Are my travel nurse stipends really tax-free?
Only while you have a genuine tax home somewhere other than the assignment. The stipends for lodging and meals are treated as reimbursement of duplicated living costs, which assumes you are maintaining a home you are away from and paying for. If the tax home is not real, with no substantial continuing cost, no regular place of business and no returning to it, the payments are simply pay and taxable like wages. The assignment pattern is usually what breaks the test: rolling extensions in one place, or a chain of assignments with nothing to return to. Decide where your tax home is, document the costs that make it one, and revisit it whenever the pattern changes.
Why has a state sent me a notice about my stipends?
Because the state can see a payment that was not reported as wages and wants to know why. States tax income earned within their borders and they receive the employer's filings, so the split between taxable wages and untaxed stipends is visible to them. If your tax home cannot be supported, the stipend becomes wages earned in that state, with the state's own residency and part-year rules applied on top. Answer the notice with what you actually hold: the lease or mortgage and the running costs at the tax home, your assignment history, and the agency statements showing how each package was split. Doing nothing lets the state decide that the whole package was pay.
Do I file in every state I worked in last year?
Generally in each state where you worked, plus the state you are resident in if it taxes income. Each state applies its own rules on who must file, how income earned inside it is measured, and what credit it gives for tax paid to another state, so the returns are prepared in an order: the non-resident states first, then the resident state claiming credit for what the others took. Agency withholding rarely matches that pattern, which is why balances and refunds turn up in different states at once. Build one schedule of assignment dates and earnings by state and use it for every return, so the figures agree wherever they are read.
Can I keep my tax home in Canada while taking US contracts?
It is possible, and it needs the same substance as any other tax home, plus attention to residence. A Canadian home you keep, pay for and return to can support the tax home the stipend treatment depends on, while your Canadian residence keeps the whole year within reach of Canadian tax. So the package is taxed in the United States on the work done there, taxed again in Canada as worldwide income, and relieved by a credit. Long or rolling assignments cut against the tax home and can begin to change residence as well. The two questions are separate, and both have to be answered for each year rather than assumed to continue.
How do my US and Canadian returns fit together as a travel nurse?
In sequence. The United States federal and state returns establish what that country taxes and what it finally takes. The Canadian return then reports the income and claims credit for the foreign tax against the Canadian tax on the same income. Filing Canada first forces an estimate you will have to amend. Two practical points follow. The credit is computed by reference to the Canadian tax on that income, so a heavy state burden is not always fully relieved. And the two systems use different years and different currencies, so one schedule of assignments, earnings and taxes paid, converted on the basis Canada requires, is what keeps the returns consistent.
What proves my tax home if my stipends are questioned?
Continuing costs and continuing presence. In practice that means the lease or mortgage statements and utility bills for the home you say you are away from, evidence that you pay them rather than a relative, records of returning there between assignments, and the things tying your professional and personal life to that place, such as registration, licence, banking and family. Beside that, keep the assignment history with dates and locations and the agency statements showing how each package was split. The question is whether you were genuinely maintaining a home and duplicating costs while away, and that is answered with documents made at the time.
Which countries have a tax treaty with the United States?
Around sixty, including Canada, the United Kingdom, India, Australia and most of western Europe — but the list matters less than the terms, because each treaty caps rates and allocates income differently. Two countries with treaties can produce opposite answers on the same pension or the same royalty. What decides your position is the specific article covering your income type. See our country guides.
Which country do I pay tax to first?
Generally the source country — where the income arises — taxes first, often by withholding before you receive it. Your country of residence then taxes the same income and credits what the source country took. That order is why timing matters: a residence-country return filed before the source-country tax is settled has nothing to credit yet. Getting the sequence right is most of the work. See international tax planning.
