The median advertised pay for a travel NICU (neonatal intensive care unit) contract in Arizona is $2,273 per week, with the middle half between $2,272 and $2,480. Measured across 16 active travel NICU contracts in Arizona at 8 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 12 percent under the $2,573 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, and the compact checker tells you whether yours covers you here.
| Weekly rate | Open contracts |
|---|---|
| Under $2,200 | 2 |
| $2,200 to $2,250 | 0 |
| $2,250 to $2,300 | 7 |
| $2,300 to $2,350 | 1 |
| $2,350 to $2,400 | 0 |
| $2,400 to $2,450 | 0 |
| $2,450 to $2,500 | 2 |
| $2,500 and up | 4 |
All 16 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Phoenix | 8 | $2,464 | $1,625/mo |
| Glendale | 3 | $2,268 | $1,645/mo |
| Mesa | 2 | $2,273 | $1,660/mo |
| Tucson | 2 | $2,425 | $1,050/mo |
| Gilbert | 1 | $2,273 | $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.
Over the last seven days the median advertised rate rose 1.1 percent, from $2,249 to $2,273 a week. Measured against the seven days before it, across 18 open postings, 2026-10-17 to 2026-10-30.
This compares advertised rates within one specialty in one state, which is the only cut where a change in the median is likely to mean a change in price rather than a change in which contracts are posted. Where the number of open postings moves sharply, no figure is shown.
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 28 states with NICU openings