Travel Nurse Pay in Delaware (2026)

Key numbers at a glance

Travel nurse pay in Delaware: the numbers

The baseline first. Per the BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics survey (May 2025), Delaware employs 14,290 registered nurses (roughly 0.4% of the nation's 3.38 million registered nurses — one of the smallest RN workforces among the states) at a median wage of $47.85 an hour ($99,520 a year), with a mean of $99,460. The national median is $46.90 an hour ($97,550 a year), so Delaware staff RNs sit essentially at the national median — unusual for a state this small, and a direct effect of competing with Philadelphia and Baltimore hospitals for the same clinicians.

Treat the travel band as hedged market context, not a quote: routine med-surg in a metro community hospital can land below it, while ICU, NICU, cath lab and L&D contracts, rural referral coverage and rapid-response extensions routinely clear the top. Delaware taxes wages on a graduated schedule from 2.2% up to a 6.6% top rate. On a traveler's modest taxable base the weekly bite runs roughly $35–45 — a bit stiffer than most neighbors because Delaware's brackets start low. The offset: no sales tax, which softens daily costs but does nothing for your paycheck. Verify current brackets with the Delaware Division of Revenue when modeling an offer.

The map: Wilmington anchors the market around its large academic-affiliated health system — the state's biggest employer and a consistent buyer of travelers. Newark and Dover follow with steady community-hospital demand. The wildcard is Sussex County's beach towns, where the summer population surge reliably sends coastal hospitals hunting for extra nurses every June through August before the market quiets in fall. Delaware is a Nurse Licensure Compact member (implemented January 19, 2018, per NCSBN), so a multistate RN license issued by your compact home state covers Delaware assignments — handy in a market where many clinicians also hold Pennsylvania, New Jersey or Maryland licenses. Compare Delaware against every other state on the travel nurse pay by state hub, and check the underlying BLS tables at bls.gov/oes.

How stipends change the math in Delaware

Every Delaware offer splits into taxable wages and tax-free stipends, and the split matters as much as the number. Housing and meal stipends stay untaxed only while you maintain a valid tax home with duplicated living expenses, and they are capped by the GSA per diem tables for your assignment city. Wilmington and the New Castle County metro carry moderate GSA tables; the Kent and Sussex county standard is lower — though summer scarcity near the beaches lets facilities push total package value up through the taxable rate instead. Decide early whether to take the stipend or agency housing — in the bigger Delaware metros that choice is routinely worth several hundred dollars a week.

Illustrative contract, Wilmington: $23 an hour taxable times 36 guaranteed hours is $828 of weekly taxable gross. Federal income tax runs about $60 a week for a single filer after the standard deduction, FICA about $63, and Delaware tax about $40 a week on this base — call it about $665 net from the taxable side. Add $1,400 housing plus $400 meals and incidentals, untaxed with a valid tax home, and weekly take-home is roughly $2,465, a blended rate near $68 an hour. A 13-week contract lands near $32,000. Run your own offer through the take-home pay calculator — this is an estimate, not tax advice.

The comparison that matters: Delaware lives in Philadelphia's shadow and prices accordingly — near-national-median staff wages in a tiny market. For travelers, the play is scarcity and seasonality: a small number of hospitals means one census crunch or one summer beach surge moves rates quickly, while the compact license makes Delaware an easy add-on to a Mid-Atlantic contract run. Philadelphia is 30 minutes from Wilmington for rate benchmarking; use it. If a Delaware offer does not beat a Philadelphia offer on take-home, take the bigger market. Score any two offers with the contract comparison calculator or the blended rate calculator, and if this is your first contract, walk the first assignment checklist before you sign anything.