NCSBN 2026 Report: 40% of Nurses Plan to Leave the Workforce Within Five Years

The headline number from the NCSBN 2026 Environmental Scan is stark: approximately 40% of all registered nurses in the United States plan to leave the profession or retire within the next five years. Set against the current projected shortage of 263,870 RNs — already an 8% gap in 2026 — that figure describes a structural collapse, not a temporary staffing challenge.

The report, published by the National Council of State Boards of Nursing and covered this week by HealthLeaders, draws on longitudinal workforce data to map the intersection of burnout, education pipeline failures, and aging workforce demographics. The nursing faculty vacancy rate sits at 7.2% nationally, meaning schools cannot produce nurses fast enough to replace those leaving — a compounding problem that policy interventions alone will not solve in the near term.

What the Data Actually Shows

The 40% figure warrants context. It includes nurses planning to retire — a cohort that was always going to age out of the workforce regardless of working conditions. But it also captures mid-career nurses in their 30s and 40s who are actively choosing to leave bedside nursing, transition to non-clinical roles, or exit healthcare altogether. That latter group is the policy crisis.

Burnout, workplace violence, staffing shortages, and wage stagnation relative to inflation are the consistently cited drivers. The COVID-19 pandemic accelerated a departure trend that predated it; the data from 2025 and 2026 shows the trend has not reversed. Nurses who remained through the pandemic did so at significant personal cost, and many are now executing the exit they deferred.

The education pipeline is the secondary failure. With a 7.2% nursing faculty vacancy rate, schools are turning away qualified applicants — not for lack of demand, but for lack of instructors. The American Association of Colleges of Nursing has documented tens of thousands of qualified applicants rejected annually due to faculty and clinical site shortages. The nurses needed to teach the next generation are the same demographic currently planning to leave.

Institutional Response: Strategic vs. Symptomatic

The NCSBN report calls on CNOs and nursing leaders to address these issues systemically rather than through short-term interventions. The distinction is meaningful. Most hospital retention programs — signing bonuses, flexible scheduling, wellness apps — are symptomatic responses. They reduce friction at the margins without addressing the underlying acuity burden, staffing ratios, or structural wage compression that drives departure decisions.

Effective systemic responses look different: embedding clinical ladder programs with real compensation advancement, investing in nurse-led governance structures, and building partnerships with nursing schools that create sustainable clinical placement pipelines. Some health systems have made measurable progress with these models. Most have not.

Why This Matters for Nurses

The workforce math described in the NCSBN scan has direct implications for the nurses who stay. As the departing 40% leave, those who remain will absorb their patient load. Staffing ratios that are already stretched will stretch further. Mandatory overtime, charge assignments without relief, and unit-level understaffing will intensify before they improve — because the policy and education responses necessary to reverse the pipeline failure operate on 5–10 year timescales, not quarters.

For nurses evaluating their own next move, this context matters. Travel nursing demand will remain elevated precisely because hospitals cannot retain permanent staff fast enough. Specialty expertise — particularly ICU, OR, and L&D — will command sustained premiums. Nurses with advanced credentials and portable licenses are positioned to work on their terms in a market that structurally needs them.

The harder truth is that the nurses who will bear the most immediate cost of this shortage are the ones at the bedside right now: experienced staff nurses absorbing the gap, doing the work, and watching colleagues leave. The NCSBN data does not offer them relief. It confirms what they already know.