Travel Nurse Pay in Texas (2026)

Key numbers at a glance

Travel nurse pay in Texas: the numbers

The baseline is unusually strong for a no-tax state. Per the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics' Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics survey (May 2025), Texas employs 271,380 registered nurses — about 8% of the nation's 3.38 million — at a median wage of $46.14 an hour ($95,970 a year), with a mean of $95,380. The national median is $46.90 an hour ($97,550), so Texas staff RNs sit within about 2% of it. High volume plus near-average wages plus no income tax is the entire Texas pitch: you are not chasing a scarcity premium in a tiny market, you are riding scale.

Treat the travel band as hedged market context, not a quote: routine med-surg in a suburban DFW hospital can land below it, while Houston ICU, NICU or cath lab contracts, border-metro coverage and rapid-response extensions routinely clear the top. The tax row is a structural, permanent feature — the Texas Comptroller collects no individual income tax, which is precisely why travel contracts in Texas (along with Washington and South Dakota) are famous among travelers. Your home state may still tax the wages if it has an income tax; the assignment state's zero is not a loophole against your resident state.

The map: Houston anchors everything around the Texas Medical Center, the largest medical complex in the world, with millions of square feet of hospitals running simultaneous travel needs. Dallas–Fort Worth spreads demand across several competing systems; San Antonio and Austin add steady volume with Austin pricing high on housing. El Paso, McAllen and rural West Texas hospitals post some of the state's best premiums precisely because fewer travelers want them. Texas is a Nurse Licensure Compact member (43 jurisdictions as of late 2026, per NurseCompact), so a multistate license covers all of it. Compare Texas against the neighbors on the travel nurse pay by state hub.

How stipends change the math in Texas

A Texas offer splits into taxable wages and tax-free stipends, and the second bucket is where the state gets interesting. 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. GSA lodging maxima in Houston, Dallas and Austin run meaningfully above the small-city Texas standard, so the same job title in different metros can hide a materially different stipend. Decide early whether to take the stipend or agency housing — in Texas metros that choice is routinely worth several hundred dollars a week.

Illustrative contract, Houston: $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 Texas income tax zero — call it $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 about $2,600, 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: because Texas takes nothing from the taxable wage, a nominally bigger gross in a high-tax state often nets less. A state with a 6–8% income tax has to quote roughly $50–$90 more per week than Texas just to draw even on the taxable bucket. That is the whole reason experienced travelers park a tax home in a no-tax state and let the compact license do the traveling. 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.