🧳 Travel Nurse Pay Package Calculator
A travel nurse pay package is not one number. It is taxable wages plus housing and meal stipends, and the IRS only lets the stipends stay tax-free up to the GSA per diem caps for the assignment city. This calculator, straight from Dee's How To Charge workbook, builds the full package, flags any stipend money that crosses the GSA line into taxable income, computes your fully loaded cost floor as the agency, and then pressure-tests the recruiter and account executive comp plans behind it. Run your numbers once free; the $27 one-time unlock keeps every section live forever and includes the Excel workbook.
Step 1: Assignment details
Stipends above GSA maximums become taxable income. This calculator builds the full pay package (taxable wages, non-taxable stipends) and flags GSA compliance for you.
Standard: 13 weeks. Can be 8, 13, 26, 52.
Typical: 36 or 40 hours/week.
Step 2: GSA per diem rate lookup
Look up your assignment location at gsa.gov/travel/plan-book/per-diem-rates. GSA rates are the IRS maximum for tax-free stipends; anything above these amounts becomes taxable.
Enter YOUR location's GSA monthly lodging rate.
Enter YOUR location's GSA daily meals and incidentals rate.
Step 3: Build your pay package
Base taxable pay per hour.
Compare to the GSA max in Step 2.
Compare to the GSA max in Step 2.
One-time; amortized across contract weeks.
Taxable. Paid at contract completion.
Step 6: Your cost as the agency
What it costs your agency to put this traveler on assignment. Burden applies to the taxable wage portion only; stipends are not wages.
FICA, FUTA, SUTA, and workers comp on the taxable portion only. Use your % from the Burden Builder tab, or pick a state above.
Step 7: Your bill rate
The sheet prices 20-40% markups off your cost floor automatically; enter your own quote here to see its gross profit and margin.
Role 1: Travel nurse recruiter (W2)
The recruiter sources candidates, manages compliance and credentialing, and places nurses on assignment. Paid a flat bonus per placement with a quality gate: the nurse must complete at least 2 weeks before the bonus is earned.
Market range: $42,000 to $60,000 for travel nurse recruiters.
Range: $250 to $600. The quality gate protects against ghost placements.
Range: $100 to $350. Rewards relationship maintenance.
Role 2: Travel nurse account executive (W2)
The travel AE signs new hospital and health system contracts and manages the facility relationship. Commission is anchored to GP per hour, not bill rate: travel bill rates contain large non-wage stipend components that inflate revenue artificially.
Market range: $52,000 to $72,000 for healthcare staffing AEs.
Range: 5-10% of GP. 7% is validated mid-market for travel nurse staffing.
Total travel nurses currently on assignment generating GP.
Range: $500 to $2,000.
Range: $150 to $500. Rewards account retention.
Role 2B: Travel nurse account executive (1099 commission-only)
The 1099 travel AE is commission-only with no base salary and no benefits. All inputs here are fully independent of the W2 role.
Range: 8-14%, higher than W2 to compensate for self-employment tax and no benefits.
Higher than W2: with no base, one-time bonuses carry more weight.
Estimates for planning, not financial advice. Rates, premiums, and burden numbers are the workbook's guidance ranges; your market and your carriers decide the real ones.
Does this resonate?
Travel nursing is the flagship of healthcare staffing. Build the agency behind it.
If structuring compliant pay packages sounds like your kind of business, the platform can turn it into a real plan: positioning, licensing checklist, and the week-by-week path from first facility contract to a roster of travelers on billing.
Build my launch plan free →Good questions about this math
What goes into a travel nurse pay package?
Three main pieces: a taxable hourly wage, a weekly housing stipend, and a weekly meals and incidentals (M&IE) stipend, plus one-time items like travel reimbursement and completion bonuses that the sheet amortizes across the contract weeks. The stipends are the reason a travel package can feel much richer per hour than the taxable rate alone.
How much of the stipend money is tax-free?
Stipends are tax-free only up to the GSA per diem maximums for the assignment location (published at gsa.gov and updated every October 1). The calculator converts the GSA monthly lodging cap and daily M&IE cap to weekly numbers and flags any offer above them: the excess becomes taxable income to the traveler, and the sheet moves it into the taxable column so the package split is honest.
What is a blended hourly rate?
The total weekly package (taxable pay plus all stipends and amortized extras) divided by guaranteed weekly hours. It is what the package feels like per hour to the traveler, and it is the number travelers use to compare offers, even though only part of it is wages.
What markup do travel nurse agencies charge?
The sheet prices 20 to 40 percent markups over your fully loaded cost floor: taxable pay, employer burden on the taxable portion only (stipends are not wages, so they carry no payroll burden), plus the per-hour cost of stipends, travel, and bonuses. The floor line is blunt about it: bill below your floor and you are paying to work.
Why does this calculator's verdict differ from the original spreadsheet?
The source workbook's two profit margin formulas divided a negative net by a negative gross profit, which returned a large positive margin and a STRONG verdict even when the model lost money each month. This version implements the corrections documented in the committed spec, so a nonpositive GP now reads as a WARNING. The corrections are footnoted on the page.
Do I get the Excel version?
Yes. The $27 unlock includes the standalone Travel Nurse Pay workbook from Dee's How To Charge master, plus the START HERE guide tab, yours to download and keep.
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