The median advertised pay for a travel NICU (neonatal intensive care unit) contract in Washington is $2,497 per week, with the middle half between $2,396 and $2,853. Measured across 6 active travel NICU contracts in Washington at 4 facilities, as of 2026-09-15.
Advertised weekly totals, taxable base plus tax-free stipends. Not take-home. With only 6 open contracts in Washington, treat that median as an indication rather than a rate: the contracts below are the useful part of this page.
That is 0 percent over the $2,509 national median for travel NICU contracts.
Washington 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 $2,450 | 1 |
| $2,450 to $2,600 | 2 |
| $2,600 to $2,750 | 0 |
| $2,750 to $2,900 | 0 |
| $2,900 to $3,050 | 1 |
| $3,050 to $3,200 | 1 |
All 6 open contracts, banded by advertised weekly rate. The outer bands are open-ended so nothing falls outside the chart.
Washington has the 6th highest price level of the 51 states and territories the Bureau of Economic Analysis measures: 7 percent over the national average overall. The premium is concentrated in housing, at 26 percent over, while goods sit 4 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Seattle | 3 | $2,972 | $2,420/mo |
| Spokane | 2 | $2,497 | $1,120/mo |
| Edmonds | 1 | $2,363 | $2,230/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.
See every opening, including partner agencies.
All 29 states with NICU openings