Travel Contract Pay Estimator

The clauses that decide what you keep

A quoted weekly rate assumes a perfect schedule: every shift worked, every guaranteed hour honoured, no cancellations. Contracts rarely run that way, and the clauses governing what happens when they do not are where the real variance lives.

Guaranteed hours

A guarantee of 36 hours means the facility owes you 36 hours of pay whether or not it has 36 hours of work. Without one, a low-census week is simply an unpaid week. Confirm the guarantee is in the contract rather than the job advert, and check whether it is per week or averaged across the assignment — averaged guarantees let a facility cancel heavily one week and make it up with overtime later, which is not the same thing at all.

Missed shifts and stipend proration

Most agencies prorate stipends when you miss a shift. Because the stipend is the untaxed part of the package, losing a slice of it costs more per hour than losing hourly pay does. On the scenario above, one missed 12-hour shift costs roughly $800 — and only part of that is the hourly. Ask specifically whether stipends are prorated for facility cancellations as well as for personal call-outs; the two are often treated differently.

Overtime and callback

Overtime is paid on the taxable hourly rate, not the blended rate — so on a stipend-weighted package, time and a half is one and a half times a deliberately small number. That is a genuine argument for a higher taxable rate even though it nets less week to week. Callback is usually also based on the taxable rate, and is taxed as ordinary wages.

Travel and licensure

Travel reimbursements are commonly paid as a lump sum at the start or split between the first and last cheque, and are non-taxable when they qualify as accountable-plan reimbursements. Licence and certification reimbursements work the same way. None of it is guaranteed if you terminate early — check the clawback terms, which frequently make an early exit far more expensive than the lost weeks alone.