The median advertised pay for a travel Med-Surg (medical-surgical) contract in South Dakota is $2,621 per week, with the middle half between $2,621 and $2,621. Measured across 5 active travel Med-Surg contracts in South Dakota 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 18 percent over the $2,219 national median for travel Med-Surg contracts.
South Dakota 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 $2,500 | 1 |
| $2,500 to $2,550 | 0 |
| $2,550 to $2,600 | 0 |
| $2,600 to $2,650 | 3 |
| $2,650 to $2,700 | 0 |
| $2,700 to $2,750 | 1 |
| $2,750 to $2,800 | 0 |
All 5 open contracts, banded by advertised weekly rate. The outer bands are open-ended so nothing falls outside the chart.
South Dakota has the 46th highest price level of the 51 states and territories the Bureau of Economic Analysis measures: 11 percent under the national average overall. The premium is concentrated in housing, at 32 percent under, while goods sit 5 percent under and services 8 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sioux Falls | 4 | $2,621 | $865/mo |
| Mitchell | 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 Med-Surg assignments in South Dakota.
All 49 states with Med-Surg openings