The median advertised pay for a travel L&D (labor and delivery) contract in Illinois is $2,567 per week, with the middle half between $2,422 and $2,608. Measured across 13 active travel L&D contracts in Illinois at 7 facilities, as of 2026-09-15.
Advertised weekly totals, taxable base plus tax-free stipends. Not take-home.
That is 1 percent under the $2,604 national median for travel L&D 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 $2,100 | 2 |
| $2,100 to $2,200 | 0 |
| $2,200 to $2,300 | 0 |
| $2,300 to $2,400 | 1 |
| $2,400 to $2,500 | 2 |
| $2,500 to $2,600 | 2 |
| $2,600 to $2,700 | 5 |
| $2,700 and up | 1 |
All 13 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 | 4 | $2,609 | $790/mo |
| Chicago | 3 | $2,084 | $1,590/mo |
| Urbana | 3 | $2,567 | $870/mo |
| BLOOMINGTON | 1 | $2,347 | $840/mo |
| Breese | 1 | $2,764 | — |
| Lake Forest | 1 | $2,422 | $2,340/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 L&D 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 47 states with L&D openings