The median advertised pay for a travel ICU (intensive care unit) contract in Texas is $2,097 per week, with the middle half between $2,046 and $2,270. Measured across 19 active travel ICU contracts in Texas at 12 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 14 percent under the $2,450 national median for travel ICU contracts.
Texas 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 $1,800 | 1 |
| $1,800 to $1,900 | 2 |
| $1,900 to $2,000 | 1 |
| $2,000 to $2,100 | 9 |
| $2,100 to $2,200 | 0 |
| $2,200 to $2,300 | 1 |
| $2,300 to $2,400 | 1 |
| $2,400 and up | 4 |
All 19 open contracts, banded by advertised weekly rate. The outer bands are open-ended so nothing falls outside the chart.
Texas has the 25th highest price level of the 51 states and territories the Bureau of Economic Analysis measures: 3 percent under the national average overall. The premium is concentrated in housing, at 3 percent under, while goods sit 2 percent under and services 3 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Abilene | 4 | $2,097 | $940/mo |
| Tyler | 4 | $2,250 | $1,080/mo |
| Lubbock | 3 | $2,051 | $1,010/mo |
| Athens | 1 | $2,332 | — |
| Houston | 1 | $2,417 | $1,250/mo |
| Longview | 1 | $1,951 | $1,000/mo |
| Odessa | 1 | $2,788 | $1,300/mo |
| Plainview | 1 | $2,051 | $850/mo |
| San Antonio | 1 | $1,632 | $1,290/mo |
| Waco | 1 | $1,869 | $1,110/mo |
| Wichita Falls | 1 | $2,208 | $885/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 Texas.
Over the last seven days the median advertised rate fell 0.8 percent, from $2,080 to $2,064 a week. Measured against the seven days before it, across 21 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 46 states with ICU openings