Travel Nurse Stipend Analysis
Analyze your travel-nurse housing and M&IE stipend: check it against the GSA per-diem ceiling for your assignment, see what the tax-free treatment is worth, and score your tax-home eligibility — the IRS test that decides whether your stipend is tax-free or fully taxable wages.
Last reviewed: · Reviewed by the Money Scale editorial team · How we source our data
Power mode. Every input exposed, every assumption sourced, charts and shareables.
GSA benchmark uses Phoenix/Scottsdale as a representative metro. Confirm your exact county at gsa.gov/perdiem.
22%
$1,300
$350
7 days
$24
GSA per-diem checkOver cap by $123/wk
| Component | Your stipend | GSA ceiling | Headroom |
|---|---|---|---|
| Housing / wk | $1,300 | $1,177 | -$123 |
| M&IE / wk | $350 | $553 | +$203 |
Stipends at or below the GSA per-diem for your locality are presumptively reasonable. Amounts above the ceiling aren't automatically illegal, but the excess is the part most likely to be reclassified as taxable wages if you can't substantiate it.
Tax-free / week
$1,650
$85,800/yr
Tax saved / year
$18,876
at 22% marginal
Taxable-wage equivalent
$2,115/wk
gross wages to net the same
To take home the same $1,650/wk as taxable wages, you'd need to gross about $2,115/wk — that gap is exactly why the tax-free stipend model makes travel nursing pay punch above its hourly weight.
Tax-home eligibility: Strong
4/5Educational tool, not tax or legal advice. GSA per-diem figures are representative state metros (FY2025); your exact county rate at gsa.gov/perdiem is what governs. The eligibility check is a simplified version of the IRS tax-home rules (Rev. Rul. 73-529; Pub. 463) — qualifying is fact-specific. A travel-tax professional should review your situation before you rely on tax-free treatment.
🏠 $1,650/wk tax-free
My $1,650/wk stipend in Arizona is over the GSA ceiling by $123/wk.
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The Travel Nurse Stipend Analysis tool checks the most valuable — and most misunderstood — part of your pay package. Your tax-free housing and meals & incidentals (M&IE) stipend is what makes travel nursing pay punch above its hourly weight, but it's only tax-free if two things hold: the amount stays within the GSA per-diem ceiling for your assignment locality, and you maintain a genuine tax home. This tool compares your offered housing and M&IE stipends to the GSA benchmark for your state (showing how much headroom you have or how far over the cap you are), quantifies what the tax-free treatment is actually worth in annual tax saved and 'wage-equivalent' gross pay, and scores your tax-home eligibility against the five criteria the IRS uses. Get it wrong and the IRS can reclassify your entire stipend as taxable wages — retroactively, with penalties.
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How this calculator works
- Pick your assignment state. The tool loads a representative GSA per-diem benchmark for a major metro in that state (confirm your exact county at gsa.gov/perdiem).
- Enter your offered weekly housing stipend and weekly M&IE stipend, and how many days a week M&IE is paid.
- Set your marginal tax rate so the tool can value the tax-free benefit, and your taxable base rate for the wage-equivalent framing.
- Review the GSA check: it shows your stipend versus the ceiling for each component and whether you're within limits or over the cap.
- Work through the five-point tax-home checklist. Your score (0–5) maps to a risk level — strong, moderate, or weak — and the tool names the gaps that put your tax-free treatment at risk.
tax_saved = stipend_annual × marginal_rate wage_equiv = stipend ÷ (1 − marginal_rate) overage = max(0, stipend − GSA_ceiling)A tax-free stipend is worth the tax you don't pay on it: at a 22% marginal rate, every $1,000 of stipend saves $220 versus taking it as wages. The wage-equivalent grosses that up — what you'd have to earn in taxable pay to net the same — which is typically 25–35% higher. The GSA overage is the slice above the locality's per-diem ceiling; that's the part most exposed to reclassification as taxable wages.
- stipend
- Weekly (or annualized) housing + M&IE stipend
- marginal_rate
- Your top tax bracket, used to value the tax-free benefit
- GSA_ceiling
- GSA per-diem lodging + M&IE limit for the assignment locality
- wage_equiv
- Taxable gross pay needed to take home the same amount
Frequently asked questions
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