Flight Nurse Salary Calculator

1. Select hourly rate or annual salary and enter your base pay. Then enter the weekly hours paid at that base rate and your paid weeks per year.
2. Add the pay extras that apply to you: overtime, certification or charge pay, shift differential and on-call pay. Every extra comes from your own offer letter or pay stub. Leave a field blank if it does not apply.
3. Read your total annual gross pay, then see where your base rate sits in the BLS wage table for all registered nurses.

What each result tells you:

The presets are examples, not typical wages. The first one is a nurse paid $50.00 an hour on three 12-hour shifts a week. That is $93,600.00 a year, about the 61st percentile for all registered nurses. BLS publishes no wage figure for flight nurses, so none of these results is a flight-only number.

A flight nurse salary is the gross yearly pay of a registered nurse who cares for patients during air transport. It is base pay plus overtime, certification pay, differentials and on-call pay.

The Board of Certification for Emergency Nursing (BCEN) describes flight nursing as work that needs advanced clinical knowledge to safely transport critically ill and injured patients. BLS has no flight nurse code. Flight nurses hold a registered nurse licence, so they are counted under Registered Nurses, code 29-1141.

The credential facts and fees come from BCEN pages read on 2026-10-02. Fees can change. The job count comes from the BLS OEWS profile.

This tool is for nurses weighing a transport job. It is not a pay quote from any flight program.

The calculator builds total pay from your base rate and your own extras, then places the base rate alone in the BLS wage distribution for all registered nurses.

1. Convert. An hourly rate is multiplied by regular hours and weeks. A salary is divided by them to get the base rate.
2. Add overtime. Overtime rate = (base rate + certification or charge pay + average differential per hour) x multiplier. Overtime pay = overtime hours per week x overtime rate x weeks. On-call standby pay is left out of the overtime rate.
3. Add certification or charge pay. Certification or charge pay = rate per hour x paid hours in the year.
4. Add shift differential. Differential pay = rate per hour x share of hours x paid hours in the year.
5. Add on-call pay. On-call pay = on-call hours per week x on-call rate x weeks.
6. Find the band. The base rate is checked against the 10th, 25th, 50th, 75th and 90th percentile wages.
7. Interpolate. W1 and W2 are the two BLS wages around your base rate. P1 and P2 are their percentiles.

The wage table below is for all registered nurses. Flight and transport nurses are counted inside it. BLS wages do include hazardous-duty pay, but they leave out overtime and shift differentials.

Source: BLS OEWS, national estimates, May 2025. Read on 2026-10-02.

BLS publishes no wage figure for flight nurses. The table above covers all registered nurses in code 29-1141. BLS annual wages equal the hourly wage times 2,080 hours.

A flight nurse earns $49.25 an hour. His program schedules two 24-hour shifts a week and pays all 48 hours. So 40 hours are paid at the base rate and 8 at time and a half. The program adds $2.00 an hour for his CFRN and $3.50 an hour on night hours, which are half of his base hours. He also covers 12 backup on-call hours a week at $5.00 an hour. Another program offers $52.00 an hour.

Overtime is his largest extra at $33,072.00 a year. All extras together add $43,992.00, or 42.9% on top of base pay. His base rate ranks near the 58th percentile for all registered nurses. The ranking ignores the extras, because BLS wages exclude overtime and differentials.

Shift Length and Overtime

The shift pattern decides how many hours are overtime. In general, federal law sets overtime at no less than one and one-half times the regular rate after 40 hours in a week. A 48-hour week at $50.00 an hour pays $135,200.00 a year with 8 overtime hours. The same hours at straight time would pay $124,800.00.

The Overtime Rate

The Department of Labor states that the regular rate includes shift differentials. The tool follows that rule. It multiplies base rate plus certification pay plus the average differential per hour by your multiplier. On-call standby pay stays out of the overtime rate. Hospitals may also use an 8 and 80 system instead of the 40-hour week, so check which one your employer uses.

Sleep Time on 24-Hour Shifts

Paid hours on a 24-hour shift depend on your agreement. The Department of Labor says an employee on duty for 24 hours or more may agree with the employer to exclude a regular sleeping period of up to 8 hours. On duty for less than 24 hours, the employee is working even when allowed to sleep. Enter the hours your program actually pays.

Certification Pay

A program may pay an hourly add-on for the CFRN. No official source reports a typical amount, so the field is blank until you fill it.

Backup Call

Standby pay comes from the program policy. Enter your own standby hours and rate. The tool keeps standby pay out of the overtime rate.

State

For all registered nurses, California has the highest state mean wage at $150,280. The national mean is $101,420. BLS has no state table for flight nurses.

BLS publishes no flight-specific wage for nurses or for paramedics. The nearest official tables are all registered nurses and all paramedics. At the median, registered nurses earn $36,950 a year more than paramedics.

Annual wages. Source: BLS OEWS, national estimates, May 2025. Read on 2026-10-02.

