Most travel nursing assignments require you to live at least 50 miles from the facility, but this number isn’t a law or an IRS rule. It’s a threshold set individually by hospitals and staffing agencies, and it varies widely. Some facilities set the bar at 75, 100, or even 200 miles, while others have no distance requirement at all.
Where the 50-Mile Rule Actually Comes From
The “50-mile rule” is one of the most repeated figures in travel nursing, and one of the most misunderstood. Many nurses and even recruiters assume the IRS created this standard. It didn’t. The IRS has no mileage radius stipulation for travel nurse stipends or compensation. The distance requirements come entirely from individual hospitals and staffing agencies, and they exist for practical business reasons, not tax law.
Hospitals set radius rules primarily to prevent their own full-time staff from quitting and returning as higher-paid travelers. If a facility allowed local nurses to take travel contracts, it would undermine retention and create staffing gaps rather than fill them. Radius requirements also help hospitals maintain clean distinctions between their PRN (per diem), local contract, and travel nursing pay structures and billing rates.
The result is a patchwork of policies. Fifty miles is the most common minimum, but 75 to 100 miles is also standard. Some hospitals push that to 150 miles or more. A few facilities, particularly those in hard-to-staff areas, don’t enforce any radius at all. Your recruiter should be able to tell you the specific requirement for any assignment you’re considering.
Common Distance Requirements by Facility
Based on what staffing agencies and facilities actually enforce, here’s the range you’ll encounter:
- 50 miles: The most widely used minimum. This is the baseline at a majority of hospitals.
- 75 to 100 miles: Common at larger hospital systems and in metro areas with big local nursing pools. Some agencies offer reduced stipends (roughly two-thirds) for nurses in the 50-to-75-mile range and full stipends only beyond 75 or 76 miles.
- 100 to 200 miles: Less common but not rare, especially at facilities in competitive urban markets trying to draw from genuinely distant talent pools.
- No radius rule: Some facilities and vendors skip distance requirements entirely, particularly when staffing shortages are severe.
These distances are measured from your permanent home address to the facility, typically calculated as driving distance rather than a straight line on a map.
Distance and Your Tax-Free Stipends
The reason distance matters so much in travel nursing isn’t just about hospital policy. It directly affects whether your housing and meal stipends are tax-free or taxable income. This can mean thousands of dollars per assignment.
To receive tax-free stipends, the IRS requires you to have a permanent “tax home,” a place where you maintain a real residence and pay ongoing living expenses. You then need to show that your travel assignment forces you to duplicate those expenses by paying for a second place to live. The IRS uses what’s sometimes called the “sleep or rest” test: is your assignment far enough away that you need substantial sleep or rest before you can safely return home? If you’re commuting home every night, your stipends are generally taxed as regular income.
Three conditions need to line up for your stipends to stay tax-free:
- A permanent residence: You maintain a real home at a fixed address. This is your home base.
- Duplicate living expenses: You pay rent or a mortgage at your home base while also paying for lodging at your assignment. This is the single biggest factor the IRS looks at.
- Strong ties to your home area: Your driver’s license, voter registration, and car registration should all reflect your home base address.
You’ll want to keep documentation proving both residences are real. Lease agreements, utility bills, and receipts for your tax home and your assignment housing all serve as proof. One important detail: if you’re paying rent to family members (like parents), it must be at fair market value. A token payment doesn’t qualify.
You’re not required to maintain a tax home, but if you don’t have one, all your compensation becomes fully taxable. If that’s your situation, let your agency know so your pay is structured correctly from the start.
What Counts as “Too Close” to Travel
There’s no single legal line separating a travel nurse from a local one. But practically, if you live close enough to drive home after every shift, you’ll likely face two problems: the facility may not accept you as a traveler, and the IRS may not treat your stipends as tax-free.
Some agencies handle the gray zone by creating tiered contracts. A nurse living 55 miles from the facility might qualify as a traveler but receive a reduced stipend compared to someone living 150 miles away. Others draw a hard line, one agency reported using 76 miles as its cutoff, with only partial stipends for anyone between 50 and 75 miles.
Certain specialties add another layer. Operating room and cardiac catheterization lab positions often come with on-call requirements that mandate a 30-to-40-minute response time. If you take an assignment like this and live far from the facility, you may need to use on-site sleep rooms during on-call shifts rather than commuting from your temporary housing.
Practical Tips for Assignments Near Home
If you’re hoping to take a travel assignment relatively close to where you live, it’s doable, but you need to be strategic. Start by asking your recruiter about the specific facility’s radius policy before you apply. Don’t assume it’s 50 miles.
If you live just outside the radius, make sure your tax home documentation is airtight. Keep your permanent address current on all official documents, maintain your lease or mortgage payments, and save receipts for your assignment housing. The IRS doesn’t audit every travel nurse, but when it does, it looks for proof of genuine duplicate expenses.
Also keep in mind that distance alone doesn’t determine your tax situation. A nurse who lives 60 miles from a facility but drives home every night is in a weaker position than one who lives 60 miles away and rents a room near the hospital. The core question is whether you’re truly duplicating your living costs, not just how many miles separate your two addresses.
For 2025, the IRS standard mileage rate for business travel is 70 cents per mile. If your agency reimburses travel costs to and from assignments, this is the benchmark rate. Some agencies build travel day reimbursement into your contract, while others don’t, so ask upfront.