One thing travel nurses have in common: finding a nice place to live.
The good part is that there are 50 options for states, and Nursa prepared this article to help clinicians decide which state is best for them to live in.
Some places offer higher pay but have limited airport access, or the cost of living is unaffordable; others require specific licensing but offer a quiet routine.
Choosing a place to live and work as a travel nurse is definitely not a simple task.
Whether you take permanent or temporary assignments in different areas of the country, it is important to consider and choose the state that aligns with your interests, ambitions, and lifestyle.
So, where is the best place for a travel nurse to live?
This guide walks you through the factors that matter most, including taxes, licensing, budget, and more.
Keep reading the article below to learn more.
Why your home state is a career decision
Your home state affects 3 things that follow you to every assignment:
- Your compact license eligibility
- The legitimacy of your tax home
- Your state income tax bill
Get all 3 right, and your home base quietly works in your favor for your entire career. Get one wrong, and you may feel it in every paycheck.
Your home state determines your compact license
Under the Nurse Licensure Compact (NLC), your multistate privileges are tied to your primary state of residence—not the state where you were originally licensed and not the states where you take assignments.
The compact distinguishes between your home state, which issues your multistate license, and privilege states, where you practice on that license without obtaining a new one.
At this point, you might be asking yourself: how does moving affect my compact nursing license?
If you move your primary residence to another compact state, you must notify your new state's board of nursing (BON) and apply for licensure by endorsement there. Your old multistate license doesn't simply transfer.
Move to a non-compact state, and your multistate privileges end entirely.
The National Council of State Boards of Nursing (NCSBN) maintains the current member list and the rules for declaring a primary state of residence.
Your home state establishes your tax home
The IRS defines a tax home as the general area of your main place of work or, for workers without a fixed workplace, the place where you regularly live and incur duplicated living expenses.
For travel nurses, a legitimate tax home determines whether housing and meal stipends are tax-free. Without one, the IRS treats you as itinerant, and those stipends become taxable income.
Does where I live affect my travel nurse stipends?
Yes, directly. Maintaining a genuine residence means paying real, ongoing costs there, returning between assignments, and keeping ties like a driver's license and voter registration in that state.
The distinction between your primary residence and your assignment location has to be real, not just an address on paper. Your travel nurse tax home state is, in practical terms, the foundation of your compensation.
Home state income tax follows you
Your home state taxes the wages you earn while living and working there, including income from local PRN or per diem shifts you pick up between contracts. Choose a state with no income tax as your base, and you eliminate that layer entirely—every local shift you work goes further.
4 factors for choosing your home state
If you're asking yourself “what state should I move to as a travel nurse?” run your candidates through these 4 filters in order. Each one narrows the list before the next.
1. Compact membership—the first filter
For most active travelers, this is the dealbreaker filter. If you relocate to a non-compact state, you lose multistate privileges the moment you establish residency there, and you'll need individual licenses for every state you work in.
When comparing compact license states to live in as a travel nurse, start with the NCSBN's current member map, because the list continues to grow and implementation dates vary.
2. State income tax and long-term earnings
9 states currently levy no tax on wage income: Alaska, Florida, Nevada, New Hampshire, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Washington, and Wyoming.
The best states for travel nurses with no income tax are the ones that also pass the compact filter—Florida, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, and Wyoming all qualify.
The savings compound: over a 10-year travel career, the difference versus a high-tax state can fund a house down payment.
3. Cost of living as a permanent base
Here's a distinction that trips up newer travelers: mid-assignment housing is offset by stipends, but home-based housing comes out of your taxable wages.
This means a high-cost-of-living state will be a recurring drag on you. You're paying premium rent or mortgage costs on a residence you may only occupy for a few months a year!
Moderate housing costs make it far easier to maintain the duplicated expenses a legitimate tax home requires.
4. Airport access and assignment proximity
If you drive to assignments, look for a base within 2 to 4 hours of several high-demand markets so you can come home on stretches of days off.
If you fly, proximity to a major hub matters more than proximity to any particular hospital—direct flights turn a cross-country contract into a manageable commute.
States that work well as a home base
Every nurse has their own answer, but usually, all of them have to choose the correct state based on taxes, licensing and cost of living.
Check out the following 5 states, which are popularly considered the best home bases for travel nurses:
Texas
Texas checks every box: compact member, no state income tax, and housing costs that stay reasonable outside the downtown cores of Austin and Dallas.
