The median advertised pay for a travel ICU (intensive care unit) contract in Colorado is $2,251 per week, with the middle half between $2,188 and $2,283. Measured across 12 active travel ICU contracts in Colorado at 9 facilities, as of 2026-10-31.
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 8 percent under the $2,452 national median for travel ICU contracts.
Colorado is a Nurse Licensure Compact state, so an active multistate license covers you here. A single-state license from elsewhere does not. 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 $2,100 | 1 |
| $2,100 to $2,200 | 3 |
| $2,200 to $2,300 | 5 |
| $2,300 to $2,400 | 1 |
| $2,400 to $2,500 | 0 |
| $2,500 to $2,600 | 0 |
| $2,600 to $2,700 | 1 |
| $2,700 and up | 1 |
All 12 open contracts, banded by advertised weekly rate. The outer bands are open-ended so nothing falls outside the chart.
Colorado has the 13th highest price level of the 51 states and territories the Bureau of Economic Analysis measures: 3 percent over the national average overall. The premium is concentrated in housing, at 27 percent over, while goods sit 1 percent under and services 0 percent under. 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Brighton | 2 | $2,291 | $1,680/mo |
| Grand Junction | 2 | $2,227 | $970/mo |
| Wheat Ridge | 2 | $2,275 | $1,660/mo |
| Aurora | 1 | $2,191 | $1,750/mo |
| Colorado Springs | 1 | $2,139 | $1,470/mo |
| Denver | 1 | $3,085 | $1,820/mo |
| Fort Collins | 1 | $2,180 | $1,450/mo |
| Glenwood Springs | 1 | $2,629 | $1,230/mo |
| Longmont | 1 | $2,093 | $1,650/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 ICU assignments in Colorado.
Over the last seven days the median advertised rate fell 0.3 percent, from $2,259 to $2,251 a week. Measured against the seven days before it, across 11 open postings, 2026-10-18 to 2026-10-31.
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 46 states with ICU openings