Travel Nurse Pay in Florida (2026)

Key numbers at a glance

Travel nurse pay in Florida: the numbers

The baseline first. Per the BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics survey (May 2025), Florida employs 229,940 registered nurses (about 7% of the nation's 3.38 million registered nurses — the third-largest RN workforce after California and Texas) at a median wage of $40.48 an hour ($84,190 a year), with a mean of $90,650. The national median is $46.90 an hour ($97,550 a year), so Florida staff RNs earn roughly 14% less than the typical U.S. nurse — the low staff wage is the trade for the zero-tax, low-cost structure.

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. Florida levies no individual income tax on wages — it is one of the nine states with none, alongside Alaska, Nevada, New Hampshire (which taxes no wage income), South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Washington and Wyoming. Only federal income tax and FICA touch the taxable portion of a Florida contract. Residents of income-tax home states may still owe their home state; the assignment state's zero is not a loophole against your resident state.

The map: Miami–Fort Lauderdale prices highest and runs the state's most intense year-round demand across giant hospital systems. Tampa–St. Petersburg and Orlando form the volume middle, each with multiple competing systems, and Jacksonville anchors the north. The seasonal layer sits on top of all of it: the snowbird census builds from December through April, tightening the whole state's market, while hurricane season periodically forces evacuation-and-surge staffing at short notice — those rapid-response needs post the sharpest premiums in Florida. Florida is a Nurse Licensure Compact member (implemented January 19, 2018, per NCSBN), so a multistate RN license issued by your compact home state covers Florida assignments — a major reason the winter market fills fast: no licensing friction. Compare Florida 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 Florida

Every Florida 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. Miami carries the state's highest GSA table by a wide margin; Orlando, Tampa and Jacksonville run mid-range, and the standard Florida rate outside the metros is modest — check the exact county's per diem before comparing two Florida offers. Decide early whether to take the stipend or agency housing — in the bigger Florida metros that choice is routinely worth several hundred dollars a week.

Illustrative contract, Tampa: $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 Florida income tax zero — call it about $705 net from the taxable side. Add $1,500 housing plus $400 meals and incidentals, untaxed with a valid tax home, and weekly take-home is roughly $2,605, a blended rate near $72 an hour. A 13-week contract lands near $33,900. Run your own offer through the take-home pay calculator — this is an estimate, not tax advice.

The comparison that matters: Florida is a timing market wrapped around a tax shelter. Take the same Tampa contract in February versus August and you can see hundreds of dollars a week of difference purely from census seasonality — while the zero-tax structure holds constant all year. The mistake to avoid is comparing a Florida winter gross against a no-tax-state crisis rate and assuming it lasts; summer rates soften as the snowbirds leave. Experienced travelers book Florida Q1, take crisis or northern contracts in summer, and let the compact license carry both. 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.