How the travel nurse housing stipend works

What the stipend is

Many travel nurse pay packages have two parts: a taxable hourly wage, and allowances for lodging and for meals and incidental expenses (M&IE) that are paid tax-free when you qualify. The lodging allowance is the housing stipend. Agencies usually quote it as a weekly amount. If you take agency-provided housing instead, the agency generally keeps that money and uses it to pay for the place it arranges.

Why it can be tax-free

The tax treatment comes from the IRS rules for travel away from home, laid out in IRS Publication 463. In plain terms:

• You need a tax home. Your tax home is generally your regular or main place of work. If you don't have one, as many full-time travelers don't, it can be the place where you regularly live.
• The IRS looks at three factors when you have no regular place of work: (1) you do some of your work in the area of your main home and stay in that home while you do; (2) you have living expenses at that home that you duplicate when work takes you away; and (3) you haven't abandoned the area, or a family member lives in the home, or you often stay there yourself. Meet all three and that home is your tax home. Meet two and it depends on the facts. Meet only one and the IRS treats you as itinerant: your tax home is wherever you work, and you can't deduct travel expenses.
• Duplicated expenses matter. A nurse who gave up her apartment and pays no housing costs anywhere else isn't duplicating anything.
• The assignment has to be temporary. Work in one place that's realistically expected to last a year or less is temporary. If it's expected to last more than a year, it's indefinite, and that place becomes your tax home. An assignment that starts out temporary becomes indefinite from the point an extension makes it realistically likely to run past a year.
• There's no mileage test. Publication 463 doesn't use a set distance. You're traveling away from home when work keeps you away from your tax home's general area for longer than an ordinary workday and you need to sleep or rest there.

When those conditions are met and the agency pays the allowance under what the IRS calls an accountable plan, a per diem allowance at or below the federal rate generally isn't counted as wages. Any amount above the federal rate is generally taxable. Without a tax home, the stipend generally doesn't qualify for that treatment.

Many agencies also have their own distance rule, often 50 miles or more between your permanent address and the hospital, before they'll pay a stipend at all. That's agency policy, not IRS law.

Keep records: your lease or mortgage statements at home, receipts for what you pay there, your rental agreement on assignment, and anything showing you go back home between contracts. This is general information, not tax advice. Tax home questions turn on your own facts, so talk to a tax professional who works with travel healthcare workers.

How much the stipend is, and why it varies

The federal per diem rates set by the General Services Administration (GSA) give agencies a ceiling for the tax-free part of the package, since per diem at or below the federal rate is generally not treated as wages. GSA publishes a nightly lodging rate and a daily M&IE rate for each area.

• Location. The standard lodging rate covers most of the continental US. For federal fiscal year 2027 (October 1, 2026 through September 30, 2027) it's $113 a night, up from $110, and the standard M&IE rate is $68 a day. Another 295 locations, mostly major cities and popular destinations, have their own higher rates.
• Season. In some markets the lodging rate changes by month, so a beach town or ski area can have a much higher rate in peak season.
• The calendar. GSA rates reset every October 1, so a contract that runs through the fall can straddle two sets of rates.
• Your agency. Agencies don't have to pay the full GSA rate. Some pay less, and some shift money between the stipend and the hourly rate. Compare whole packages rather than the stipend line alone.

GSA lodging rates are per night, so a monthly figure is roughly the nightly rate times 30. At the FY2027 standard rate that's about $3,390 for lodging in a 30-day month. Treat that as a ceiling, not what you'll necessarily be offered. You can check the rate for any county with our stipend calculator, which uses current GSA lodging rates, or on GSA's per diem rate lookup.

Stipends by state

People often search for stipend amounts by state, but GSA sets rates by city and county. One state can have the standard rate in its rural counties and a much higher rate in its biggest metro area, so a statewide average tells you little. Look up the county the hospital is in. GSA's own rules tie the rate to where the work happens, not where you sleep.

Taking the stipend or agency housing

Agency housing means the agency finds and pays for a place, often an apartment or an extended-stay hotel, and you give up the stipend. It saves time on short-notice contracts. You have little say over location, size or pets, and if the place costs less than your stipend would have been, the agency keeps the difference.

Taking the stipend means you find and pay for your own place, and what you don't spend on housing is yours. The cost is the time spent searching and the risk of being tied to a lease if the contract changes. The guide to how travel nurse housing works compares the options in more detail.

Keeping housing under the stipend

• Search by the hospital, then widen the radius. A place 15 miles out can cost noticeably less than one next to the hospital.
• Go smaller. A studio or guest suite often costs less than a one-bedroom apartment.
• Ask for all-in rent. Utilities, Wi-Fi and parking billed separately add up over three months.
• Ask about the rate for a full contract. Some hosts will take less for 13 weeks paid on time than for a month-to-month stay.
• Remember your home costs. You're still paying for your tax home. The stipend is meant to cover the second place, not both.

On Med Pro Housing you can search near any of 5,384 US hospitals with a price filter and save the search, so new listings under your budget arrive by email. For timing and lease terms, see housing for a 13-week contract.