The median advertised pay for a travel Med-Surg (medical-surgical) contract in Illinois is $2,298 per week, with the middle half between $2,161 and $2,343. Measured across 51 active travel Med-Surg contracts in Illinois at 25 facilities, as of 2026-09-15.
Advertised weekly totals, taxable base plus tax-free stipends. Not take-home.
That is 5 percent over the $2,183 national median for travel Med-Surg 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 | 3 |
| $2,000 to $2,050 | 1 |
| $2,050 to $2,100 | 3 |
| $2,100 to $2,150 | 0 |
| $2,150 to $2,200 | 10 |
| $2,200 to $2,250 | 3 |
| $2,250 to $2,300 | 6 |
| $2,300 and up | 25 |
All 51 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 | 9 | $2,350 | $790/mo |
| Springfield | 6 | $2,343 | $930/mo |
| Urbana | 6 | $2,255 | $870/mo |
| Danville | 3 | $2,325 | $790/mo |
| Marion | 3 | $2,156 | — |
| Rock Island | 3 | $2,164 | $800/mo |
| Harvey | 2 | $1,753 | $1,210/mo |
| Maryville | 2 | $2,241 | — |
| Quincy | 2 | $2,311 | $730/mo |
| Rockford | 2 | $2,088 | $890/mo |
| Aledo | 1 | $2,041 | — |
| Anna | 1 | $2,156 | — |
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 Med-Surg 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 Med-Surg openings