Travel vs local electrician work: the whole-check math

A travel job pays a lot more a week, but after road costs and the weeks between jobs, it can come out close to a local job per hour. In our worked example, a $36 travel job on 6-10s with $125 a day per diem leaves about $2,600 a week after road costs, against $1,680 for a $42 local job on 5-8s. Over a year the gap shrinks to about $20,000, and most of it comes from working 400 more hours, not from the per diem.

The numbers below are examples, not offers. Plug in your own rate, per diem and weeks. The method is what matters.

01What counts in the whole check

The whole check is five things: the rate, the hours, the per diem, what the road costs you, and how many weeks the job really runs. A rate on its own tells you almost nothing about a travel job.

• Rate. Your straight-time hourly.
• Hours. 5-8s, 4-10s, 6-10s. Overtime under federal law is time and a half for hours over 40 in a workweek (DOL Fact Sheet #23). The BLS Occupational Outlook Handbook says overtime is common in the trade, so ask how many hours the job really runs.
• Per diem, with its unit. $125 a day for 7 days is $875 a week. $125 a day worked on 5 days is $625.
• Road costs. Room, food you wouldn't have bought at home, gas for trips home.
• Weeks. How long it runs, and how long you sit between jobs.

If you've never traveled, the traveling electrician guide covers how travel work is set up before you get to the math.

02The two jobs, side by side

Both jobs are examples. The local job pays $42 an hour on 5-8s and you sleep in your own bed. The travel job pays $36 an hour on 6-10s, plus $125 a day per diem, 7 days.

Run your Pay Check to see what electricians with your license make near you, local and travel. Takes about a minute and your boss never hears about it.

How the travel column adds up:

1. Wages: 40 straight hours at $36 is $1,440. 20 OT hours at $54 is $1,080. Total $2,520.
2. Per diem: $125 x 7 days is $875. Week total $3,395.
3. Road costs (example): $70 a night for a shared rental, 7 nights, $490. $35 a day in road food, $245. A trip home every other weekend at about $120 in gas, $60 a week. Total $795.
4. What's left: $3,395 minus $795 is $2,600.
5. Year: 40 weeks worked, 12 weeks between jobs, driving and home. $2,520 x 40 is $100,800 in wages. $875 x 40 is $35,000 in per diem. $795 x 40 is $31,800 in road costs. Left: $104,000.

The local column: $1,680 x 50 weeks is $84,000, with 2 weeks off.

03Where the extra money really comes from

In the example, most of the travel gap comes from hours, not per diem. The per diem is $875 a week, and the road eats $795 of it, so only $80 a week is left over.

Look at it per hour worked:

• Local: $84,000 for 2,000 hours (50 weeks x 40) is $42.00 an hour.
• Travel: $104,000 for 2,400 hours (40 weeks x 60) is $43.33 an hour.

That's a $1.33 an hour difference for 280 nights away from home. Your numbers will be different. If your per diem runs higher or your room runs cheaper, travel pulls ahead. If the company only pays per diem on days worked, it falls back. The point is to run it before you pack the truck.

04The rate a local job needs to match travel

To match the travel year in the example, a local job on 5-8s for 50 weeks needs about $52 an hour. The math: $104,000 divided by 2,000 hours is $52.

Turn it around and you get a quick rule for any offer:

1. Figure the travel year's "what's left" with your real numbers.
2. Divide by the hours you'd work local in a year.
3. If a local shop pays that or more, staying home costs you nothing.

A local job with steady OT changes the math fast. Ten OT hours a week at $42 adds $630 a week, or $31,500 over 50 weeks. That's more than the whole travel gap in the example. If you're weighing hours, see what 6-10s really pay for the overtime math by schedule.

05How long the job runs decides it

Weeks worked swing the travel math more than anything else. At $2,600 a week left, the travel job in the example needs about 33 weeks of work in a year to beat the local job's $84,000 ($84,000 divided by $2,600 is 32.3).

A travel job that ends after 10 weeks, then 4 weeks waiting on the next one, kills the math. One national electrical contractor told us their job "doesn't pay enough to hold these guys down" to the end, and hands leave for the next thing. That cuts both ways: crews move on, and jobs short-term the crews they brought in. Ask what phase the job is in and what comes after it before you go. How to keep from getting short-termed has the questions.

06Why per diem beats the same money in wages

Per diem paid under an accountable plan, at or under the federal rate, isn't wages. IRS Publication 463 says an allowance at or below the federal rate "won't be included in box 1 of your Form W-2." Wages are taxed. So $875 a week in per diem is worth more to you than $875 more in wages.

Three things decide whether it stays tax-free:

• You have to be away from your tax home. Publication 463 says your tax home is generally "your regular place of business or post of duty." If you've given up your home base and live wherever the job is, you may have no tax home to be away from, and the IRS treats you as never traveling away from home.
• The job has to be temporary. A job realistically expected to last more than a year is "indefinite," and per diem there becomes taxable.
• The amount. Anything over the federal rate goes into box 1 as wages. The GSA standard rate for most of the country is $181 a day ($113 lodging, $68 meals and incidentals) for fiscal year 2027, per the GSA FY 2027 per diem highlights. Higher-cost areas run more.

The full tax side is in is per diem taxable for electricians. This isn't tax advice. Talk to a tax pro about your setup.

07What the spreadsheet leaves out

The money is only half the call. These don't fit in a table, but they decide whether a travel job is worth it to you:

• Home every night. Kids' games, a family that isn't running the house without you, your own bed. Put a dollar number on it before you compare. If home is worth $10,000 a year to you, the travel job in the example only clears the local one by about $10,000.
• Your house still costs money. Mortgage, power and insurance at home keep running while you pay for a room on the road.
• Hours wear on you. 6-10s for 40 weeks is a lot of 10-hour days. The extra money comes from those hours.
• Who runs the job. A good foreman and material on site make 60 hours go by. A bad one makes it long.
• The gap between jobs. No check while you wait. Some hands use it as time home. Count it either way.

Local jobs have hidden costs too: a long commute, no OT, or a shop that lays off every winter. Put those in the local column.

08The fast way to compare two offers

Write both jobs down the same way and the answer usually shows itself.

1. Rate, and the hours per week they'll actually run.
2. OT: after 40, or does the state or contract add daily OT?
3. Per diem: amount, per day or per week, 7 days or days worked, and whether you lose it for a missed day.
4. How many weeks, what phase, and what's next.
5. Your road costs: room, food, trips home.
6. Weekly and yearly "what's left" for both.

Comparing two electrician job offers walks through this with benefits, trucks and retirement included.

Before you weigh any offer, know your local number. Check what your license pays near you, then put the travel job next to it.

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