Renting to Travel Nurses in 2026: Is It a Good Idea, and What to Charge
By CircleRN Team | Published 2026-10-13 | 8 min read
What travel nurses pay for rent, from 6,915 CircleRN listings: a $2,200 median for an entire place and $1,200 for a room, below the GSA lodging limit in all ten large markets compared. Pros and cons, pricing against the stipend, rooms vs whole homes, where to list, screening, and cancellations.
Renting to travel nurses is a good fit if you have a furnished room or home near a hospital and can handle a new tenant every three months or so. A travel nurse arrives with a license you can verify, a contract with fixed dates, and a housing stipend meant for exactly this. On CircleRN, a furnished studio or one-bedroom asks a median 15 percent above HUD's fair market rent for the same city. The trade-off is turnover, furnishing costs, and the chance that a hospital cancels the contract early.
This guide is for hosts deciding whether to do it. It covers what travel nurses actually pay, how to price against the stipend, rooms versus whole homes, where to list, how to screen, and what to do about cancellations. The figures come from 6,915 active CircleRN listings in 2,438 cities as of October 2026. Running the rental once you have a tenant, including the lease, furnishing and taxes, is covered in our mid-term rental guide.
Is renting to travel nurses a good idea?
For many hosts it is. Three things make travel nurses different from a typical tenant. First, they are licensed professionals, and a nursing license is public record you can check in a minute. Second, they arrive on a contract, usually 13 weeks, so you know the start and end dates before you agree. Third, most of them are paid a weekly housing stipend, so rent is a budgeted cost, not a stretch.
It also pays. Across CircleRN listings matched to HUD's fair market rents, a furnished studio or one-bedroom asks a median 15 percent above the HUD figure for that city, and a two-bedroom asks 38 percent above. Fair market rent is HUD's estimate of a modest rental in the area: rent plus utilities at the 40th percentile of standard-quality units, most of them unfurnished. These comparisons use HUD's FY2025 figures. The premium pays for the furniture, the utilities and the shorter stay.
It is not a good fit if you want a tenant for a year and no further involvement. A mid-term rental is closer to a small hospitality business than a long-term lease.
What are the pros and cons of renting to travel nurses?
Pros:
- A license you can verify before you agree, and a contract with dates
- Higher monthly rent than an unfurnished lease in the same city
- Stays long enough to avoid nightly cleaning and turnover
- Tenants who work long shifts and are often away three or four days a week
- A steady supply wherever hospitals hire travelers, which is most cities with a large hospital
Cons:
- A new tenant every few months, with a cleaning and a gap between each
- Furnishing and utilities are your cost, not the tenant's
- Hospitals can cancel a travel contract early, sometimes with little notice
- Night-shift tenants sleep during the day, which matters in a shared home
- Demand follows hospital hiring, so a slow season near your hospital means a longer vacancy
How much do travel nurses pay for rent?
On CircleRN the median asking rent is $2,200 a month for an entire place and $1,200 a month for a private room. The middle half of entire places ask $1,700 to $2,850, and the middle half of rooms ask $950 to $1,500. By size, a one-bedroom asks a median $1,800, a two-bedroom $2,400 and a three-bedroom $2,950.
These are asking rents for furnished, assignment-length rentals as of October 2026. They vary a lot by city, which is why the next section compares cities.
How much should you charge a travel nurse?
Start from the stipend, because that is the budget the nurse is shopping with. A travel nurse's stipends are tax-free only up to the federal per diem rate the General Services Administration sets for that location, which is lodging plus meals, and only if the nurse keeps a tax home elsewhere. The lodging rate is the housing part of that limit. Agencies often pay less than that limit, and the nurse keeps whatever they do not spend on rent. So nurses shop well below the limit, and a listing priced near it will sit empty.
Here is how CircleRN median rents compare with the FY2027 GSA lodging rate for a 30-day month in the ten cities with the most listings that have at least 20 entire places and 10 rooms listed. Where the rate changes by season, the table uses the lowest season.
| City | GSA lodging, 30 days | Entire place (listings) | Private room (listings) |
|---|---|---|---|
| San Diego, CA | $6,240 | $2,840 (48) | $1,650 (30) |
| Los Angeles, CA | $5,970 | $3,000 (31) | $1,625 (28) |
| Seattle, WA | $5,640 | $2,400 (37) | $1,500 (19) |
| Atlanta, GA | $5,640 | $2,450 (28) | $1,150 (18) |
| Denver, CO | $5,100 | $2,300 (39) | $1,200 (12) |
| San Antonio, TX | $4,470 | $2,300 (21) | $925 (22) |
| Houston, TX | $3,990 | $2,650 (40) | $1,075 (26) |
| Phoenix, AZ | $3,660 | $2,100 (29) | $1,000 (17) |
| Las Vegas, NV | $3,600 | $2,300 (29) | $1,000 (21) |
| Jacksonville, FL (standard rate) | $3,390 | $2,038 (26) | $1,000 (13) |
In every one of these cities the median entire place asks well under the lodging limit, and the median room asks 20 to 30 percent of it. Price against the listings near you, not against the limit. Our rental estimator suggests a monthly rent for your address, each city housing page shows the local median, and the stipend calculator gives the GSA limit for any ZIP code.
