Top 10 Travel Nursing Companies in the USA for 2026


Snapshot
- Ten travel nursing agencies, listed A to Z rather than ranked, because the right agency depends on what you want from an assignment.
- Pay, day-one benefits, housing support and the recruiter model are the four things that actually differ between them.
- Want the largest job pool? Aya. Guaranteed pay if a shift cancels? TNAA. One recruiter for everything? FlexCare.
- Want the highest rates and will go where the need is? Fastaff, on short crisis contracts.
- Every agency below carries one honest limitation, because no single agency suits every nurse.
- If you staff travel nurses rather than work as one, skip to the last section.
Travel nursing has become one of the most dynamic and rewarding fields within the healthcare sector in the United States. Many nurses are drawn to this profession with its flexible work options, lucrative pay, and the ability to explore new locations. However, choosing the right travel nursing company is the key to success as a travel nurse.
These companies act as intermediaries, providing opportunities and handling logistics so nurses can focus on patient care. This blog will explore the top 10 travel nursing companies in the USA, highlighting what makes them stand out and why they are considered the best in the business.
How these travel nursing companies were compared
Each agency was assessed on six things a nurse actually weighs before signing: pay transparency, when benefits start, housing support, the recruiter model, the range of assignments available, and one limitation.
What this comparison did not do
- No paid placement. No agency paid for inclusion, position or wording.
- No agency review before publication. No agency was contacted for input or shown the list in advance.
- ITILITE is not in the list. ITILITE publishes this page and is a travel and expense platform, not a travel nursing agency. It appears in its own section at the end, for the agencies and health systems that staff travel nurses.
Best travel nursing companies in the USA
1. Advantage RN
Advantage RN focuses on matching travel nurses with high-paying assignments in healthcare facilities nationwide. As one of the best travel nursing companies, they specialize in placing nurses in challenging and high-demand roles. This often comes with premium pay packages. The company offers support throughout the placement process, including help with licensure, housing, and compliance.
Key features of Advantage RN:
- High-paying assignments with lucrative pay packages and bonuses
- Tailored job searches based on nurse experience and specialty
- Full suite of benefits, including health, dental, vision, and life insurance
- Licensing reimbursement and support for multi-state licensure (Compact licenses)
Where it falls short: Built around high-demand, premium-pay placements, so the assignment pool is narrower than the largest agencies. Less suited if you want the widest choice of location.
2. American Mobile Healthcare
American Mobile Healthcare is one of the biggest travel nursing companies in the U.S. It offers a wide range of travel nursing opportunities at some of the nation’s most prestigious healthcare facilities. The company is part of AMN Healthcare, which allows it to offer one of the largest networks of jobs and career growth opportunities.
Nurses who work with American Mobile Healthcare receive competitive pay, housing assistance, and career development resources.
Key features of American Mobile Healthcare:
- Access to exclusive assignments at leading hospitals across the country
- Excellent career growth opportunities through training and educational resources
- Full housing assistance, including a team to help find short-term accommodations
- Comprehensive health benefits, including medical, dental, and vision insurance
Where it falls short: Scale is the advantage, and it is also the trade-off. A large organisation is harder to navigate than a boutique agency if you want one consistent point of contact.
3. Aya Healthcare
Aya Healthcare is one of the largest and most reputable travel nursing companies in the USA. It offers access to the largest number of travel nursing jobs across a wide range of specialties and locations. Thus, making it a great choice for nurses seeking variety and flexibility.
Aya is known for its transparency in the hiring process and has an easy-to-use mobile app that makes job searching, tracking pay, and accessing assignments incredibly convenient. Aya Healthcare provides support from day one, guiding nurses through licensing, housing, and compliance paperwork.
Key features of Aya Healthcare:
- Largest job pool in the industry, with assignments in every state
- Aya Connect app: Track your pay, view your schedule, and access benefits on the go
- Top-notch support: Licensing assistance, travel reimbursements, and housing options
- Daily stipends and competitive base pay rates
Where it falls short: The largest job pool also means the most process. Nurses who want a small, high-touch relationship with one recruiter often find a big agency less personal.
4. Cross Country Healthcare
Cross Country Healthcare is one of the longest-established staffing firms in the US and places nurses alongside allied health professionals such as therapists and imaging technologists. That breadth means a single recruiter relationship can cover more than one discipline, which suits nurses who cross-train or who travel with a partner in another healthcare role.
