Georgia nurse salary 2026: RN, NP & travel pay

Georgia RNs average $95,080/year — 6% below the national mean. The Atlanta metro is growing 1.5% a year, faster than the national rate, and that population pressure is starting to show up in nursing wages at Emory, Piedmont, Wellstar, and Northside. CRNAs make $198,229. ICU pay hits $101,618. But Georgia is still a restricted-practice state for NPs, and that scope-of-practice ceiling is keeping NP wages roughly $6,500 below the national average even as the population grows.

Georgia's nursing market is a study in two trajectories pointed at each other. The Atlanta metro is one of the fastest-growing major metros in the country — 1.5% annual population growth, accelerating hospital construction, and three major health systems (Emory, Piedmont, Wellstar) all expanding their footprints. The Georgia Department of Community Health projects a meaningful RN shortage by 2030 if the supply pipeline does not accelerate. That is the demand side, and it is genuinely positive for nursing wages over the next five years.

The supply-side compression is structural. Georgia is a right-to-work state with no public-sector or hospital-sector unionization to speak of, no state nurse staffing ratio law, and a restricted-practice NP framework that — despite the 2024 SB 351 expansion — still requires every nurse practitioner in the state to work under a written protocol agreement with a delegating physician. Translation: Georgia's nursing wages are determined almost entirely by employer competition for talent, not by legal or contractual floors. That sets up a market where the high end (academic medical center specialty roles in Atlanta) can climb fast, but the median — especially in rural south Georgia and in NP roles — stays compressed.

If you are evaluating Georgia as a destination for nursing, the question is which side of the state's market you are working in. Atlanta is a real growth story. Rural south Georgia is a chronic-shortage market with travel premiums but persistent pay compression. The gap between those two Georgias is widening, and the BLS state average flattens that variation in a way that is misleading if you take the headline number at face value.

Georgia RN Salary — The Numbers

The BLS May 2025 OEWS puts Georgia's RN mean annual wage at $95,080/year (~$45.71/hr). That is $10,850 below the national RN mean of $101,420 — an 11% deficit. Georgia has a sizable employed RN workforce concentrated in the Atlanta metro, which combined with a non-unionized labor market suppresses wage competition relative to states with similar urban populations. Georgia's state income tax of 5.39% (with a planned reduction to 4.99% by 2029) sits in the middle of the southeastern range — lower than New York or California but higher than Tennessee, Texas, or Florida, all of which have no state income tax.

The state average hides a meaningful Atlanta vs. rest-of-Georgia split. Atlanta metro RNs at Emory University Hospital, Piedmont Atlanta, Northside Hospital Atlanta, Wellstar Kennestone, and Grady Memorial earn $80,000–$108,000+ depending on specialty and experience — well above the state average. Athens, Augusta (anchored by Wellstar MCG and Augusta University Medical Center), and Savannah pay in the $72,000–$88,000 band. Rural south and southwest Georgia — Albany, Valdosta, Macon-Bibb — pays $58,000–$75,000 for staff RNs, with significant reliance on travel contracts to cover core staffing in critical access hospitals. The cost-of-living calculator is worth running before you decide whether Atlanta or a smaller Georgia market is actually the better take-home position.

Atlanta vs. Rural Georgia — Two Different Markets

Georgia's nursing labor market splits cleanly into three tiers, and treating it as one state-level market produces the wrong career decision.

Atlanta metro is the growth engine. Five major health systems — Emory Healthcare, Piedmont Healthcare, Wellstar Health System, Northside Hospital, and the public safety-net Grady Health System — are all competing for an RN pipeline that Georgia's nursing schools have not been able to expand fast enough to cover. Emory University Hospital sets the academic medical center ceiling. Piedmont Heart Institute is a major cardiac surgery and electrophysiology destination in the Southeast. Wellstar has expanded aggressively, including the 2024 acquisition that gave it Augusta-area presence. Northside is the volume leader in OB — one of the highest-volume birthing centers in the country. Children's Healthcare of Atlanta (CHOA) runs the pediatric specialty market. This concentration creates real wage competition, and Atlanta specialty RNs have been seeing 4–7% annual raises since 2023.

