Every number on Nursing Salaries traces back to a published primary source with a date. When no official figure exists, as for travel nurse rates or a NICU-only wage, we say so and show the closest published data instead of filling the gap with an estimate.
Sources we use
We use primary sources only: BLS OEWS wage estimates and the Occupational Outlook Handbook; O*NET OnLine (U.S. Department of Labor); NCSBN and the official Nurse Licensure Compact site; federal regulations (eCFR) and state boards of nursing; nurse anesthesia and nursing program accreditors and professional bodies’ own fact pages; College Board and Federal Student Aid for school prices and loan rates; and the IRS, GSA and Social Security Administration for tax and per diem rules. Salary aggregators, job boards, agency ads and school marketing pages are never used as sources of fact.
How calculators are checked
The salary, take-home, comparison, travel contract and payback calculators use published formulas: BLS percentiles, 2026 IRS brackets and standard deductions, the Social Security wage base, the FLSA overtime rule and GSA per diem rates. Automated tests check known answers (for example, a single filer earning the BLS May 2025 national median for registered nurses keeps the take-home amount our tests check by hand after 2026 federal income tax, Social Security and Medicare), and every tool shows its inputs so you can redo the math.
What we will not publish
- Affiliate links, paid school listings, agency referrals or lead forms.
- Travel nurse rates, salary figures from job boards, staffing ads or anonymous self-reports presented as fact.
- Specialty, travel or employer pay figures that no government survey or certifying body publishes, and claims about license rules we cannot link to the board, statute or regulation.
Updates and corrections
Each page shows the date it was last updated, and each source lists when we retrieved it. BLS publishes new OEWS wage estimates each spring; the IRS sets tax brackets each fall; GSA sets per diem rates each October; NCSBN and the states change fees, compact membership and rules through the year. We refresh the data and re-run the tests when they do, and change page dates only when content changes. If a figure, fee or license rule looks wrong, tell us through the contact page with the source that shows the correct value; we check it against that source, correct the page and note material changes.