Enter your offer and we’ll work through the federal tax, state tax, and stipend math. Review one package or compare two side by side.
Built for travel nurses · 2026 single-filer estimate
Where do I find these numbers on my offer?
This shows the kind of plain-language pay breakdown a recruiter may send before the formal contract. Agency wording and payment rules vary, so confirm every line in writing.
Fictional example: all numbers are made up.
From: Alex Rivera
Subject: ICU Night Shift Opportunity - Cedar Bluff Medical Center (Oct 19 start)
Date: October 6, 2026
Hi there,
Thanks so much for chatting with me today, I was excited to put this one together for you. Cedar Bluff Medical Center has an opening in their ICU on night shift, and I think you'd be a great fit. The facility is in Brentwood, Tennessee. The details: you'd start October 19, 2026, working three 12s from 7:00 PM to 7:00 AM.
Here's how the pay package breaks down:
Taxable rate: $27.00/hour ($972/week at 36 hours)
Scheduled hours: 36 hours/week
Housing stipend: $2,800/month (about $646/week)
Meals & incidentals: $450/week
Travel reimbursement: $800, paid with first paycheck
Completion bonus: $1,000 after successful completion
Guaranteed hours: 36 hours/week
Overtime pays $40.50/hour after 40 worked hours in a week. All in, the estimated average weekly gross comes out to approximately $2,207. That's the monthly housing converted to a weekly figure, with the one-time travel reimbursement and completion bonus spread across the assignment (actual checks will vary week to week).
The assignment runs 13 weeks. I'll send over the full agreement with your paperwork. It has the complete terms on cancellation and missed shifts.
Let me know what you think. Happy to answer any questions!
Best, Alex Rivera Healthcare Recruiter
Your offer
1
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Fills the pay fields with this state's 12-month average package (keeping your stipend lines). Handy when researching a state. If you have an actual offer, enter its numbers instead.
Choose the assignment state, not your home state. The average is an advertised 36-hour weekly package.
weeks
Taxes are estimated as if this weekly pay ran all year, then scaled to your contract.
Use the facility’s 5-digit ZIP for the most precise federal lookup. A primary GSA or official DoD locality name also works.
FY2027 runs Oct. 1, 2026–Sep. 30, 2027. If rates vary across your contract, the check shows the full range.
How is the pay listed?
Use the weekly-package view for a headline weekly offer. Enter its pay components below and we’ll add them up. Switching views keeps the same package.
$
$
$
Your weekly package$0
hours
Hours above 40 are estimated at 1.5× the entered hourly rate. Confirm the overtime trigger and rate in your contract.
$
The wage portion subject to payroll and income tax.
$
The weekly housing allowance shown in the package.
$
The separate weekly meals-and-incidentals allowance, if listed.
Your weekly package$0
Advanced offer details Bill rate, bonuses, reimbursements, benefits and assignment housing
$
Use for sign-on, completion, or travel pay that payroll treats as taxable.
$
Enter only if the offer or payroll team confirms this treatment. Added to cash, not wages.
$
Shown in total offer value, never added to cash take-home.
The hourly rate the hospital pays the agency: ask your recruiter. It's the single most useful number for negotiating.
$
Assignment housing arrangement
Choose agency-provided when housing is supplied instead of you paying separate assignment rent.
$
Subtract rent to see what remains after assignment housing.
Do you keep paying for a permanent home while you travel?
This is about your tax home, not just an address. Tax-free treatment generally requires duplicated living expenses at a permanent residence, and the stipend must stay within the assignment locality’s federal per-diem limit. If you are unsure, use “No / not sure” and confirm with a qualified tax professional.
Offer B
B
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Fills the pay fields with this state's 12-month average package (keeping your stipend lines). Handy when researching a state. If you have an actual offer, enter its numbers instead.
Choose the assignment state, not your home state. The average is an advertised 36-hour weekly package.
weeks
Taxes are estimated as if this weekly pay ran all year, then scaled to your contract.
Use the facility’s 5-digit ZIP for the most precise federal lookup. A primary GSA or official DoD locality name also works.
FY2027 runs Oct. 1, 2026–Sep. 30, 2027. If rates vary across your contract, the check shows the full range.
How is the pay listed?
Use the weekly-package view for a headline weekly offer. Enter its pay components below and we’ll add them up. Switching views keeps the same package.
$
$
$
Your weekly package$0
hours
Hours above 40 are estimated at 1.5× the entered hourly rate. Confirm the overtime trigger and rate in your contract.
$
The wage portion subject to payroll and income tax.
$
The weekly housing allowance shown in the package.
$
The separate weekly meals-and-incidentals allowance, if listed.
