See what's actually in your travel contract.

A travel nurse's plain-English guide to the rules behind the score.

I've been on travel assignments for the last decade — ICU, psych, max-security correctional, and currently running a 142-bed SNF as Unit Manager. In that time I've signed and walked away from about forty contracts, and the pattern is the same every cycle: the recruiter calls with a "great package," the language in the PDF doesn't match what they said, and you have about six hours to decide. This tool is the second opinion I wish I'd had on my first contract.

What "blended rate" actually means. When a recruiter says "$2,800/week," they're combining your taxable hourly wage, your housing stipend, your M&IE per-diem, and any prorated bonuses. The blended rate is total comp ÷ contracted hours. A 36-hour week at $2,800 is roughly $77.78/hr — but if you only get 24 hours that week because the unit went on diversion, that same package becomes $116.67/hr with stipends still flowing — or $0 of stipend if your contract has a "guaranteed hours void if floated/cancelled" clause. The blended rate is the only number that lets you compare contracts apples-to-apples; everything else is theater.

Why your taxable base matters more than the headline number. Overtime, holiday pay, missed-shift penalties, and 401(k) match are all calculated on the taxable hourly base, not the blended rate. A package with $20/hr base × 36 + $1,500/wk in stipends pays the same on a normal week as $32/hr × 36 + $948/wk in stipends — but if you work an OT shift, the first contract pays $30/hr × 1.5 = $45/hr, and the second pays $32/hr × 1.5 = $48/hr. Stack a few OT shifts over 13 weeks and the difference is real money. The analyzer flags any contract where the taxable base is below the BLS staff RN average for your specialty and state because it indicates the agency is loading the package into stipends — which feels good in week one and hurts on payday in week eleven.

The IRS rules nobody on a recruiter's call will explain. Tax-free stipends are only legitimate if you have a "tax home" — a permanent residence where you (a) have duplicated expenses while on assignment, (b) maintain ties (driver's license, voter registration, return visits ≥30 days/year is the safe-harbor benchmark), and (c) don't stay in the same metro area more than 12 months out of any rolling 24. Wage recharacterization (Rev. Rul. 2006-56 / IRB 2012-37) is the IRS rule that says agencies can't arbitrarily move taxable wages into stipend buckets to dodge payroll tax. If your base is well below the local staff RN average and your stipends exceed GSA caps for the assignment ZIP, the IRS can reclassify the stipend overage as wages — and the back tax + penalty lands on you, not the agency. Plan on $6,000–$15,000+ per year of exposure for an aggressive split. The analyzer's IRS Risk score is built off these two checks: base-vs-BLS and stipend-vs-GSA.

Cancellation, float, and the language that voids your guarantee. "Guaranteed hours" looks great in a contract but it usually has an exception list. Look for: "facility cancellation" (the facility can flex you and walk), "float refusal" (you say no to floating, lose the guarantee), "diversion or low census" (any week the unit slows down, no guarantee), and the at-will clause that supersedes everything else. The single biggest weekly hit comes from a vague float scope — "Med-Surg or as assigned" puts you on any unit they want, and your specialty pay differential is gone. Push back: "ICU only, with mutual consent for float to step-down or PCU." If they say no, walk. There are 175,000 active travel nurses and 40,000 open contracts at any given moment.

Missed-shift penalties and the double-dip trap. Most contracts charge you $8–25/hr for missed shifts. That's normal. What's predatory is when the same contract also prorates the entire weekly stipend if you miss any shift — that's the double dip, and it's a wage-recharacterization gray zone the IRS has questioned. Call out one shift on a $1,500/wk stipend contract with proration and you can lose $400 plus the missed-shift fee plus the missed wages. The analyzer flags contracts where missed-shift language stacks with stipend proration, because that's the structure most likely to land you in front of a tax auditor.

What a fair contract actually looks like in 2026. Based on Vivian Health's quarterly trend reports, average travel RN weekly pay was $2,294/wk in Dec 2024 and around $2,287/wk in Q1 2025 — basically flat with January 2020 inflation-adjusted levels. ICU normal range is $2,600–$4,500/wk depending on market; CVOR runs $2,800–$4,200; Med-Surg/Tele $2,000–$2,800. Anything above the top of those ranges is either a strike contract (different rules — much higher cancellation risk) or a crisis-rate one-off. Anything below the bottom of those ranges is worth scrutinizing for a maxed-stipend split or hidden penalty stack. The analyzer's Pay score uses these benchmarks and adjusts for state cost-of-living.

Always read the non-compete twice. Even after the FTC tried to ban non-competes in 2024, federal courts blocked it and most states still enforce them. Travel contracts almost always include a 12-month non-compete that prevents you from going back to the same facility through any other agency — which sounds reasonable until you realize "any affiliated facility" can sweep in an entire hospital system. Push for a 25-mile / 6-month limit, name the buyout fee in dollars (not "as determined by agency"), and negotiate it down before you sign. Once you sign, you have zero leverage.