The median advertised pay for a travel NICU (neonatal intensive care unit) contract in Colorado is $2,656 per week, with the middle half between $2,656 and $2,663. Measured across 5 active travel NICU contracts in Colorado at 3 facilities, as of 2026-09-15.
Advertised weekly totals, taxable base plus tax-free stipends. Not take-home. With only 5 open contracts in Colorado, treat that median as an indication rather than a rate: the contracts below are the useful part of this page.
That is 6 percent over the $2,510 national median for travel NICU contracts.
Colorado 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 $2,300 | 1 |
| $2,300 to $2,400 | 0 |
| $2,400 to $2,500 | 0 |
| $2,500 to $2,600 | 0 |
| $2,600 to $2,700 | 3 |
| $2,700 to $2,800 | 0 |
| $2,800 to $2,900 | 1 |
All 5 open contracts, banded by advertised weekly rate. The outer bands are open-ended so nothing falls outside the chart.
Colorado has the 13th highest price level of the 51 states and territories the Bureau of Economic Analysis measures: 3 percent over the national average overall. The premium is concentrated in housing, at 27 percent over, while goods sit 1 percent under and services 0 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Colorado Springs | 3 | $2,656 | $1,470/mo |
| Longmont | 1 | $2,141 | $1,650/mo |
| Parker | 1 | $2,895 | $2,010/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 Colorado.
All 29 states with NICU openings