Travel Nurse Pay in Pennsylvania (2026)

Key numbers at a glance

Travel nurse pay in Pennsylvania: the numbers

The baseline sits at national parity. Per the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics' Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics survey (May 2025), Pennsylvania employs 146,520 registered nurses — about 24.2 per 1,000 jobs — at a median wage of $46.36 an hour ($96,430 a year), with a mean of $94,020. The national median is $46.90 an hour ($97,550), so Pennsylvania staff RNs land within about 1% of it while the state's cost of living runs below coastal standards. The tax row is the quiet advantage: a flat 3.07% on wages, unchanged for years and among the lowest flat rates in the nation, per the PA Department of Revenue — with one big exception named Philadelphia, whose city wage tax applies even to nonresidents working in the city.

Treat the travel band as hedged market context, not a quote: routine med-surg in a suburban Harrisburg hospital can land below it, while ICU, NICU, cath lab and L&D contracts in the Philadelphia academic systems and Pittsburgh routinely clear the top. The licensure story changed recently and in travelers' favor: Pennsylvania fully implemented the Nurse Licensure Compact on July 7, 2025, so a multistate license from another compact state now covers Pennsylvania assignments — verify details with the PA State Board of Nursing. The compact counted 43 jurisdictions as of late 2026. Compare Pennsylvania against the neighbors on the travel nurse pay by state hub.

The map: Philadelphia anchors the market with several massive academic systems and a world-ranked children's hospital that pulls pediatric specialties from across the country. Pittsburgh follows with its dominant integrated system and steady tertiary demand. The Harrisburg–Hershey corridor and the Lehigh Valley add reliable mid-market volume, and the rural northern tier posts some of the state's best premiums precisely because fewer travelers want it. One geography note that hits pay directly: working inside Philadelphia city limits adds the nonresident wage tax, while a facility in the surrounding suburbs does not — sometimes the difference is a bus stop.

How stipends change the math in Pennsylvania

A Pennsylvania offer splits into taxable wages and tax-free stipends, and the state's flat, low tax rate keeps the penalty small when an agency loads compensation into taxable wages. 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. Philadelphia's tables run meaningfully above Pittsburgh's, which run above the small-city standard, so the same job title in different Pennsylvania metros can hide a materially different stipend. Decide early whether to take the stipend or agency housing — in Philadelphia that choice is routinely worth several hundred dollars a week.

Illustrative contract, Philadelphia: $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 Pennsylvania's flat 3.07% roughly $25 — call it $680 net from the taxable side. Add $1,350 housing plus $400 meals and incidentals, untaxed with a valid tax home, and weekly take-home is about $2,430, a blended rate near $68 an hour. A 13-week contract lands near $31,600. Run your own offer through the take-home pay calculator — this is an estimate, not tax advice.

The comparison that matters: Pennsylvania's 3.07% plus compact access makes it one of the most frictionless high-volume markets in the Northeast — but price the Philadelphia wage tax before comparing a city offer against a suburban one, since two facilities twenty minutes apart can differ by roughly 3.4 points of local tax on the same taxable wages. 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.