Travel Med-Surg Nurse Pay in North Carolina

The median advertised pay for a travel Med-Surg (medical-surgical) contract in North Carolina is $1,999 per week, with the middle half between $1,869 and $2,108. Measured across 27 active travel Med-Surg contracts in North Carolina at 15 facilities, as of 2026-09-15.

Advertised weekly totals, taxable base plus tax-free stipends. Not take-home.

That is 9 percent under the $2,188 national median for travel Med-Surg 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.

Where every open Med-Surg contract falls

Weekly rateOpen contracts
Under $1,8001
$1,800 to $1,9009
$1,900 to $2,0004
$2,000 to $2,1004
$2,100 to $2,2004
$2,200 to $2,3000
$2,300 to $2,4000
$2,400 and up5

All 27 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.

Med-Surg pay by metro in North Carolina

MetroOpen contractsMedian weeklyRent, 1 bed
Wilmington8$1,962$1,430/mo
Greensboro3$2,108$1,080/mo
Burlington2$2,074$1,085/mo
Charlotte2$1,877$1,820/mo
Concord2$1,758$1,455/mo
Fayetteville2$2,361$1,080/mo
Winston Salem2$1,880
Chapel Hill1$1,809$1,825/mo
Eden1$1,815$770/mo
Edenton1$2,101
Goldsboro1$2,610$875/mo
Salisbury1$1,893$1,080/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.

Open Med-Surg contracts in North Carolina

Browse the board for current Med-Surg assignments in North Carolina.

What Med-Surg travel roles ask for

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.

Med-Surg pay in other states

All 46 states with Med-Surg openings

Related

Common questions

How much does a travel Med-Surg nurse make in North Carolina?
The median advertised pay for a travel Med-Surg contract in North Carolina is $1,999 a week, with the middle half of contracts between $1,869 and $2,108. Measured across 27 active travel Med-Surg contracts in North Carolina at 15 facilities, as of 2026-09-15. These are advertised weekly totals, taxable base plus tax-free stipends, not take-home.
Where does this Med-Surg pay figure come from?
From the travel contracts currently posted on CircleRN, not from an industry survey or an estimate. No federal source publishes pay by nursing specialty: the Bureau of Labor Statistics reports registered nurses as a single occupation, so there is no official median for an ICU or a labor and delivery nurse. We publish the median rather than the average because one crisis-rate assignment moves an average enough to misrepresent the market.