The median advertised pay for a travel PACU (post-anesthesia care unit) contract in Alaska is $2,795 per week, with the middle half between $2,737 and $2,953. Measured across 3 active travel PACU contracts in Alaska 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 Alaska, treat that median as an indication rather than a rate: the contracts below are the useful part of this page.
That is 19 percent over the $2,353 national median for travel PACU contracts.
Alaska is not a Nurse Licensure Compact state, so you need a Alaska 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 $2,700 | 1 |
| $2,700 to $2,750 | 0 |
| $2,750 to $2,800 | 1 |
| $2,800 to $2,850 | 0 |
| $2,850 to $2,900 | 0 |
| $2,900 to $2,950 | 0 |
| $2,950 to $3,000 | 0 |
| $3,000 and up | 1 |
All 3 open contracts, banded by advertised weekly rate. The outer bands are open-ended so nothing falls outside the chart.
Alaska has the 14th highest price level of the 51 states and territories the Bureau of Economic Analysis measures: 2 percent over the national average overall. The premium is concentrated in housing, at 6 percent under, while goods sit 6 percent over and services 2 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Anchorage | 2 | $2,737 | $1,190/mo |
| Homer | 1 | $3,112 | — |
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 PACU assignments in Alaska.
All 31 states with PACU openings