Start here: tax homes, stipends and filing as a travel therapist

This site is for travel PTs, OTs, SLPs and assistants who want their taxes right: the tax home, tax-free stipends, filing in more than one state, and the federal rates that changed for FY2027. Start with your tax home, because whether your stipends are tax-free depends on it, then read the guide for the question in front of you.

By ProTherapy Staffing, published October 25, 2026.

Who is this site for?

Travelers before a first contract who need to know whether they have a tax home, travelers who worked in more than one state, and anyone whose W-2 looks small next to what the contract paid. IRS Publication 463 puts the starting point plainly: “Generally, your tax home is your regular place of business or post of duty, regardless of where you maintain your family home.”

Nothing here is tax advice, and the site says so. It explains the rules and links their sources, so you can take sharper questions to a tax professional.

Where should you start?

  1. Tax home maintenance checklist: what to do to keep a tax home that holds up, before and during each contract.
  2. Do travel therapy stipends show up on your W-2? A newer guide on why stipends stay out of your taxable wages and what a clean W-2 does not prove.
  3. What changed for travel therapists on October 1, 2026: a newer guide to IRS Notice 2026-60 and GSA’s FY2027 rates, and what they mean for a stipend.
  4. Multi-state income tax for travel therapists: work state, home state or both, in the words of the New York, California and Pennsylvania revenue departments.
  5. Travel therapy tax FAQ: questions answered in the words of the IRS, the PT Compact Commission and state revenue departments.

For the quarterly side, estimated tax payments explains when you may owe them and how to work them out.

If you want to see how a real offer splits between taxable wage and stipends, ask a ProTherapy recruiter: Find my next contract.

What on this site comes from data, and what is written?

The FAQ page and the multi-state filing page are rendered from fact files: each statement on them is quoted from an official page, with its link and the date it was read, and the renderer checks every answer against its file. The newer guides, the FY2027 explainer among them, are generated from a data file that lists every source with its read date.

That explainer quotes IRS Notice 2026-60, the special per diem rates that apply from October 1, 2026, alongside the FY2027 standard rate on GSA’s per diem page: $113 a night for lodging and $68 a day for meals and incidentals, for any county without a rate of its own.

The rest is written guidance: the tax home checklist, the comparison of having a tax home or not, the deductions list, the estimated payments guide, the CPA guide and the state-by-state page. They cite IRS Publication 463 where a rule applies, but they explain rather than quote, so check a rule against its source before you rely on it.

What records should you keep?

The home page lists them: your tax home expenses, each contract’s dates and location, the stipend amounts you were paid, your professional expenses, and your travel between assignments. Keep them as you go rather than when a question arrives, because a tax home is shown by what you paid and where you were, month by month.

Keep each written offer and each pay stub with the contract it belongs to. If a stipend was paid above the federal rate, or an assignment was extended past what was first expected, those are the documents a tax professional will ask to see.

How do you reach a recruiter?

A recruiter cannot settle your tax position, and neither can this site. What a recruiter can do is show you how an offer splits between taxable wage and stipends, and which county’s rate each stipend uses, so you and your tax professional can check it. Use the “Find my next contract” link on this page or the form at the foot of a guide. It asks your discipline and the states you want, and a recruiter takes it from there.

ProTherapy Staffing, which publishes this site, is owned and run by licensed physical therapists. If you would rather watch postings first, the job alerts page sends new contracts in your discipline by email, daily or weekly as you choose.

Frequently asked questions

Do I need a tax home to get tax-free stipends?

Yes. Stipends are tax-free only for travel away from your tax home, up to the federal rate for the place you sleep. If you have no tax home, the IRS treats your tax home as wherever you work, so you are never traveling away from it and the stipends are taxable.

How long can one assignment last and still be temporary?

The IRS treats an assignment in one location as temporary if it is realistically expected to last, and does last, a year or less. One expected to last more than a year is indefinite, whether or not it does.

Is this site tax advice?

No. It explains the rules and links the official sources; a tax professional who works with travelers should look at your own situation.

Sources

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