Mid-tier Georgia metros — Augusta, Savannah, Athens, Columbus — operate under different supply-demand math. Augusta is anchored by Wellstar MCG Health (the former Augusta University Medical Center, the state's academic medical center for the eastern half of Georgia) and the Charlie Norwood VA. Savannah is anchored by Memorial Health (an HCA system) and St. Joseph's/Candler. Athens has Piedmont Athens Regional and Athens Regional Medical Center. These markets pay below Atlanta but typically above rural Georgia, with academic medical center experience available at Wellstar MCG and Piedmont Athens. Cost of living in these metros is significantly below Atlanta, which matters for the take-home calculation.

Rural south Georgia is a chronic-shortage market. Critical access hospitals in Albany (Phoebe Putney Health System), Valdosta (South Georgia Medical Center), Tifton, Brunswick, and across the southwest and southeast Georgia counties run persistent staffing gaps. Wages are compressed — staff RN positions in the $58,000–$72,000 range — but travel and per-diem premiums are substantial because the supply pipeline cannot fill the demand. If you are a Georgia RN with a compact license willing to commute or relocate, rural south Georgia travel contracts can pay a higher effective hourly rate than urban Atlanta staff positions, particularly if you live cheaply during the assignment.

Travel Nursing in Georgia

Georgia has been an NLC compact state since January 2019. That is the most important practical fact for travel nurses considering Georgia assignments. Nurses holding a multistate compact license from any of the 40+ NLC member states can work in Georgia without a separate license application. Georgia residents who hold a Georgia RN license issued after January 2019 (and who meet eNLC eligibility) automatically hold multistate licensure. For travel nurses, Georgia is one of the most accessible major Southern states.

Atlanta travel contracts at Emory and Piedmont are the prestige placements — the case mix at Emory transplant ICU, Piedmont cardiac surgery, and Grady's Level I trauma is academic-medical-center-tier work that builds a resume. Total weekly packages for these contracts run $2,200–$3,000 with reasonable but not exceptional stipends; Atlanta's housing market has tightened enough that the housing stipend math is less favorable than it was three years ago. Northside OB and CHOA pediatric placements are popular for specialty travelers with the certifications to qualify.

The underrated Georgia travel market is rural south Georgia. Critical access hospitals in Albany, Valdosta, Tifton, Brunswick, and other secondary markets run chronic shortages with crisis contracts that pay $2,400–$3,200/week — in some cases higher than Atlanta — with housing stipends that go further in markets where rental costs are 40–60% lower than Atlanta. If you are flexible on location and willing to live cheaply during an assignment, the stipend-to-expense ratio in rural Georgia can outperform a $2,800/week Atlanta contract. Run the math on the stipend calculator before assuming Atlanta is the better contract.

ICU & ER Nurse Salary in Georgia

Georgia ICU nurses average $101,618/year — about 19% above the national ICU mean of $85,205. The premium is driven by Atlanta's academic and specialty centers. Emory University Hospital's transplant ICU, Emory Saint Joseph's cardiac ICU, Piedmont Atlanta's CVICU, and Grady's surgical and burn ICUs run high-acuity case loads that command specialty-tier wages. Children's Healthcare of Atlanta (CHOA) operates one of the largest pediatric ICU systems in the Southeast and pays a meaningful premium for PICU and NICU experience. Outside the Atlanta metro, ICU pay drops sharply — Wellstar MCG in Augusta and Memorial Health in Savannah anchor mid-tier ICU markets, but most Georgia community hospital ICUs pay close to the state RN average.

ER nursing pay in Georgia at $73,239 is meaningfully below the national mean — a 15.5% gap. The Atlanta Level I trauma centers (Grady Memorial, Atlanta Medical Center) pay above that figure, but Georgia's large rural and community hospital ER market pulls the state mean down. Grady's ED is one of the busiest in the country and pays competitively for trauma-experienced nurses, but the gap between Grady ED and a rural Georgia critical access hospital ED is severe. If ER is your specialty and you want to maximize wages within Georgia, Grady's trauma program is the destination — outside that, ICU pays meaningfully better statewide.