Key features of Cross Country Healthcare:
- Nursing and allied health assignments booked through the same agency
- Assignments across all 50 states, including crisis and rapid-response contracts
- Health, dental and vision benefits, plus 401(k) with company match
- Licensure and housing support for multi-state travel
Where it falls short: Covers allied health as well as nursing, so nursing-specific depth varies by specialty and region rather than being uniform across the country.
5. Fastaff Travel Nursing
Fastaff Travel Nursing specializes in rapid-response assignments. This makes it a great option for travel nurses who are looking for short-term, high-paying jobs in areas of critical need. Fastaff is known for offering some of the highest pay rates in the travel nursing industry, along with flexible contracts and bonuses.
As one of the best travel nursing companies, it provides 24/7 support, ensuring that nurses always have someone to turn to in case of any issues during their assignments.
Key features of Fastaff Travel Nursing:
- Rapid-response assignments: Fast placement for critical staffing needs
- Highest pay rates in the industry, with guaranteed hours
- Flexible contracts with short-term, crisis response, and high-demand opportunities
- 24/7 support to address any issues that arise during the assignment
Where it falls short: Built for rapid-response and crisis work. Pay is high, but contracts are short and locations are set by where the need is rather than where you want to go.
6. FlexCare Medical Staffing
FlexCare Medical Staffing offers a streamlined and simplified approach to travel nursing. Nurses are assigned a single recruiter, creating a personalized experience where one person handles all their needs. This ‘single point of contact’ model reduces confusion and allows nurses to build stronger relationships with their recruiters.
FlexCare’s website is easy to navigate, and the company is known as one of the best travel nursing companies as it provides some of the highest pay rates in the industry.
Key features of FlexCare Medical Staffing:
- Single point of contact service model for personalized attention and seamless support
- Transparent pay packages with detailed breakdowns of earnings
- Award-winning customer service with a focus on nurse satisfaction
- Quick and hassle-free onboarding for easy transitions between assignments
Where it falls short: The single-recruiter model is the whole differentiator. If you do not click with the recruiter you are assigned, there is no second channel to go through.
7. Host Healthcare
Host Healthcare is known for its dedication to helping nurses find the best travel assignments based on their personal preferences and professional goals. With a team that prioritizes building relationships with their nurses, Host Healthcare stands out for its excellent customer service and attention to detail. In addition to competitive pay, Host Healthcare offers comprehensive health benefits, 401(k) plans, and assistance with licensing and housing. Hence, they are known to be one of the best travel nursing companies.
Key features of Host Healthcare:
- Personalized job matching based on nurse goals, preferences, and specialties
- Full health and wellness benefits, including mental health support
- 401(k) retirement plans with matching contributions
- Assistance with state licensing and certification renewals
Where it falls short: Strong on personalised matching and benefits, with a smaller job pool than the national giants, so fewer assignments are open at any one time.
8. Medical Solutions
Medical Solutions is a trusted name in the travel nursing industry. As the best travel nursing companies, it is known for offering nurses flexible assignments and excellent customer service. Nurses working here receive access to a vast range of job opportunities, including short-term, long-term, and crisis response assignments.
The company also offers a generous benefits package and 24/7 support services to ensure nurses have everything they need during their assignments.
Key features of Medical Solutions:
- Extensive job opportunities in a variety of specialties and regions
- 24/7 support with dedicated representatives available around the clock
- Travel and housing stipends, along with furnished housing options
- Free private health insurance and access to dental, vision, and life insurance
Where it falls short: Broad and well supported across specialties, and less specialised in crisis and rapid-response work than agencies built specifically for it.
9. Travel Nurse Across America (TNAA)
TNAA is widely recognized for its exceptional support services. It makes it one of the best travel nursing companies for nurses who value personalized assistance throughout their assignments. It provides various benefits, including health insurance that begins on day one and guaranteed pay.
This is even if a shift is canceled. TNAA offers both short-term and long-term contracts. Hence, nurses can choose assignments that align with their lifestyle and goals.
Key features of TNAA:
- Guaranteed pay policy ensures nurses are compensated even if their shift is canceled
- Comprehensive benefits, including health, dental, vision, and life insurance from day one
- Housing assistance: TNAA helps you find comfortable housing close to your assignment
- Licensing and compliance support to help you transition smoothly between assignments
Where it falls short: Guaranteed pay and day-one benefits are the draw. The usual trade-off is a base rate that is competitive rather than the highest available.
