Where does this OR pay figure come from?

From the travel contracts currently posted on CircleRN, not from an industry survey or an estimate. No federal source publishes pay by nursing specialty: the Bureau of Labor Statistics reports registered nurses as a single occupation, so there is no official median for an ICU or a labor and delivery nurse. We publish the median rather than the average because one crisis-rate assignment moves an average enough to misrepresent the market.

Travel OR Nurse Pay in South Dakota

The median advertised pay for a travel OR (operating room) contract in South Dakota is $2,928 per week, with the middle half between $2,746 and $3,116. Measured across 4 active travel OR contracts in South Dakota at 3 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. With only 4 open contracts in South Dakota, treat that median as an indication rather than a rate: the contracts below are the useful part of this page.

That is 10 percent over the $2,668 national median for travel OR contracts.

South Dakota 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.

Where every open OR contract falls

Weekly rate	Open contracts
$2,600 to $2,700	1
$2,700 to $2,800	1
$2,800 to $2,900	0
$2,900 to $3,000	0
$3,000 to $3,100	1
$3,100 to $3,200	0
$3,200 and up	1

All 4 open contracts, banded by advertised weekly rate. The outer bands are open-ended so nothing falls outside the chart.

South Dakota has the 46th highest price level of the 51 states and territories the Bureau of Economic Analysis measures: 11 percent under the national average overall. The premium is concentrated in housing, at 32 percent under, while goods sit 5 percent under and services 8 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.

OR pay by metro in South Dakota

Metro	Open contracts	Median weekly	Rent, 1 bed
Aberdeen	2	$2,941	—
Sioux Falls	2	$2,928	$865/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.

Open OR contracts in South Dakota

Browse the board for current OR assignments in South Dakota.

OR pay in other states

Travel OR pay in Rhode Island — $3,078/week median across 6 contracts
Travel OR pay in California — $3,043/week median across 59 contracts
Travel OR pay in Missouri — $2,964/week median across 11 contracts
Travel OR pay in Pennsylvania — $2,938/week median across 17 contracts
Travel OR pay in Connecticut — $2,898/week median across 16 contracts
Travel OR pay in Illinois — $2,866/week median across 18 contracts
Travel OR pay in Colorado — $2,787/week median across 13 contracts
Travel OR pay in Massachusetts — $2,764/week median across 15 contracts
Travel OR pay in Maryland — $2,759/week median across 5 contracts

All 47 states with OR openings

Travel OR pay nationally
Travel OR nurse pay
Travel nursing in South Dakota
Open travel assignments
How we measure this: the sources, the sample and what the figures do not cover

Common questions

How much does a travel OR nurse make in South Dakota?: The median advertised pay for a travel OR contract in South Dakota is $2,928 a week, with the middle half of contracts between $2,746 and $3,116. Measured across 4 active travel OR contracts in South Dakota at 3 facilities, as of 2026-10-30. These are advertised weekly totals before tax, usually including tax-free stipends; for almost all postings the figure is the top of an advertised range. Not take-home.
Where does this OR pay figure come from?: From the travel contracts currently posted on CircleRN, not from an industry survey or an estimate. No federal source publishes pay by nursing specialty: the Bureau of Labor Statistics reports registered nurses as a single occupation, so there is no official median for an ICU or a labor and delivery nurse. We publish the median rather than the average because one crisis-rate assignment moves an average enough to misrepresent the market.