Nurse Practitioner Salary in Georgia

Georgia NPs earn approximately $125,490/year (BLS May 2025) — about $11,810 below the national NP mean of $137,300. Georgia is a restricted-practice state under the AANP classification. Every NP in Georgia must work under a written protocol agreement with a delegating physician. That agreement defines the scope of what the NP can prescribe, order, and document independently. The protocol model imposes real practical limits: NPs cannot establish a wholly independent practice, cannot prescribe controlled substances without explicit delegation, and cannot bill many insurance products as the primary rendering provider in the same way that NPs in full-practice-authority (FPA) states can.

Senate Bill 351, signed into law in 2024, was the most significant expansion of NP/PA scope in Georgia in over a decade. The key changes: APRNs with one year of post-licensure clinical experience can now prescribe limited Schedule II controlled substances in emergency situations (5-day supply maximum), can order home health services, and can sign death certificates if their supervision documents allow. The supervising physician cap moved from 4 APRNs/4 PAs to 8 total practitioners. These are meaningful operational improvements — particularly for rural primary care, home health, and emergency medicine practices that were previously hamstrung by the restrictive supervision math.

For Georgia NPs evaluating whether to stay or move, the scope-of-practice math is direct. NP wages in Georgia run roughly $6,340 below the national mean and $15,000–$25,000 below the average in FPA states like Arizona, Washington, Colorado, and the New England FPA states. The 2024 SB 351 expansion improved working conditions but did not fundamentally change the wage ceiling that restricted practice imposes. NPs working in academic settings at Emory or in specialty practices with strong physician partnerships tend to earn at or above the state mean; primary care and community-clinic NPs are more likely to sit below it. Compact NP licensure (the APRN Compact, separate from the RN NLC) is still in early-adoption stages and Georgia has not joined, which adds friction for NPs considering multistate telehealth or per-diem work. The NP vs PA comparison guide covers the scope tradeoffs in more detail.

CRNA Salary in Georgia

Georgia CRNAs earn $198,229/year (TheCRNA.com 2026 blended data) — about 20% below the national CRNA mean of $248,320. This is one of the more compressed CRNA markets in the Southeast in absolute dollar terms, though Atlanta's lower cost of living relative to coastal CRNA premium markets (Boston, NYC, San Francisco) softens the comparison. Georgia does not have a single high-volume cardiac surgery anchor at the Cleveland Clinic or Mayo Rochester scale, and that absence shows up in the CRNA wage data.

Emory University Hospital and Emory Saint Joseph's anchor the academic CRNA market with cardiac, transplant, and complex surgical anesthesia. Piedmont Heart Institute is a major cardiac and electrophysiology destination and is the closest thing Georgia has to a Cleveland Clinic-style cardiac anchor for CRNA demand. Children's Healthcare of Atlanta runs the pediatric anesthesia market. Outside Atlanta, Wellstar MCG in Augusta and Memorial Health in Savannah handle the secondary-market academic anesthesia caseload. Community hospital CRNA roles — particularly in rural Georgia and ambulatory surgery centers — pay meaningfully below the state mean but offer more predictable schedules and lower call burden than the Atlanta academic placements. Travel CRNA rates in Georgia run $2,800–$4,200/week; cardiac specialty placements at Emory and Piedmont reach the higher end of that range. The CRNA career guide covers what it takes to compete for the Emory and Piedmont placements.

The Bottom Line

Georgia's $95,080 RN headline is the wrong anchor. The real Georgia story is structural: Atlanta is growing, the hospital sector is competing for talent at the specialty level, and ICU pay runs 19% above the national average because of Emory, Piedmont, Grady, and CHOA. But Georgia is a non-union, right-to-work state with restricted NP scope, no staffing ratio law, and a deeply compressed rural market. If you are a specialty RN or an ICU nurse with the certifications to land at an Atlanta academic medical center, Georgia is a stronger market than the state average suggests. If you are an NP looking to maximize earnings or build an independent practice, Georgia's scope-of-practice constraints make it one of the harder Southeastern states to do that — contrast with neighboring South Carolina and Alabama, both of which adopted NP full practice authority in 2025. The compact license access — in place since 2019 — opens the rural Georgia travel market to compact-license holders at premium rates, and that arbitrage is one of the more underrated career plays in the Southeast right now.