Travel Nurse Paycheck Calculator: Take-Home Pay (2026)

How to use this travel nurse paycheck calculator: type in the taxable hourly rate, the hours, the weekly housing and M and IE stipends from your offer letter, then your federal marginal rate and your state rate. It returns the total weekly package, the tax on each part, and the take-home for the week, which is the figure to compare between two agencies. It works as a travel nurse tax calculator for the stipend question too: move the split and watch what changes. Estimates only. Payroll tax is fixed at 7.65% and the income tax rates are the ones you enter, so check your marginal rate on a recent pay stub before you rely on it.

Why Your Pay Stub Is Not Your Take-Home Pay

Hospitals pay agencies a bill rate per hour. That number is the whole size of your paycheck. What you are paid per hour is only the slice of it the agency labels “wages.” Everything else gets relabeled as housing stipend and meals stipend, and relabeled money is money you are not taxed on.

So when a recruiter says “$55 an hour plus $1,000 stipend,” they are describing one particular arrangement of the same total. A different agency offering “$28 an hour plus $2,400 stipend” may be handing you more actual cash. The gross is identical. The W-2 is not.

Three components, three tax outcomes:

Component	Income tax	Payroll tax (7.65%)	Counts for overtime
Taxable hourly wages	Yes	Yes	Yes
Housing stipend under the ceiling, with a tax home	No	No	No
M and IE stipend under the ceiling, with a tax home	No	No	No
Any stipend dollar above the ceiling	Yes	Yes	Depends how it is booked

Worked Example: The Same Bill Rate, Split Two Ways

A San Francisco assignment, $95 an hour bill rate, 36 hours a week, $3,420 a week of total value. Both nurses have a real tax home and both stay under the city ceiling. Only the split differs.

Line	Nurse A	Nurse B
Taxable hourly	$28.00/hr	$55.00/hr
Weekly wages	$1,008	$1,980
Weekly housing stipend	$1,772	$1,000
Weekly M and IE stipend	$640	$440
Total weekly package	$3,420	$3,420
Payroll tax at 7.65%	($77)	($151)
Income tax at 22% federal plus 5% state	($272)	($535)
Take-home for the week	$3,071	$2,734
Per hour actually worked	$85.30	$75.94

Nurse A keeps $336.80 more every week on the identical assignment ($16,166 across 48 working weeks) because $46,656 of the same money was labeled correctly. Nurse B’s offer looks better on a job board, because job boards print the hourly rate.

Both columns are modeled at the same 22% federal plus 5% state rate so the comparison isolates one variable: the split. In practice Nurse A’s smaller taxable pay probably lands in a lower bracket than Nurse B’s, which widens A’s lead rather than narrowing it. Treat the $336.80 as the floor.

San Francisco’s FY2027 lodging ceiling is $325 a night in January through March, which is $2,275 a week of legal tax-free housing, so Nurse A’s $1,772 is comfortably inside it. That is the part worth checking before you copy this split: the tax-free line is only legal up to the ceiling for your city and your month. The stipend calculator gives you that number, and is per diem taxable? covers when the IRS takes it back.

Four Things This Calculator Deliberately Leaves Out

Overtime is computed on the hourly portion only

Shift the split toward stipend and your overtime rate falls with it. Nurse A’s $28.00 hourly means time-and-a-half at $42.00. Nurse B’s $55.00 means $82.50. If you routinely pick up extra shifts, the gap narrows and can invert. Work your own expected OT hours before deciding.

Social Security and Medicare are built on reported wages

Nurse A’s stipend lines ($115,776 across 48 weeks) never touch the earnings record the Social Security Administration uses to calculate retirement and disability benefits. Medicare’s hospital-insurance part works the same way. It is a distant, real reduction, and it is also why a lower-W-2 year can raise your ACA subsidy and shrink your Saver’s Credit eligibility in ways you should model, not guess.

Benefits and loan payments key off the smaller number

401(k) match, life insurance multiples and income-driven repayment calculations all read reported wages. A stipend-heavy package can quietly cost you a match and then, years later, save you money on IDR. Which one you care about depends on your stage.

Failure of the tax home converts all of it back to wages

The whole model above assumes the three tests pass. They are not automatic. If your tax home collapses, the tax-free lines become taxable, and the nurse who optimized hardest for stipend takes the largest hit. Read the travel nurse tax home rules before you treat the split as free money.

What To Ask Before You Sign

Three numbers in writing. Any recruiter who will not give them is optimizing against you:

1. Total weekly bill rate the hospital pays for you.
2. The taxable hourly portion and the hours assumed.
3. The stipend portion, split into housing and M and IE separately, and which one is re-papered if the contract extends.

The bill rate is not confidential. It is the basis of your pay, and you are the one earning it. Once you have it, the calculator above prices any split in about ten seconds, and you can compare two agencies on the only number that matters.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is a higher stipend always better?

Not always. Better take-home, usually, but worse for overtime, retirement match, Social Security credits, and any application that reads reported income. If you are healthy, salaried-hours-stable and near a home purchase, the calculus changes.

Why is my first paycheck smaller than I expected?

Almost always one of three things: the agency withholds income tax on the stipend too until your paperwork clears, a first-month housing payment was grossed up, or your tax home documentation is not yet in the system. Ask payroll which one it is in writing.

Do I owe taxes on stipends if I am single with no tax home?

Then they are not stipends in the IRS’s eye: they are wages, and yes, all of it is taxable. This is the single most expensive misunderstanding in travel nursing.

Should I set money aside for quarterly taxes?

Only if you are 1099, or have side income a W-2 is not withholding against. On a normal W-2 travel contract the agency handles withholding. The 1099 versus W-2 guide runs that comparison properly.

How much does state tax change the answer?

A lot, and in a counterintuitive direction. Nine states have no income tax, so a tax home there means your stipend and your wages both escape state tax, while you still file non-resident returns where you worked. This breakdown covers which state gets what.

Related Guides

• Housing stipend calculator, by city and month
• Is per diem taxable? The three tests
• The IRS tax home test in plain English
• 1099 vs W-2: which nets more
• Budget spreadsheet for irregular payweeks

Estimates for planning only, not personalized tax advice. Confirm current rates at irs.gov and your own pay stub before making a contract decision.

Sources we checked

Every figure on this page came from one of the documents below, not from another blog. Links checked 10 October 2026.

• IRS Publication 463 - Travel, Gift, and Car Expenses: The tax-home definition, the temporary-versus-indefinite assignment test and the one-year rule every per-diem answer on this page rests on.
• IRS Publication 505 - Tax Withholding and Estimated Tax: Withholding rules, the estimated-tax safe harbours and the penalty the calculator on this page is trying to avoid.
• Instructions for Form 1040, including the Qualified Dividends and Capital Gain Tax Worksheet: The worksheet itself, line by line, with the 2026 rate schedule it applies.
• IRS Publication 969 - Health Savings Accounts and Other Tax-Favored Health Plans: 2026 HSA contribution limits and what a high-deductible plan has to look like to qualify.
• IRS inflation adjustments for tax year 2026 (Rev. Proc. 2025-32): The 2026 brackets, standard deduction, IRA and HSA limits and capital-gain breakpoints quoted across this site.
• IRS Rev. Proc. 2025-32 (PDF, published 9 Oct 2025): The only IRS document that prints the 2026 capital-gain band ceilings used on this page ($49,450 single, $66,200 head of household, $98,900 joint).