Your weekly package$0
Advanced offer details Bill rate, bonuses, reimbursements, benefits and assignment housing
$
Use for sign-on, completion, or travel pay that payroll treats as taxable.
$
Enter only if the offer or payroll team confirms this treatment. Added to cash, not wages.
$
Shown in total offer value, never added to cash take-home.
The hourly rate the hospital pays the agency: ask your recruiter. It's the single most useful number for negotiating.
$
Assignment housing arrangement
Choose agency-provided when housing is supplied instead of you paying separate assignment rent.
$
Subtract rent to see what remains after assignment housing.
Do you keep paying for a permanent home while you travel?
This is about your tax home, not just an address. Tax-free treatment generally requires duplicated living expenses at a permanent residence, and the stipend must stay within the assignment locality’s federal per-diem limit. If you are unsure, use “No / not sure” and confirm with a qualified tax professional.
Offer Review Kit · $29 one time
A clearer offer and a plan for what to ask next.
Six practical tools for one $29 payment: a personalized offer brief, counteroffer scripts, a contract checklist, a tax-home guide, a stipend sanity check, and a first-assignment list.
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Here’s what you’ll get.
Preview the format with the two static sample briefs below, prepared from a fictional case.
Inside the kit
Six practical tools for reviewing the offer. It’s a one-time purchase, not a subscription.
01Personalized offer briefYour offer numbers, the first question to ask, your next steps, and a recruiter message.
02Counteroffer scriptsMessages for asking for a better rate or stipend, answering “this is our final offer,” or turning down an offer cleanly.
03Contract reviewWhat to look for in guaranteed hours, cancellations, overtime, on-call terms, housing, and restrictive clauses.
04Tax-home guideA plain-English guide to duplicated expenses, records to keep, and questions for a tax professional.
05Stipend sanity checkA simple way to check housing and meal stipends against the assignment location instead of taking “maximum” at face value.
06First assignmentA step-by-step list for licensure, housing, tax-home records, and move-in details.
Sample briefs
Two sample briefs from a single case.
Single offer sampleComparison sample
Your personalized kit unlocks at checkout.
How we get to the estimate.
This is an estimate, not tax advice. Use it as a starting point for reviewing an offer, not as a final answer on whether your stipend qualifies as tax-free.
01
Split wages from stipends
If you select “Yes: treat stipend as untaxed,” we leave the stipend out of taxable wages. Travel-nurse stipends commonly total $1,000–$1,400 per week, but your applicable GSA or DoD caps may be different.
02
Estimate a full year of taxable pay
We use the 2026 single-filer brackets, the $16,100 standard deduction, and current Social Security and Medicare rates. Then we scale the result to your contract length.
03
Estimate tax for the assignment state
California and New York use their published single-filer brackets (2025 tables, the latest published). Flat-tax and no-wage-tax states use their published 2026 rates. Other progressive states use the published top rate as a rough estimate. Home-state and city taxes are not included.
04
Compare the package with advertised pay
For one offer, we compare base weekly pay with the state’s trailing-12-month advertised average for a 36-hour week. We spread contract bonuses and reimbursements across the weeks you enter. Benefits count toward offer value, but not cash take-home.
State-tax method: Select an assignment to see how its estimate is modeled.
City and home-state taxes are not modeled.
State advertised averages assume 36 hours per week.
The annualized estimate assumes this weekly pay continued for 52 weeks, then scales it to your contract; part-year and multi-state taxes may differ.
Take-home is not purchasing power. Enter assignment housing under Advanced offer details to see what remains after rent.
Any tax-free stipend treatment assumes you qualify.
This page’s URL always holds your current inputs. Bookmark it or share it to return to this exact offer; results are rounded to the nearest dollar.
Updated with sources read September 29, 2026. The federal lookup bundles the official FY2027 GSA CONUS files plus DoD non-CONUS Bulletin 332: 295 GSA localities and 140 DoD localities with seasonal lodging and meals & incidentals rates. CONUS ZIPs absent from GSA’s non-standard mapping use the $113 lodging / $68 meals & incidentals standard rate. The DoD ZIP crosswalk is constructed because DTMO does not publish one; unmatched non-CONUS ZIPs fail closed instead of falling back to CONUS. California uses 2025 inflation-adjusted bracket widths because 2026 widths were unavailable in the cited February 2026 state table. South Carolina’s cited 6.00% temporary top rate was scheduled to revert to 6.20% on July 1, 2026, so its proxy may understate late-2026 state tax. Privacy: the only third-party request this page makes is Google Fonts; your inputs live in the page URL and are never sent anywhere.