10. Triage Staffing
Triage Staffing is well-known for its transparent pay packages and a wide range of job opportunities in healthcare. The company prides itself on its strong communication with travel nurses and makes the job search and application process as simple as possible. As one of the top travel nursing companies, it provides travel nurses with health benefits, travel reimbursements, and comprehensive support in finding housing.
Key features of Triage Staffing:
- No hidden fees or deductions: Transparent pay packages
- Access to a variety of assignments, including crisis response and short-term contracts
- Health, dental, and vision insurance from day one of your assignment
- Housing stipends or arranged accommodations based on nurse preference
Where it falls short: Pay packages are transparent, but the footprint is smaller than the national agencies, which means fewer open assignments in any given market.
Choose the right travel nursing company for your career
Travel nursing offers opportunities to explore new places, grow your skills, and earn a competitive salary. However, partnering with the right travel nursing company is crucial to maximizing these opportunities. The top 10 travel nursing companies listed above offer a range of benefits, designed to help you succeed as a travel nurse.
Work backwards from what you want rather than from a ranking. If the priority is income, the crisis and rapid-response agencies pay most and ask you to be flexible about where you go. If the priority is stability, guaranteed-pay and day-one-benefit agencies cost you some hourly rate and give back predictability. If the priority is the working relationship, a single-recruiter agency matters more than either.
Two practical checks before you sign anything. Ask for the pay package broken into base rate and stipends separately, because a headline number that blends them is not comparable between agencies. And ask when benefits start, since a gap between assignments can leave you uninsured if they do not begin on day one.
If you staff travel nurses rather than work as one
Agencies and health systems that place travel nurses have the opposite problem to the nurses they place. The nurse needs one good assignment. The agency needs to book, pay for and reconcile hundreds of them, each tied to a different client, contract and billing rule. That reconciliation is where the work actually sits.
A senior VP of strategy at a locum staffing firm placing physicians on temporary assignments told us folio collection was being handled manually, with back-and-forth between the travel and billing teams, and that they needed each booking tagged billable, partially billable or non-billable so profitability could be calculated per placement.) Hotel folios are the specific pain, because the invoice that finance needs arrives at the property rather than in the booking system.
ITILITE is the travel and expense side of that problem rather than a staffing agency. It books flights, hotels and cars for placed clinicians, collects hotel folios centrally instead of chasing them, and tags spend against the placement it belongs to so per-assignment margin is visible without a month-end rebuild. Support runs around the clock, which matters when a clinician's flight cancels the night before an assignment starts. For the wider category, the corporate travel management tools and software comparison covers the alternatives, and healthcare travel management covers the patient-care side. Agencies formalising the rules first should start with a written travel and expense policy, and the role of travel nurse agencies explains where agencies sit in the staffing chain.
FAQ
What is the best travel nurse company to work for?
There is no single best agency, because the right one depends on what you optimise for. Nurses who want the largest job pool tend to choose Aya Healthcare. Nurses who want guaranteed pay when a shift cancels tend to choose TNAA. Nurses chasing the highest rates on short contracts tend to choose Fastaff.
What is the largest travel nurse company?
Aya Healthcare and AMN Healthcare are the two largest by assignment volume in the US. American Mobile Healthcare, listed above, is part of AMN, which is why its job network is among the biggest available. Cross Country Healthcare is the other long-established national agency at similar scale.
Do travel nurses earn $200,000 a year?
Some do, but it is not typical. The highest earners combine crisis or rapid-response contracts, high-demand specialties, overtime, and tax-free housing and meal stipends. Those contracts are short and are located where the staffing shortage is, so sustaining that income means near-constant travel and little say over destination.
How do travel nurse pay packages actually work?
A package splits into a taxable base hourly rate plus non-taxable stipends for housing and meals. Agencies quote a blended weekly number, which is why two offers can look identical and pay differently. Always ask for the split, because only the base rate counts toward overtime and retirement contributions.
Do travel nursing companies provide housing?
Most offer a choice: agency-arranged housing, or a stipend to find your own. Arranged housing removes the admin and the risk of a bad lease. Taking the stipend usually nets more money if you can find something cheaper, and you carry the search and the deposit yourself.
What should you check before signing with a travel nursing agency?
Check four things: the pay split between base rate and stipends, the date benefits start, whether pay is guaranteed if a shift is cancelled, and whether you get one recruiter or a rotating team. Those four differ materially between agencies; the marketing language rarely does.
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