Should you rent a room or your whole place to a travel nurse?
Both work, and both are common: 40 percent of CircleRN listings are private rooms. A room earns about half what an entire place does ($1,200 against $2,200 at the median), but costs you little beyond furniture for one room and a share of the utilities, and the home stays occupied when you are in it.
If you rent a room in a home you live in, settle these before anyone moves in:
- A lock on the bedroom door and, if you can, a private bathroom, which nurses ask about first
- Quiet hours that suit night shift. A nurse working 7 p.m. to 7 a.m. sleeps through your afternoon
- Kitchen and laundry access, written down, including shelf and fridge space
- Parking, since most nurses drive to the hospital and many start or finish in the dark
- Guests and pets: 29 percent of CircleRN listings allow pets, so decide before you are asked
A whole home earns more and suits nurses traveling with a partner, children or a pet, but every vacancy between contracts is a full month of rent you do not collect. What nurses ask about a room before booking is in travel nurse rooms for rent.
Where do you list a rental for travel nurses?
List where travel nurses search, which is mostly housing sites built for healthcare travelers. They filter for furnished, assignment-length rentals near a specific hospital. Listing on CircleRN is free, with no booking fees and no commission, and the listing appears on the housing page for your city and next to nearby hospitals.
Three other channels are worth knowing:
- Agency housing departments. Nurses who take agency housing instead of a stipend are placed by the agency, which leases furnished units for them. You deal with the agency rather than the nurse.
- The hospital itself. Some hospitals keep a list of local housing for incoming travelers. Ask the staffing or HR office whether they do.
- Travel nurse groups on social media. These reach nurses directly but carry the most fraud risk on both sides.
Whatever the channel, say how far the place is from the nearest hospital in minutes, not miles. That is the first thing a nurse checks.
How do you screen a travel nurse tenant?
Verify the person, the license and the contract, then use a payment method you can trust:
- Check the license. Nursing licenses are public. NCSBN's free Nursys QuickConfirm lookup shows a nurse's license and discipline status. On CircleRN, a Verified Nurse badge means CircleRN has checked the nurse's license.
- Ask for the assignment confirmation. It shows the facility and the start and end dates. The nurse can black out the pay. Dates that do not match what they told you are a reason to stop.
- Match the ID to the license name and talk by video before you agree.
- Ask for a reference from a previous host, which experienced travelers usually have.
- Refuse overpayments. The classic scam against landlords is a check for more than the rent, followed by a request to send back the difference before the check bounces. Take rent through a method that has cleared before you hand over keys.
You can market to travel nurses, but screening has to follow fair housing law. The federal Fair Housing Act prohibits discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, disability, familial status or national origin, and state and local laws often add more. Occupation is not a federally protected class, but familial status is, and "nurses only" can read as excluding families with children. Write "great for travel nurses" rather than "nurses only", and apply the same checks to every applicant.
What happens if a travel nurse's contract gets cancelled?
It happens. Hospitals can cancel a travel contract early when their staffing needs change, and the nurse's contract may give little or no notice. The nurse may then take a new assignment in another city within days, which leaves you with an empty home mid-lease unless your agreement says what happens.
Decide this in the lease, before it happens:
- A notice period for early termination, such as two weeks' written notice, with a copy of the cancellation from the agency or hospital
- What the nurse owes if they leave early: rent through the notice period, or a set fee
- Month-to-month after the first month, which lets an extension continue without a new lease. Contract extensions are common, so leave room for one.
A fair clause works both ways, and nurses read for it. Landlord-tenant law varies by state and city, and it may decide some of this for you, so check your local rules. The other lease terms are in our mid-term rental guide.
Bottom Line
Renting to travel nurses works well for hosts with a furnished room or home near a hospital who can handle turnover. On CircleRN, nurses pay a median $2,200 a month for an entire place and $1,200 for a room, well below the GSA lodging limit in each of the ten large markets we compared. Furnished studios and one-bedrooms ask about 15 percent above HUD fair market rent. Price against nearby listings, verify the license and the assignment dates, and write the cancellation terms into the lease before anyone moves in.
Ready to list? Estimate your rent and list free, see what places near you ask on the housing pages, or read how nurses search from their side in how travel nurses find housing.
Sources
- CircleRN active listings with a monthly rent, October 13, 2026 (6,915 listings; rent medians and quartiles by rental type, bedrooms and city)
- GSA, Per Diem Rates (FY2027 lodging rates by location)
- HUD, Fair Market Rents (FY2025 fair market rents by area, including utilities)
- NCSBN, Nursys QuickConfirm (free license and discipline status lookup)
- FTC, Fake Check Scams (the overpayment pattern)
- 42 U.S.C. ยง 3604, Fair Housing Act (discrimination in the sale or rental of housing)
Frequently Asked Questions
What happens if a travel nurse's contract gets cancelled?
Hospitals can cancel a travel contract early, and the contract may give the nurse little or no notice. The nurse may take a new assignment in another city within days. Decide it in the lease: a notice period for early termination, such as two weeks' written notice with a copy of the cancellation; what the nurse owes if they leave early; and month-to-month terms after the first month so an extension can continue. Local landlord-tenant law may decide some of this, so check your rules.