The median advertised pay for a travel Cath Lab (cardiac catheterization lab) contract in California is $3,285 per week, with the middle half between $2,931 and $3,480. Measured across 18 active travel Cath Lab contracts in California at 15 facilities, as of 2026-10-30.
Advertised weekly totals before tax, usually including tax-free stipends; for almost all postings the top of an advertised range. Not take-home.
That is 13 percent over the $2,902 national median for travel Cath Lab contracts.
California is not a Nurse Licensure Compact state, so you need a California license to work here even if you hold a multistate license. The compact state list explains which states issue one, and the compact checker tells you whether yours covers you here.
| Weekly rate | Open contracts |
|---|---|
| Under $2,700 | 2 |
| $2,700 to $2,850 | 2 |
| $2,850 to $3,000 | 2 |
| $3,000 to $3,150 | 1 |
| $3,150 to $3,300 | 2 |
| $3,300 to $3,450 | 3 |
| $3,450 to $3,600 | 3 |
| $3,600 and up | 3 |
All 18 open contracts, banded by advertised weekly rate. The outer bands are open-ended so nothing falls outside the chart.
California has the highest price level of the 51 states and territories the Bureau of Economic Analysis measures: 11 percent over the national average overall. The premium is concentrated in housing, at 54 percent over, while goods sit 6 percent over and services 3 percent over. That matters more than the headline number, because housing is the part a tax-free stipend is meant to cover and the rest comes out of taxed wages.
| Metro | Open contracts | Median weekly | Rent, 1 bed |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bakersfield | 2 | $3,861 | $1,060/mo |
| Burbank | 2 | $2,716 | $2,310/mo |
| San Francisco | 2 | $3,480 | $2,680/mo |
| Antioch | 1 | $3,265 | $2,375/mo |
| Burlingame | 1 | $3,382 | — |
| Carmichael | 1 | $3,484 | $1,650/mo |
| Chico | 1 | $2,998 | $1,120/mo |
| Los Angeles | 1 | $2,637 | $2,150/mo |
| Marina Del Rey | 1 | $2,672 | $3,120/mo |
| Mountain View | 1 | $3,525 | $3,210/mo |
| Palmdale | 1 | $3,137 | $2,080/mo |
| Rancho Mirage | 1 | $2,909 | $1,930/mo |
Rent is the one-bedroom Fair Market Rent HUD publishes for that metro, which is what a housing stipend is trying to cover. The open-contract count beside each metro is the sample its median rests on, and outside the largest markets that sample is small: a median over one or two contracts is a single posting's rate rather than a market rate, so read the count first.
Browse the board for current Cath Lab assignments in California.
Drawn from the postings that state a requirement, which is not all of them, so each figure carries the number it was measured from. Your recruiter confirms the specifics for a given contract before submission.
All 39 states with Cath Lab openings