Registered Nurse vs. Nurse Practitioner Salary: Which Pays More?
The two roles share a license, a patient load and often a floor — but not a wage table, and the gap starts with four years of school versus a graduate degree.
By Marisol Teague · Oct 06, 2026 · 9 min read
Nurse practitioners are the higher-paid of the two roles in the federal wage tables: the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics publishes a higher median annual wage for nurse practitioners than for registered nurses in its May 2025 estimates. This guide shows you exactly which published figures to compare, which ones are not comparable, and why the difference exists.
No dollar amounts are printed here on purpose. Wage tables are reissued every year, and a number copied into an article goes stale while the article does not. What follows tells you where each figure lives, whether it is annual or hourly, whether it is a median or a percentile, and how to put the two side by side without making an arithmetic error.
Side-by-Side Pay Comparison
Both roles appear in the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics Occupational Outlook Handbook and the Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (OEWS) program. Both sets of wage estimates are annual and dated May 2025, so they can be compared directly without converting units. Read the figures off those two pages as you work through the table.
| Dimension | Registered nurse | Nurse practitioner |
|---|---|---|
| Median annual wage, May 2025 | 1 national median annual wage published for registered nurses (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, May 2025) | 1 NP-specific median annual wage, published inside the BLS breakdown of the 3-occupation group of nurse anesthetists, nurse midwives and nurse practitioners (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, May 2025); it is the higher of the two medians |
| Entry band (lowest 10 percent, annual, May 2025) | Lowest 10 percent bound published for registered nurses alone (BLS, May 2025) | Lowest 10 percent bound published only for the combined 3-occupation group, not for NPs alone (BLS, May 2025) |
| Top end (highest 10 percent, annual, May 2025) | Highest 10 percent bound published for registered nurses alone (BLS, May 2025) | Highest 10 percent bound published for the combined 3-occupation group, which includes nurse anesthetists (BLS, May 2025) |
| Typical raise timeline | No national raise figure is published; the BLS May 2025 wage set is a single point-in-time snapshot, not a progression curve | Same: 1 point-in-time snapshot, May 2025; no federal dataset tracks year-over-year raises for either role |
| Education before day one | 4 years for a BSN or ADN/ASN; 2 to 3 years for a diploma program (BLS, 2025) | An RN license first, then at least a master's degree; some hold a DNP or PhD instead (BLS, 2025) |
| Credential stack | 1 state nursing license, earned by graduating an approved program and passing a qualifying exam; specialty certification is voluntary (BLS, 2025) | 2 licenses — an RN license plus a state APRN license — an accredited graduate program, and 1 national certification exam, administered for NPs by the American Association of Nurse Practitioners (EBSCO) |
Two things to hold on to. First, the BLS medians are base-wage estimates expressed annually; they are not take-home totals. For registered nurses especially, total compensation often includes overtime, night and weekend shift differentials, and on-call pay, none of which is broken out separately in the published median. Nurse practitioner offers are more often salaried, with productivity or panel-size bonuses layered on top of base — so an NP total-comp number quoted by a recruiter and an RN median from BLS are not the same kind of number.
Second, keep units matched. If you are handed an RN hourly rate and an NP annual salary, convert one before you compare. The BLS May 2025 figures for both occupations are published in annual form, which is the cleanest basis for a side-by-side.
Also worth noting: the BLS also prints a median annual wage for the broader "healthcare diagnosing or treating practitioners" group (May 2025) next to the APRN table. Nurse practitioners sit inside that diagnosing-and-treating category; registered nurses do not. That placement is a large part of the story in the third section.
Pay by Experience and Location
The honest version of an experience table is this: BLS does not publish nursing wages by years of experience. It publishes percentiles, which are the closest available proxy — the lowest 10 percent approximates the entry band, the median the mid-career middle, the highest 10 percent the top end. Every row below is annual and from the May 2025 estimates, so the two columns are arithmetically comparable except where flagged.
| Tier or region (all annual, May 2025) | Registered nurse — figure to read | Nurse practitioner — figure to read |
|---|---|---|
| Entry band (lowest 10 percent) | Lowest 10 percent annual wage, registered nurses, BLS May 2025 | Lowest 10 percent annual wage for the combined 3-occupation APRN group, BLS May 2025 — not NP-only, so treat as indicative |
| Mid-career (50th percentile / median) | Median annual wage, registered nurses, BLS May 2025 | NP-specific median annual wage within the APRN breakdown, BLS May 2025 — the one true like-for-like pairing in this table |
| Top end (highest 10 percent) | Highest 10 percent annual wage, registered nurses, BLS May 2025 | Highest 10 percent annual wage for the combined 3-occupation group, BLS May 2025; nurse anesthetists pull this bound upward |
| Benchmark group median | Not included in the diagnosing-or-treating practitioners group | Median annual wage for healthcare diagnosing or treating practitioners, BLS May 2025, printed alongside the APRN table |
| By state | State-level annual mean and percentile estimates, registered nurses, BLS OEWS May 2025 | State-level annual mean and percentile estimates for the APRN group, BLS OEWS May 2025 |
| By metro area | Metropolitan and nonmetropolitan area estimates, registered nurses, BLS OEWS May 2025 | Metropolitan and nonmetropolitan area estimates, APRN group, BLS OEWS May 2025 |
One caution on the percentile rows: comparing the RN highest-10-percent figure against the APRN highest-10-percent figure overstates the gap, because the APRN bound covers nurse anesthetists and nurse midwives as well as nurse practitioners. The median row is the pairing to trust, because BLS breaks out nurse practitioners specifically there (BLS, May 2025).
