No official statistic separates travel physical therapists (PTs) from other PTs, so their pay is known mainly from job listings. We set posted travel pay beside the official wage of the occupation. Across 41,067 travel PT listings posted in the last seven days of September 2026, the mean weekly package, taxable base plus stipends before tax, was USD 2,267.90 and the median USD 2,241.60; one agency's contract median was USD 2,280. The mean package was 12% above the USD 2,025 weekly equivalent of the May 2025 mean wage of all PTs (Bureau of Labor Statistics, OEWS) and 34% above that of PTs employed by temporary help agencies. A 13-week contract at the mean comes to USD 29,483. Posted travel pay rose 30% in current dollars from June 2021 to September 2026, while the median wage of all PTs, USD 102,760 in 2025, was 10% below its 2015 level in 2025 dollars. Relative to each state's mean PT wage, posted travel pay ranged from 1.42 times in Montana to 0.96 times in New Jersey. Travel physical therapist assistant listings averaged USD 1,556.78 a week, 18% above the PTA wage but USD 711 below travel PT listings. The standard federal per diem, the ceiling for tax-free stipends where no local rate applies, was USD 178 a day (USD 1,246 a week) in fiscal 2026 and rises to USD 181 on 1 October 2026. For comparison, the national pipeline agreement pays journeyman welders a USD 165 daily per diem. Posted packages and base wages are different measures, and their ratio is a margin as advertised.
No takes yet. Share an insight, caveat, or question.
Oyelaran et al. (2026) studied this question.
Synapse has enriched 5 closely related papers on similar clinical questions. Consider them for comparative context: