The median advertised pay for a travel ICU (intensive care unit) contract in Illinois is $2,335 per week, with the middle half between $2,215 and $2,463. Measured across 14 active travel ICU contracts in Illinois at 9 facilities, as of 2026-09-15.
Advertised weekly totals, taxable base plus tax-free stipends. Not take-home.
That is 0 percent over the $2,332 national median for travel ICU contracts.
Illinois is not a Nurse Licensure Compact state, so you need a Illinois license to work here even if you hold a multistate license. The compact state list explains which states issue one.
| Weekly rate | Open contracts |
|---|---|
| Under $2,000 | 1 |
| $2,000 to $2,100 | 2 |
| $2,100 to $2,200 | 0 |
| $2,200 to $2,300 | 3 |
| $2,300 to $2,400 | 3 |
| $2,400 to $2,500 | 2 |
| $2,500 to $2,600 | 1 |
| $2,600 and up | 2 |
All 14 open contracts, banded by advertised weekly rate. The outer bands are open-ended so nothing falls outside the chart.
Illinois has the 19th highest price level of the 51 states and territories the Bureau of Economic Analysis measures: 0 percent under the national average overall. The premium is concentrated in housing, at 6 percent under, while goods sit 4 percent over and services 0 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Peoria | 3 | $2,215 | $790/mo |
| Springfield | 3 | $2,685 | $930/mo |
| Rockford | 2 | $2,347 | $890/mo |
| Chicago | 1 | $1,681 | $1,590/mo |
| Harvey | 1 | $2,009 | $1,210/mo |
| Marion | 1 | $2,269 | — |
| Olney | 1 | $2,326 | — |
| Rock Island | 1 | $2,051 | $800/mo |
| Zion | 1 | $2,555 | — |
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 Illinois.
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