Location matters for a structural reason, not just a cost-of-living one. Both roles are licensed by the state you work in — an RN license is issued by the state (BLS, 2025), and an APRN needs a state APRN license on top of an RN license (BLS, 2025). What an NP is permitted to do without physician oversight is set state by state, and that scope difference feeds straight into what employers in that state will pay an NP. Check the OEWS state and metro tables for both occupations before you assume a national median applies to where you live. Outside the United States, none of these figures apply at all; BLS publishes US estimates only.
Why the Pay Gap Exists
Education length and sequence. A registered nurse can start after a BSN or ADN/ASN, typically 4 years, or a diploma program of 2 to 3 years (BLS, 2025). A nurse practitioner needs at least a master's degree, and some hold a DNP or PhD instead (BLS, 2025) — and critically, an RN license has to come first, before the advanced-practice education begins (BLS, 2025). The NP path is therefore additive, not alternative: it is the RN preparation plus a graduate credential on top. The higher NP median annual wage in the May 2025 BLS estimates is the market's price for that second stage.
Credentialing load. An RN needs 1 state license, obtained by graduating an approved program and passing a qualifying exam; specialty certification in areas such as ambulatory care, gerontology or pediatrics is voluntary, though some employers require it (BLS, 2025). An APRN needs 4 things: an RN license, an accredited graduate-level program, a passed national certification exam, and a state APRN license (BLS, 2025). For nurse practitioners that certification is administered by the American Association of Nurse Practitioners (EBSCO). More mandatory gates mean a smaller qualified pool for any given opening.
What the work is classified as. BLS prints the APRN wage table next to the median annual wage for "healthcare diagnosing or treating practitioners" (May 2025). Nurse practitioners sit in that diagnosing-and-treating band; registered nurses are measured against a different occupational set. Roles that diagnose and treat generate billable clinical services in their own right, and pay scales follow that.
Demand, but in different shapes. Nurse practitioners are projected to have the fastest employment growth of all detailed occupations BLS tracks (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, projections released August 2026), and an earlier BLS projections cycle attributed rising NP employment to demand for team-based care models (BLS, 2023). Registered nursing is the larger occupation, with its own projected growth and a large volume of annual openings over 2025–35 (BLS, 2025) — but a bigger workforce and a shorter entry route mean more candidates per vacancy, which holds the median down relative to the smaller, harder-to-enter NP pool.
What this does not settle. Union presence, employer type (hospital system, outpatient clinic, government, staffing agency) and shift pattern all move individual pay, and none of that is visible in a national median. An RN working nights with overtime can out-earn the published RN median; an NP on a straight salary with no bonus can land below the published NP median. Compare offers on base pay first, then add the differentials and bonuses separately.
Frequently asked questions
Is the nurse practitioner median the same as the APRN median?
No. BLS publishes 1 median annual wage for the combined group of nurse anesthetists, nurse midwives and nurse practitioners (May 2025), and within that release it also breaks out a separate NP-specific median annual wage. Use the NP-specific figure when comparing against registered nurses — the combined 3-occupation median includes nurse anesthetists and will not describe NP pay accurately.on
Can a registered nurse out-earn a nurse practitioner with overtime?
It happens, and the BLS figures will not show it. The registered nurse median annual wage (BLS, May 2025) is a base-wage estimate; overtime, night and weekend differentials and on-call pay sit on top of it and are not broken out. The RN highest-10-percent annual bound published for May 2025 is the number to look at if you want to see how far the top of the RN range reaches — it is published for registered nurses alone, unlike the APRN top bound.
How much extra school does the nurse practitioner route take?
For the nurse practitioner, it is a graduate credential added to the RN path, not a substitute for it: at least a master's degree, with some holding a DNP or PhD instead, and an RN license required before that education begins (BLS, 2025). The registered nurse entry routes are 4 years for a BSN or ADN/ASN, or 2 to 3 years for a diploma program (BLS, 2025).
Which of the two has the stronger demand outlook?
Nurse practitioner. BLS projects nurse practitioners to have the fastest employment growth of all detailed occupations it tracks (projections released August 2026), with an earlier cycle linking that to team-based care models (BLS, 2023). Registered nursing is the far larger occupation, with its own projected growth and a large count of annual openings over the 2025–35 decade (BLS, 2025).
Sources
- U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics — Registered Nurses : Occupational Outlook Handbook (2025)
- U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics — Nurse Anesthetists, Nurse Midwives, and Nurse Practitioners : Occupational Outlook Handbook (2025)
Written by
Marisol Teague
Marisol oversees how Preferred Careers thinks about work itself — not just how to get a job, but why certain ones feel worth keeping. She's drawn to the quiet negotiations people make between ambition and sanity, and edits with an eye for the sentence that gives the game away.
