Where do CircleRN's numbers come from?
Every figure on CircleRN is either submitted by a verified traveler or loaded from a named public dataset. This page lists each source, its vintage, and the rules we apply before publishing a number. CircleRN does not estimate or model any figure it publishes.
Every dataset behind a published figure
| Figure | Source | Vintage | Coverage |
|---|
| Pay packages | Submitted by verified travelers | Rolling | 38 reports |
| Hospital and agency reviews | Submitted by verified travelers | Rolling | 113 reviews |
| Furnished housing | Posted by the owner or property manager | Rolling | 6,683 active listings |
| Open assignments | CircleRN plus partner staffing feeds | Re-synced hourly | 4,573 live across 52 states |
| Cost of living | Bureau of Economic Analysis regional price parities | 2024 | 389 metro areas plus all states |
| Rent benchmark | HUD Fair Market Rents and the Zillow Observed Rent Index | 2025 | 5,899 cities |
| Tax-free ceiling | GSA per diem lodging and M&IE | FY2026 | 287 named destinations in 48 states |
What we will not publish, and why
- No aggregate under 3 reports. An average over one or two reports is those
reports, published verbatim against a named place or facility. Below the threshold the page
says nothing rather than saying something identifying.
- GSA per diem is a ceiling, never a stipend. It is the federal cap on tax-free lodging and
meals for business travel. It runs into the thousands of dollars a month and no agency pays it as
a housing stipend. We publish it to answer how much of a package can be untaxed, and we label it
that way everywhere it appears.
- Fair Market Rent and the Zillow index are never averaged together. FMR is HUD's
40th-percentile standard for a modest unit including utilities; the Zillow index is a different
measure of a different thing. Any page showing rent names which one it is showing.
- No facility name we are contractually bound to withhold, and no facility name we have not
verified against a licensed hospital record.
How the numbers are kept current
- Assignments re-sync hourly, and a listing that disappears from its source is closed rather than left standing.
- Member-submitted pay and reviews appear as soon as they clear the threshold above.
- Reference datasets are reloaded when their publisher issues a new vintage, and the vintage is shown in the table.
Citing CircleRN
Figures on this site may be quoted with attribution to CircleRN and a link to the page the figure
appears on. Please carry the vintage with the number: a rent benchmark or a cost-of-living index
without its year is not a fact, it is a guess.
Pay data | Reviews | Housing | Trust and safety
Common questions
- Does CircleRN estimate or model any of its pay data?
- No. Pay figures come from packages submitted by verified travel healthcare professionals who worked the assignment. Aggregates are suppressed below 3 reports so a single traveler's package is never published as an average, and CircleRN does not model, project or estimate a rate it was not given.
- Is the GSA per diem rate the same as a travel nurse housing stipend?
- No, and treating it as one is the most common mistake made with this number. GSA per diem is the federal ceiling on tax-free lodging and meals for business travel. It is substantially higher than any stipend an agency pays. CircleRN publishes it to show how much of a package can be untaxed in a given place, which is a different question from what a stipend will be.
- Where does CircleRN get its cost of living and rent figures?
- Cost of living comes from Bureau of Economic Analysis regional price parities, by metropolitan area where one exists and by state otherwise. Rent benchmarks come from HUD Fair Market Rents and the Zillow Observed Rent Index, which are reported separately and never averaged, because they measure different things. Both carry the vintage of the release they came from.
- Are all the jobs on CircleRN posted by CircleRN?
- No. Some assignments are CircleRN placements where CircleRN is the employer of record. Others are syndicated from partner staffing feeds and are labelled as partner listings on the posting itself, where CircleRN is not the employer and does not place the assignment.