The median advertised pay for a travel L&D (labor and delivery) contract in Iowa is $2,748 per week, with the middle half between $2,267 and $2,765. Measured across 5 active travel L&D contracts in Iowa at 3 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 0 percent over the $2,749 national median for travel L&D contracts.
Iowa 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 |
|---|---|
| $2,200 to $2,300 | 2 |
| $2,300 to $2,400 | 0 |
| $2,400 to $2,500 | 0 |
| $2,500 to $2,600 | 0 |
| $2,600 to $2,700 | 0 |
| $2,700 to $2,800 | 2 |
| $2,800 and up | 1 |
All 5 open contracts, banded by advertised weekly rate. The outer bands are open-ended so nothing falls outside the chart.
Iowa has the 49th highest price level of the 51 states and territories the Bureau of Economic Analysis measures: 12 percent under the national average overall. The premium is concentrated in housing, at 35 percent under, while goods sit 6 percent under and services 7 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Des Moines | 2 | $2,267 | $965/mo |
| Sioux City | 2 | $2,829 | $820/mo |
| West Burlington | 1 | $2,748 | — |
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 L&D assignments in Iowa.
All 50 states with L&D openings