Drivers based in Dallas–Fort Worth or San Antonio sit within a few hours of dozens of hospital systems, and DFW airport alone offers nonstop flights to more than 200 destinations.
For nurses who want to mix contracts with local shifts between assignments, Texas's sheer number of facilities is hard to beat.
Tennessee
Tennessee combines compact membership, no tax on wages, and one of the more affordable cost-of-living profiles in the country, particularly outside Nashville's hottest zip codes. Its geography is a quiet superpower: a base near Nashville or Knoxville puts you within a day's drive of markets across the Southeast, Midwest, and mid-Atlantic, and Nashville International now serves most major hubs nonstop.
Florida
Florida is a compact state with no income tax and a healthcare market that generates year-round demand of its own—useful when you want local shifts between contracts.
Cost of living varies widely: coastal metros have climbed, but inland cities like Ocala and Lakeland remain affordable. With major airports in Miami, Orlando, and Tampa, flight access is excellent from nearly anywhere in the state.
Washington
Washington levies no tax on wage income and is among the newest additions to the compact—verify current implementation details with the Washington State BON before you count on multistate privileges.
Housing in Seattle proper is expensive, but Spokane and the smaller cities east of the Cascades offer far more affordable bases, and Sea-Tac is a major West Coast hub.
Nevada
Nevada is the honest tradeoff case: no state income tax and outstanding flight access through Las Vegas's Harry Reid International, but Nevada is not an NLC member, so relocating here means holding individual licenses for the states where you work.
That math still works for nurses who fly to a small rotation of high-paying states—California, for instance, requires its own license regardless of compact status. Affordable housing in Las Vegas and Reno sweetens the deal.
States to reconsider before relocating
This isn't a blacklist—plenty of nurses build great lives in these states. It's a run-the-numbers-first list.
California offers some of the highest bill rates in the country, which makes it a phenomenal place to work. As a permanent base, though, you're pairing the nation's highest housing costs with a top marginal income tax rate above 13% —and it isn't a compact state, so residency there means single-state licensure.
New York presents a similar profile: strong assignment pay, but steep taxes and living costs erode it as a home base.
One more caution: compact membership alone doesn't make a state financially smart—a compact state with high taxes and housing costs can still cost you more over a career than a carefully chosen alternative. Run all 4 filters, not just the first.
How to manage the move without a coverage gap
Before moving to the new state, nurses must verify their license transition and update their tax home information.
The first step is to ensure the nursing license is valid in the new state before packing your luggage.
After changing your primary state of residence, notify your current BON and apply for licensure by endorsement in your new home state.
Note that many states allow you to work with your existing multistate license while your new one is being processed, but check first whether it applies to the state you intend to move to, and start the paperwork as early as possible so that any delay does not become a problem for you.
Second, update your tax home - whether you rent or are purchasing a property; the same for your driver's license and voter registration, and submit genuine documents to show your living expenses.
Last but not least, consider a test drive. Spending a few days on an assignment as a PRN nurse lets you live in the state and experience it before moving there. Nursa is a great option for those looking for available shifts around the country without bureaucracy or long-term contracts.
How to earn comparable pay with block booking and no relocation
Here's a possibility worth weighing before you pack anything: you may not need to relocate at all. Travel nurse pay has been trending downward from its pandemic-era peaks, which changes the math on uprooting your life for contracts.
Block booking on Nursa offers a different path to the things travelers value:
- Consistency
- Familiarity with one facility
- Strong earning potential
Instead of a single shift here and there, you pick up a block of shifts at the same facility when the facility offers a block, building the kind of unit rapport that travel nurses typically need 13 weeks to develop.
Because most block-booked shifts are picked up relatively close to a clinician's home, there's no second lease, no tax home gymnastics, and no license transfer. For nurses whose main draw to travel was the paycheck rather than the geography, block booking through the Nursa platform can deliver comparable income without the moving boxes.
Don’t stop here. Browse travel nursing shifts in your target state on Nursa.
Sources:
- National Council of State Boards of Nursing (NCSBN)
- Internal Revenue Service: Publication 463 (2025), Travel, Gift, and Car Expenses
- Tax Policy Center: How do state and local individual income taxes work?
- NCSBN: FAQs
- Tax Foundation — State individual income tax rates and brackets
- Washington State Department of Health, Nursing Care Quality Assurance Commission
.jpg)
