Travel Nurse Housing Stipend: 2027 Rates and What You Keep
By CircleRN Team | Published 2026-10-19 | 8 min read
Travel nurse housing stipends are capped at the GSA lodging rate: $791 a week at the FY2027 standard rate. How they work, taxes, and what 11 cities leave after rent.
A travel nurse housing stipend is a tax-free weekly payment for lodging, and the most it can be tax-free is the federal lodging rate for where you sleep. For fiscal year 2027 that is $113 a night at the standard rate, or $791 a week and about $3,390 a month, and up to $365 a night in the most expensive cities. Offers usually come in below that ceiling. On CircleRN, a studio or one-bedroom uses about a third to half of the lowest-season lodging ceiling in the cities below, so what you keep depends on your offer and on where you choose to live.
Below: how the stipend is set, how much of it you can keep in 11 cities, when to take agency housing instead, and what happens to it when shifts or contracts fall through. The tax rules behind it are in housing stipend rules.
How much is a travel nurse housing stipend?
A travel nurse housing stipend is capped at the General Services Administration (GSA) lodging rate for the area where you sleep, and most offers pay less than the cap. For fiscal 2027 the standard lodging rate, which covers most of the country, is $113 a night: $791 a week, or about $3,390 for a 30-day month. In expensive areas the cap is higher, from $133 a night in Houston and $199 in Los Angeles to $365 in peak-season Boston.
No agency publishes a national average, so the GSA ceiling is the benchmark to compare an offer against: $791 a week at the standard rate, $931 in Houston, $1,393 in Los Angeles and up to $2,555 in peak-season Boston, for lodging alone.
The housing stipend is one part of the tax-free per diem. The other is meals and incidental expenses (M&IE), $68 a day at the standard rate and up to $92 in the highest-cost areas. Together they make the standard weekly ceiling of $1,267. Some agencies show lodging and meals as separate lines and some show one combined stipend, so check which one an offer means before you compare. Every area's ceiling is in travel nurse stipends by state, and the travel nurse housing stipend calculator gives it for any ZIP code.
How is a travel nurse housing stipend calculated?
A travel nurse housing stipend is paid by the day at the GSA lodging rate for where you sleep, then quoted per week: up to $791 a week at the fiscal 2027 standard rate. Under Revenue Procedure 2019-48, a per diem allowance for lodging, meals and incidentals is treated as substantiated up to the federal per diem rate for the locality of travel, and agencies usually pay the housing part up to the GSA lodging rate for each day you are away from your tax home.
Three details change the number:
- Where you sleep, not where you work. A GSA area is usually a county or group of counties, sometimes a city, so a hospital in a listed city with housing one county over can fall under a different rate
- The season. Lodging rates in many areas change by month. Seattle runs from $188 to $255 a night, and Phoenix from $122 to $232
- The fiscal year. Rates reset every October 1, so a contract that crosses October can see the cap change mid-assignment
To compare an offer against a monthly rent, multiply the weekly housing stipend by 52 and divide by 12. A $700 weekly housing stipend is about $3,030 a month.
Is a travel nurse housing stipend taxable?
A travel nurse housing stipend is not taxable if you keep a tax home and it stays within the federal per diem rate. Without a tax home you are not traveling away from home in the IRS's sense, so the whole stipend is taxable wages, and any amount paid above the federal rate is taxable too. The tax-free treatment also depends on the stipend being a real per diem: an allowance computed like wages, such as by hours worked, is generally not one.
Keeping the rent you do not spend is not what makes it taxable. The stipend is a fixed allowance, so if your room costs less than the stipend, the difference is yours, tax-free, as long as the tax home and the rate limits hold. The tests for a tax home are in the tax home guide.
How much of your housing stipend do you keep?
At the lowest-season lodging rate, a median studio or one-bedroom on CircleRN (October 2026) uses about a third to 40 percent of it in most of the cities below, and about half in Phoenix and Las Vegas. The rest is what you keep. These are ceilings: if your agency pays less than the GSA rate, subtract the rent from your actual stipend instead.
| City | GSA lodging per night | Lodging for 30 days (lowest season) | Studio or one-bedroom (listings) | Left after rent (30 days) | Room |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| San Diego, CA | $208 to $249 | $6,240 | $2,400 (27) | $3,840 | $1,650 |
| Washington, DC | $192 to $295 | $5,760 | $2,100 (10) | $3,660 | $1,400 |
| Seattle, WA | $188 to $255 | $5,640 | $2,000 (25) | $3,640 | $1,500 |
| Los Angeles, CA | $199 | $5,970 | $2,348 (16) | $3,622 | $1,625 |
| Philadelphia, PA | $174 to $227 | $5,220 | $1,750 (11) | $3,470 | Too few |
| Denver, CO | $170 to $227 | $5,100 | $2,000 (16) | $3,100 | $1,200 |
| Portland, OR | $161 | $4,830 | $1,750 (18) | $3,080 | Too few |
| Sacramento, CA | $156 | $4,680 | $1,800 (11) | $2,880 | $1,100 |
| Houston, TX | $133 | $3,990 | $1,600 (15) | $2,390 | $1,075 |
| Las Vegas, NV | $120 to $173 | $3,600 | $1,800 (11) | $1,800 | $1,000 |
| Phoenix, AZ | $122 to $232 | $3,660 | $1,900 (14) | $1,760 | $1,000 |
Rents are median asking rents on CircleRN in October 2026. The table includes every city with at least 10 studio or one-bedroom listings and its own GSA rate; the room median is shown where a city has at least 10 room listings. Nationally a room asks $1,200, a studio $1,700 and a one-bedroom $1,800, against $3,390 for 30 days at the standard lodging rate.
