The median advertised pay for a travel NICU (neonatal intensive care unit) contract in Arizona is $2,159 per week, with the middle half between $2,153 and $2,235. Measured across 13 active travel NICU contracts in Arizona at 6 facilities, as of 2026-09-15.
Advertised weekly totals, taxable base plus tax-free stipends. Not take-home.
That is 14 percent under the $2,517 national median for travel NICU contracts.
Arizona 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.
| Weekly rate | Open contracts |
|---|---|
| Under $2,000 | 1 |
| $2,000 to $2,050 | 1 |
| $2,050 to $2,100 | 0 |
| $2,100 to $2,150 | 0 |
| $2,150 to $2,200 | 5 |
| $2,200 to $2,250 | 4 |
| $2,250 to $2,300 | 2 |
All 13 open contracts, banded by advertised weekly rate. The outer bands are open-ended so nothing falls outside the chart.
Arizona has the 17th highest price level of the 51 states and territories the Bureau of Economic Analysis measures: 1 percent over the national average overall. The premium is concentrated in housing, at 7 percent over, while goods sit 5 percent under and services 3 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mesa | 4 | $2,252 | $1,660/mo |
| Chandler | 2 | $2,157 | $2,055/mo |
| Glendale | 2 | $1,993 | $1,645/mo |
| Phoenix | 2 | $2,153 | $1,625/mo |
| Tucson | 2 | $2,200 | $1,050/mo |
| Gilbert | 1 | $2,159 | $2,220/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 NICU assignments in Arizona.
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 29 states with NICU openings