The median advertised pay for a travel CVICU (cardiovascular intensive care unit) contract in California is $2,850 per week, with the middle half between $2,616 and $2,929. Measured across 13 active travel CVICU contracts in California at 10 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 16 percent over the $2,467 national median for travel CVICU 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 |
|---|---|
| $2,100 to $2,250 | 2 |
| $2,250 to $2,400 | 1 |
| $2,400 to $2,550 | 0 |
| $2,550 to $2,700 | 1 |
| $2,700 to $2,850 | 3 |
| $2,850 to $3,000 | 4 |
| $3,000 and up | 2 |
All 13 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Alameda | 2 | $2,838 | $2,660/mo |
| Long Beach | 2 | $2,141 | $2,115/mo |
| Mountain View | 2 | $2,929 | $3,210/mo |
| Lodi | 1 | $2,927 | $1,430/mo |
| Los Angeles | 1 | $3,336 | $2,150/mo |
| Monterey | 1 | $3,013 | $2,960/mo |
| Redding | 1 | $2,816 | $1,230/mo |
| Sacramento | 1 | $2,872 | $1,630/mo |
| San Diego | 1 | $2,616 | $2,530/mo |
| San Luis Obispo | 1 | $2,263 | $2,025/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 CVICU assignments in California.
Over the last seven days the median advertised rate rose 2.6 percent, from $2,767 to $2,838 a week. Measured against the seven days before it, across 15 open postings, 2026-10-17 to 2026-10-30.
This compares advertised rates within one specialty in one state, which is the only cut where a change in the median is likely to mean a change in price rather than a change in which contracts are posted. Where the number of open postings moves sharply, no figure is shown.
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 31 states with CVICU openings