The median advertised pay for a travel NICU (neonatal intensive care unit) contract in New York is $2,728 per week, with the middle half between $2,457 and $2,798. Measured across 3 active travel NICU contracts in New York at 3 facilities, as of 2026-09-15.
Advertised weekly totals, taxable base plus tax-free stipends. Not take-home. With only 3 open contracts in New York, treat that median as an indication rather than a rate: the contracts below are the useful part of this page.
That is 8 percent over the $2,517 national median for travel NICU contracts.
New York is not a Nurse Licensure Compact state, so you need a New York license to work here even if you hold a multistate license. The compact state list explains which states issue one.
| Weekly rate | Open contracts |
|---|---|
| Under $2,200 | 1 |
| $2,200 to $2,300 | 0 |
| $2,300 to $2,400 | 0 |
| $2,400 to $2,500 | 0 |
| $2,500 to $2,600 | 0 |
| $2,600 to $2,700 | 0 |
| $2,700 to $2,800 | 1 |
| $2,800 and up | 1 |
All 3 open contracts, banded by advertised weekly rate. The outer bands are open-ended so nothing falls outside the chart.
New York has the 5th highest price level of the 51 states and territories the Bureau of Economic Analysis measures: 8 percent over the national average overall. The premium is concentrated in housing, at 22 percent over, while goods sit 7 percent over and services 4 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bronx | 1 | $2,868 | — |
| Rochester | 1 | $2,185 | $1,090/mo |
| Syracuse | 1 | $2,728 | $1,100/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 New York.
All 29 states with NICU openings