far enough from your tax home to need lodging, and a local contract usually fails that test.
The pay can still be worth it. It just means comparing a local contract's gross weekly number against a travel contract's take-home, not against its headline.
The travel nurse taxes guide covers where that line actually sits, including why the 50-mile rule you'll hear from recruiters isn't in the tax code at all.
How to land the highest paying travel nursing jobs
Knowing which specialties hold the top paying travel nursing jobs doesn't get you one of those contracts. Preparation does, and it's the part every "highest paying jobs" list skips.
Get your paperwork ready before you reach out
Compliance and credentialing is one of the biggest burdens travel nurses take on, and a recruiter can only move as fast as you can hand things over.
From talking with hundreds of agencies, I've found the highest-paying jobs in the most in-demand specialties usually fill within 48 hours. Being ready is the whole competition.
So build your credentialing folder before you make contact, and keep it somewhere you can send a recruiter anything they ask for in 30 seconds - even at 9 PM on a Friday. The full requirements guide lists every document by specialty.
The requirement that never makes a checklist is cash in the bank. An emergency fund is what lets you hold out for a great contract instead of signing a mediocre one because rent is due.
Be flexible, especially on location
Flexibility is the fastest way to raise the rate you can reach, and location is the biggest piece of it.
The top-paying contracts cluster where facilities are struggling to fill them, so the rate climbs until someone says yes.
The more of these you can move on, the better the numbers you'll see:
- Location - expand your options so more of the market is open to you
- Start date - a facility covering a gap next week pays for speed
- Agencies - work with 2-5 so you can compare what each returns on the same contract
Flexible doesn't mean anywhere at any price, though. A well-paid contract 6 hours from anyone you know is still 6 hours from anyone you know - worth planning for, not discovering in week 3.
Shift is the one lever that doesn't move the rate. Night contracts outnumber day roughly 2 to 1, so nights roughly double your options, but day and night medians sit within 1% of each other.
Time your search against the calendar
- Winter contracts in northern states really do pay more - across 2023-2025, Wisconsin, North Dakota and Maine all ran about 5% above their own summer rates, because fewer nurses will relocate somewhere cold. Florida runs the opposite way and pays better in summer.
- January is the peak month, not the holidays - nationally it averages about 5% above the rest of the year, February about 2%. November and December both sit slightly below, so the money comes after the holidays.
- Start looking 4-8 weeks out from your target start date for the best selection.
- Extensions often come with a bump - agencies save on re-onboarding when you stay, and that saving is negotiable.
Vet the agency, then push on the offer
Not every agency pays the same for the same job, even though it all starts from 1 bill rate from the hospital.
From a listing you can message several agencies about that one contract in a single move, then judge them on what comes back and how long it takes.
- Interview each one. That recruiter call is a 2-way screen - ask your own questions about pay transparency, unit support, and what happens to you if a contract gets cancelled. The full vetting checklist has the rest.
- The rate on the offer isn't final. Negotiating your pay moves the number more than most nurses expect, especially on specialty contracts where the agency has room.
- Then check the deal behind the number. Run it against the contract checklist - guaranteed hours, what happens when the census drops, cancellation terms on both sides, and the overtime rate in writing.
A great contract survives the questions.
Start your search
You know what your specialty pays this week, you can see which agency is paying the most for the same contract, and your phone stays quiet until you decide otherwise. That's the whole idea.
Where to go next:
- Ready to look? Find travel nursing jobs for your specialty and location.
- Want the steadier pay view? 12-month averages across 75+ specialties are in the travel nurse salary guide.
- Want to know how the site works first? The help page walks through all of it.
- New to travel nursing entirely? Read how to become a travel nurse.
- Want the whole library? Every guide I've written is collected on the guides page.
Thank you for giving this a look. I built StellarNurse because I was tired of guessing what a contract was worth and tired of my phone ringing for months afterward - and I'd rather hand you the whole board than let you find out the hard way like I did.
Got a question about a job, an agency, or an offer sitting in front of you? Message me anytime. I read every one.
See What Your Specialty Pays Right Now
Every agency's open contracts in one search - including what each one pays for the same job.
Frequently asked questions
- What are the highest paying travel nursing jobs?
- On contracts open right now, RNFA leads at about $3,114 a week but with only 31 openings nationwide. Among specialties with real volume, CVOR ($2,681) and Cath Lab ($2,540) are the top of the RN market. CRNA pays far more at about $5,814 a week, but that's advanced practice, not bedside RN work.
- What type of travel nurse makes the most money?
- CRNAs, by a wide margin. Within standard RN specialties it's CVOR and Cath Lab, mostly because far fewer nurses are trained in them.
- Can you make 6 figures as a travel nurse?
- Yes. At the $2,180 weekly average, a full year of back-to-back contracts is roughly $113,
- A top specialty like CVOR or Cath Lab puts that closer to $132,000-$139,000. Most travelers take unpaid gaps between contracts though, so a realistic 48-week year lands nearer $104,700.
- Can travel nurses make $10K a week?
- Not on a standard RN contract - that market has cooled. CRNA pay averages $5,814 a week with a standard deviation over $1,600, so individual CRNA contracts do clear $10K. The $8,000-10,000 figures still floating around for RN contracts are pandemic-era peaks.
- How much do travel nurses make?
- It depends on specialty and location, and rates move constantly. The table above has live medians by specialty, or read how much travel nurses make for the full picture including how a pay package splits.
- Do I need an account to see travel nursing jobs?
- No. Full job details including pay are visible without logging in. You only need a free profile to search several states or specialties at once, save your preferences, and message agencies.
- Do I still need an agency?
- Yes. Every travel contract is booked through an agency - they credential you and submit you to the facility. StellarNurse is how you see the whole market and pick which agency to work with instead of taking the first recruiter who calls.
- Why does the same job appear from different agencies?
- Because a facility releases one contract to several agencies, and each sets its own cut. That's why every listing shows what the others are paying for it - the work is identical, the rate often isn't.
- Will agencies spam me if I use StellarNurse?
- Not from us. You can look without an account, your messages go out from a private address, and your details only ever reach agencies you chose to contact. We never sell your information.
- Can new grads get travel nursing jobs?
- Rarely, and it's the facility setting that bar rather than the agency. Most units want 1-2 years of recent bedside experience in your specialty, because a traveler gets days of orientation instead of months. How much experience you need covers which specialties flex on it.
- Which travel nursing company is best to work for?
- There isn't one answer that holds, because the same contract pays differently through different agencies - so the best agency is the best one for the job in front of you this week. What does stay consistent is responsiveness, credentialing speed, and whether the benefits are real. How to choose a travel nurse agency has the questions to ask.
- How do I find travel nursing jobs near me?
- Search your specialty and filter by state or metro to see what's open close to home. Worth knowing: a contract near your permanent address may not qualify for tax-free stipends, since that depends on genuinely maintaining 2 households - the travel nurse taxes guide explains where that line sits.