Travel Nurse Salary in Ohio 2026,
$82,510 Median | BLS Data by City

This page reports the only published figure: the registered nurse row, at a median $82,510 a year or $39.67 an hour per BLS OEWS May 2025, with a band from $66,980 at the 10th percentile to $105,290 at the 90th. That is 15.4% below the national median of $97,550. BLS publishes no travel nurse occupation code, so contract rates are not separately measured — but the whole travel nursing model depends on agencies paying above local staff rates to fill vacancies, which means an Ohio contract typically sits in the upper part of this band rather than at the median.

Yes. Ohio is a compact member state, which is the most consequential fact for anyone considering travel work here. A nurse whose primary residence is in another compact state can take an Ohio assignment on their multistate licence without applying to the Ohio Board of Nursing, and an Ohio-resident nurse can hold a multistate licence to work elsewhere in the compact. That removes the licensing delay that otherwise makes short contracts impractical.

Because Ohio has a very large hospital sector setting wages against local costs. A location quotient of 1.19 across 143,730 nurses means the state employs far more nurses than its size predicts, and abundant employment in a moderate cost-of-living state produces a $82,510 median. The peer table — Indiana $83,500, Oklahoma $82,920, South Carolina $82,360, Missouri $81,780, Tennessee $81,500 — is a group of states with the same profile. The gap to the national $97,550 is exactly the arbitrage that travel nursing exists to capture.

Cleveland at $83,940, essentially level with Columbus $83,900 and Cincinnati $83,650, then Dayton-Kettering-Beavercreek $82,510 and Lima $81,440 — a spread of about $2,500 across the state. Ohio's three big systems pay near-identical medians, which means a nurse's earnings here are decided by unit acuity, shift pattern and whether they work staff or contract, not by geography.

Carefully, and with advice. Contract packages are commonly split into taxable hourly wages and non-taxable housing and meal stipends, and the non-taxable treatment depends on the nurse genuinely maintaining a tax home elsewhere and duplicating living expenses — it is a fact about the nurse, not about the contract. Ohio's own position adds a wrinkle: the state rate is a flat 2.75% for 2026 but most cities levy 1% to 2.5% on top, applied where the work is performed, so an assignment's municipal tax depends on the hospital's location.

Ohio's entire registered nurse workforce — 143,730 people across school nursing, outpatient clinics, theatre, home health, critical care and every other setting. There is no travel nurse SOC code, and agency contract workers are counted on this row alongside staff nurses when they are captured at all. The honest reading of $82,510 is therefore as the Ohio staff nursing baseline, and as the number against which a travel contract should be compared. If an agency rate does not clear it substantially once stipends are treated properly, the contract is not doing the job travel nursing is supposed to do.

Because it removes the timing constraint that would otherwise make Ohio contracts unworkable. A thirteen-week assignment cannot absorb a multi-month licensing process, so travel nursing is functionally restricted to states where an out-of-state nurse can start quickly. Ohio's Nurse Licensure Compact membership means a nurse residing in another compact state simply arrives and works. The consequence for Ohio hospitals is that their vacancy problem is solvable at a price set nationally rather than locally — and the consequence for Ohio staff nurses is that they can see what that national price is, which puts quiet pressure on the $82,510 median over time.

The structural case remains, though the arithmetic is less dramatic than at the peak. Contract rates fell substantially from their pandemic highs, and a nurse choosing between a staff post and a contract is now weighing a smaller premium against real costs: no employer retirement contribution, no paid leave, no seniority accrual, housing logistics, and licensure and credentialling administration between assignments. What sustains the model in Ohio is the persistent gap between a $82,510 local median and national specialty demand, concentrated in critical care, emergency and theatre. For a nurse with a scarce specialty and a genuine tax home elsewhere, the case is strong; for a generalist working near home, it is often weaker than the headline rate suggests.