First Travel Nurse Assignment: The Complete Checklist

Key numbers at a glance

Licensure and the Nurse Licensure Compact

Start here, because everything else queues behind it. If your primary state of residence participates in the Nurse Licensure Compact and so does the assignment state, your multistate license already covers you — no new application, no waiting. Over 40 states are compact members now, which covers a large share of assignments before paperwork begins.

If the assignment state is outside the compact, you need licensure by endorsement: application, verification of your current license, fingerprints and fees. Realistic timelines run 2–6 weeks (Texas and California are the slow ones; some states turn around in days), and costs run roughly $150–$400. Build that window into your start date, and ask the recruiter whether the agency reimburses licensure — many do, often as a taxable reimbursement, on completion of the assignment.

Your credential pack

The agency's credentialing team will request the same core file every hospital asks for. Assembling it before you shop for contracts cuts a week off the timeline:

1. Vaccination records with titers — MMR, varicella, hepatitis B, Tdap, and proof via lab titers, not just vaccine history; many hospitals require both. Flu shot in season, or an approved exemption process that takes longer than the shot. 2. BLS, and ACLS or PALS where your unit requires it — through the American Heart Association, unexpired, card in hand. 3. A physical exam and TB test or quantiferon — dated within the last 12 months; schedule it now if you're due. 4. Background check and drug screen — arranged through the agency, usually at a clinic near you. 5. Work history and supervisor references — typically two or three supervisory references with working phone numbers; traveling recruiters verify every one. 6. License and certification copies, plus your I-9 documents.

Scan everything once, keep it in one folder, and every future assignment gets easier — the file largely carries over contract to contract.

Before you sign

Grill the recruiter first, then read the contract itself against their answers. Work the list in order:

1. Guaranteed hours: how many per week (36 is standard), and what conditions let the facility out of the guarantee — low census, your own call-outs, orientation weeks.
2. Cancellation clause: can the facility cancel the contract before or during the assignment, with how much notice (5–15 days is common), and what happens to your stipends if it does.
3. Float policy: which units you can be floated to, with how much notice, and whether floating to a different scope triggers any premium.
4. Overtime base: whether OT is 1.5x your taxable hourly base ($20–25/hr territory) or a blended equivalent — on a $24 base that's the difference between $36/hr and roughly $70/hr of extra-shift money.
5. Stipend amounts vs. GSA: ask for the exact weekly housing and M&IE numbers, then check them against the federal GSA tables for that city. Stipends far above GSA caps, or a taxable wage far below $18–25/hr, are audit risk wearing a bow.
6. Charge/nurse-to-patient ratios, weekend and holiday rotation, call expectations — the work conditions that decide whether week 7 breaks you.
7. Housing timing: never sign a lease or send a deposit before the contract is countersigned by both you and the facility. Until then you're holding a bet on other people's paperwork.
8. Tax home setup: confirm you can genuinely maintain and pay for your home while duplicating expenses on assignment — see the tax home guide — and run the whole package through the take-home calculator with the assignment state's income tax before you say yes.

If the recruiter dodges the guaranteed-hours or cancellation questions, that is the answer. A clean offer survives all eight items without a sigh on the other end of the phone.

And the paperwork those 4–8 weeks are made of — what each item is, where it comes from, and how long it really takes:

Your first week on the ground

Arrive 2–3 days before your start date, not the night before — housing walkthrough, utilities and internet check, and a dry-run drive to the hospital at commute hour. Day one is HR and badging: I-9, drug screen records, occupational health document review, parking pass, and the Epic or Meditech login dance. Expect 1–5 days of unit-specific orientation with a preceptor, which is also your chance to learn where everything is before the assignment counts on you knowing.

The practical items that sink first weeks: confirm your timekeeping method (clocking in vs. self-reporting) and who approves it; keep your own log of hours worked against the guarantee; save the floats, call-offs and cancellations in writing as they happen — that paper trail is what a pay dispute or a contract question actually runs on. Submit your first timesheet early and check the first paycheck against the contract line by line: taxable rate, stipend amounts, and any travel reimbursement. Errors in week one are honest and easy to fix; errors discovered in week ten are a negotiation.

After the first paycheck lands, re-run the take-home calculator against the real numbers. If the result differs from the recruiter's quote materially, you want to know in week one — while you can still raise it, and while the next extension is being priced.