A worked example: an offer in Houston with a $700 weekly housing stipend is about $3,030 a month. The median one-bedroom leaves about $1,430 of it; the median room, about $1,955. Rooms cost less everywhere, and renting a room covers what to check before you take one. Each city housing page shows current prices.
Housing stipend or agency-provided housing: which option pays more?
The housing stipend pays more if you can rent for less than it, and agency-provided housing is the safer choice if you cannot or do not want the risk. With agency-provided housing the agency arranges and pays for the place, and you do not get the housing stipend, so there is nothing left over to keep. The meals and incidentals part is usually still paid.
Agency housing tends to make sense when:
- It is your first contract and you have no time to search from another state
- The market is tight or expensive enough that the stipend would barely cover rent
- The contract is short, or you do not want to sign a lease you might have to break
The stipend tends to make sense when:
- You can rent below it, as in every city in the table above
- You are traveling with a partner, children or pets and need to choose the place yourself
- You travel in an RV or stay with friends or family near the assignment
If you are unsure, ask the agency what the housing it provides would be and what the stipend would be instead, and compare that stipend with listings near the hospital. The housing guide covers how to search.
Why is my housing stipend lower than the GSA rate?
Agencies often pay less than the GSA lodging rate because it is a ceiling for tax-free pay, not a required payment. The agency pays the whole package out of what the hospital pays it, so a larger stipend means a smaller taxable wage, and many agencies pay less than the full rate or adjust the split between the two.
A higher stipend is not always better. A package built from a low hourly wage and a high stipend takes home more each week, but overtime is often paid from the taxable rate, and Social Security credits count only taxable earnings. Compare packages on total weekly pay first, then on the taxable rate. How to read a pay package walks through it, and the pay calculator shows take-home pay.
What happens to the housing stipend if you miss shifts or the contract is cancelled?
A missed shift or a cancelled contract usually cuts or stops the housing stipend, depending on the contract terms, while your rent continues. Read that clause before you sign. Some contracts reduce the stipend for shifts you miss, and some apply a penalty for missed shifts on top. If the hospital cancels the contract, the stipend stops with the assignment.
Protect yourself on the housing side: rent month to month where you can, ask the host for a written clause allowing notice if the contract is cancelled, and avoid prepaying more than a month. Watch for these terms in contract red flags and in the offer and the contract.
Do travel physical therapists and other allied travelers get housing stipends?
Yes. Travel physical, occupational and respiratory therapists, techs and other allied travelers on a W-2 travel contract get the same housing stipend as nurses, capped at the same GSA lodging rate ($113 a night, $791 a week at the fiscal 2027 standard rate), as long as they keep a tax home. Nothing in the rules is specific to nurses. See do allied health travelers get tax-free stipends for the details.
Is there a distance requirement for a travel nurse housing stipend?
There is no IRS mileage requirement for a travel nurse housing stipend. Many agencies use a radius of their own, often around 50 miles, to decide who is offered one, but meeting it does not make a stipend tax-free by itself. The IRS test is whether you are away from your tax home for work long enough to need sleep or rest; a local contract within normal commuting distance does not qualify, so expect a fully taxable rate if you can reasonably commute and sleep at home. The tax home side is covered under the 50-mile rule myth.
Bottom Line
A housing stipend can be up to the GSA lodging rate where you sleep: $113 a night, $791 a week, at the standard rate in fiscal 2027, and up to about three times that in the most expensive cities. Offers are often lower. On CircleRN a studio or one-bedroom uses about a third to half of the lowest-season lodging rate in the cities above, and a room less. Convert your actual stipend to a monthly figure, subtract the rent, and keep the tax home that makes it tax-free.
Look up the ceiling with the stipend calculator, compare rents on the housing pages, or find a contract on the jobs board.
Sources
- GSA, Per Diem Rates (FY2027 lodging and M&IE rates by location)
- IRS, Revenue Procedure 2019-48 (per diem substantiation up to the federal rate; lodging provided in kind)
- IRS, Publication 463 (tax home and travel away from home)
- CircleRN active listings with a monthly rent, October 19, 2026 (studio, one-bedroom and room medians)