The median advertised pay for a travel ICU (intensive care unit) contract in North Carolina is $2,122 per week, with the middle half between $1,918 and $2,356. Measured across 9 active travel ICU contracts in North Carolina at 6 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 14 percent under the $2,455 national median for travel ICU contracts.
North Carolina 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 $1,900 | 1 |
| $1,900 to $2,050 | 3 |
| $2,050 to $2,200 | 2 |
| $2,200 to $2,350 | 0 |
| $2,350 to $2,500 | 1 |
| $2,500 to $2,650 | 0 |
| $2,650 to $2,800 | 2 |
All 9 open contracts, banded by advertised weekly rate. The outer bands are open-ended so nothing falls outside the chart.
North Carolina has the 31th highest price level of the 51 states and territories the Bureau of Economic Analysis measures: 6 percent under the national average overall. The premium is concentrated in housing, at 19 percent under, while goods sit 3 percent under and services 2 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Eden | 3 | $2,708 | $770/mo |
| Chapel Hill | 2 | $1,918 | $1,825/mo |
| Ahoskie | 1 | $2,356 | — |
| Fayetteville | 1 | $2,168 | $1,080/mo |
| Goldsboro | 1 | $1,854 | $875/mo |
| Winston Salem | 1 | $2,122 | — |
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 North Carolina.
All 46 states with ICU openings