The median advertised pay for a travel PCU (progressive care unit) contract in Iowa is $2,508 per week, with the middle half between $2,155 and $2,861. Measured across 6 active travel PCU contracts in Iowa 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.
That is 9 percent over the $2,301 national median for travel PCU contracts.
Iowa 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.
| Weekly rate | Open contracts |
|---|---|
| $2,100 to $2,250 | 3 |
| $2,250 to $2,400 | 0 |
| $2,400 to $2,550 | 0 |
| $2,550 to $2,700 | 0 |
| $2,700 to $2,850 | 0 |
| $2,850 to $3,000 | 2 |
| $3,000 and up | 1 |
All 6 open contracts, banded by advertised weekly rate. The outer bands are open-ended so nothing falls outside the chart.
Iowa has the 49th highest price level of the 51 states and territories the Bureau of Economic Analysis measures: 12 percent under the national average overall. The premium is concentrated in housing, at 35 percent under, while goods sit 6 percent under and services 7 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Council Bluffs | 2 | $2,579 | $930/mo |
| Des Moines | 2 | $2,861 | $965/mo |
| Sioux City | 2 | $2,155 | $820/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 PCU assignments in Iowa.
All 45 states with PCU openings