The gap holds across the range. The 10th percentile for registered nurses is $68,940, which is above the paramedic median of $60,600. The 90th percentile for paramedics is $84,850.

These tables describe whole occupations. They do not show what an air medical crew earns. The two roles also hold different licences, and the CFRN credential is open to registered nurses. See the paramedic salary calculator for the paramedic side.

Moving from the ICU or ER to Transport

Enter your hospital base rate and extras first. Then enter the transport offer with its own shift pattern. Compare total pay and the average per hour worked.

Comparing 12-Hour and 24-Hour Schedules

Run the same base rate twice. Three 12-hour shifts are 36 base hours. Two 24-hour shifts are 40 base hours plus 8 overtime hours. At $50.00 an hour the totals are $93,600.00 and $135,200.00.

Checking a Salaried Offer

A $105,000 salary over 2,080 hours is $50.48 an hour. That is about the 63rd percentile for all registered nurses.

Weighing Other Specialties

The infusion nurse salary calculator and the telehealth nurse salary calculator use the same wage table with different pay extras.

Planning After Tax

Results are gross pay. The gross vs net income guide explains the deductions that follow.

1. Taking the Percentile as a Flight Nurse Rank

The rank is among all registered nurses. BLS has no flight nurse wage, so no official flight-only rank can exist.

2. Entering 48 Hours as Regular Hours

If 8 of the 48 hours are paid at time and a half, enter 40 regular hours and 8 overtime hours. Typing 48 regular hours understates pay by $10,400.00 a year at $50.00 an hour.

3. Ignoring Unpaid Sleep Time

Some 24-hour shifts pay fewer than 24 hours. Check your agreement, then enter paid hours only.

4. Counting Backup Call as Worked Hours

Standby hours belong in the on-call fields at the standby rate. Hours spent on a transport belong in base or overtime hours.

5. Using the Overtime Rate as Base Pay

A base rate of $50.00 with no add-ons has an overtime rate of $75.00. Type the base rate. The overtime pay calculator can check a single overtime week.

The pay arithmetic is exact for the numbers you enter. The percentile is an estimate, and it describes all registered nurses, not flight nurses alone.

BLS wages are straight-time gross pay. They exclude overtime pay and shift differentials. The tool therefore compares your base rate only and reports the extras apart.

No official yearly figure exists for flight nurses. BLS counts them as registered nurses, whose median annual wage was $97,550 in May 2025. The top 10 percent of all registered nurses earned more than $137,470.

BLS groups wages by occupation code, and flight nursing has no code of its own. Flight nurses are registered nurses, so their wages are part of code 29-1141 along with every other registered nurse specialty.

BLS data cannot show it, because both are counted in the same registered nurse table. The difference between two real jobs comes from the base rate, the shift pattern and the extras. Enter both offers to compare them.

The CFRN is the Certified Flight Registered Nurse credential from BCEN. A candidate needs a current, unencumbered registered nurse licence. BCEN recommends two years of specialty experience before the exam but does not require it.

BCEN lists an exam fee of $380, or $285 for ASTNA members, as read on 2026-10-02. The certification is valid for four years. Check BCEN for the current fee before you apply.

Eight overtime hours a week at time and a half add $31,200.00 a year at a base rate of $50.00 an hour with no add-ons. Certification pay and differentials raise the overtime rate, so they raise this figure too.

It depends on the agreement with the employer. The Department of Labor says a regular sleeping period of up to 8 hours may be excluded from hours worked on duty of 24 hours or more, if the employee and employer agree and certain conditions are met.

BLS has no flight-specific data for either role. Across the whole occupations, the median annual wage was $97,550 for registered nurses and $60,600 for paramedics in May 2025.

BLS wages include hazardous-duty pay but exclude overtime pay and shift differentials. This calculator still compares only your base rate, so a rate with hazard pay built in may rank a little higher than the tool shows.

No. It reports gross pay only. Tax depends on your filing status, state and deductions, and the tool does not model them.

No. The maths runs in your browser. A saved result stays on your own device.

• BLS OEWS Profiles, May 2025 national estimates (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Select 29-1141 Registered Nurses or 29-2043 Paramedics. Read 2026-10-02.)
• BCEN: CFRN certification for flight nurses (Board of Certification for Emergency Nursing. Credential, fees and validity. Eligibility is on its CFRN Eligibility page. Read 2026-10-02.)
• U.S. Department of Labor Fact Sheet 54: The Health Care Industry and Calculating Overtime Pay (Wage and Hour Division. Regular rate, shift differentials and the 8 and 80 system. Read 2026-10-02.)
• U.S. Department of Labor Fact Sheet 22: Hours Worked Under the FLSA (Wage and Hour Division. On-call time, sleeping time and the 40-hour overtime rule. Read 2026-10-02.)
• BLS technical notes for the May 2025 OEWS estimates (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Defines the wage: straight-time gross pay, excluding overtime and shift differentials; 2,080-hour year. Read 2026-10-02.)