CalcStack — free, instant, no signup. The interactive calculator loads automatically.
A $1,300/week tax-free stipend is worth $1,667 of taxable pay — if your tax home is real.
Agencies quote a "blended rate" precisely so you cannot compare it to a staff offer. This calculator unblends it: the taxable hourly is taxed, the stipends are tax-free (while your tax home is legitimate), and the duplicated housing you actually pay at the assignment comes off the top. What remains is an honest annual take-home number you can put next to your staff paycheck — plus the breakeven stipend where the contract stops winning.
Any nurse weighing a contract against a staff job uses it to unblend the agency's headline rate: taxable wage after tax, stipends tax-free while the tax home holds, real duplicated housing off the top — and the breakeven stipend where the contract stops winning. The 12-month tax-home trap is built into the math.
Run the honest net, not the blended rate. Example: a $42/hr staff job at 36 hrs/wk grosses $78,624 and nets about $61,327 at a 22% tax rate. A contract at $28/hr taxable plus $1,300/wk stipends, three 13-week contracts, paying $1,500/month duplicated housing, nets $67,863 — travel wins by $6,537/year. Change the stipend to $1,100/wk and staff wins. The breakeven stipend in this scenario is $1,132/wk — that number, not the headline package, is the negotiation.
Only while you maintain a legitimate tax home and genuinely duplicate living expenses — paying for housing at the assignment while keeping your permanent home. Stipends are meant to track federal GSA per-diem rates for the assignment area. The trap: expect to work at one location for more than 12 months and the IRS treats the assignment as indefinite, not temporary — every stipend dollar becomes taxable income. Nurses who "travel" at one hospital for years are audit bait.
More than most travelers realize. Social Security credits, unemployment benefits, disability coverage, 401(k) match percentages, and mortgage income verification all key off TAXABLE wages — a $28/hr taxable rate with big stipends looks like a $58k earner to a lender, not a $115k one. The stipend's tax advantage is real (a $1,300/wk tax-free stipend equals $1,667/wk of taxable pay at 22%), but the low base wage quietly discounts every benefit computed on income.