PMHNP Salary by State: All 50 States and DC

Nurse practitioner median wages run from $105,750 in Alabama to $168,520 in California, a spread of $62,770 between the lowest and highest paying states. The national median is $132,300, and 21 of 51 states sit above it.

One caveat before the table, because it changes how you should read every number on this page. BLS does not report psychiatric-mental health nurse practitioners separately: nurse practitioners are a single occupation code covering every specialty. There is no federal PMHNP wage series for any state. What follows is the all-NP median for each state, which is the closest primary-source figure that exists, and psychiatric roles generally sit at or above it. Most sites publishing a "PMHNP salary by state" table are showing you these same all-NP numbers without telling you that's what they are.

PMHNP salary by state: the full table

Median annual wage for nurse practitioners in every state, plus the 10th to 90th percentile range, from the BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics program (May 2025 reference period). Read the range, not just the median. It tells you what the bottom and the top of the market look like where you live. Each state links to its accredited PMHNP programs.

Read the employment column alongside the wage. California pays the most and employs 25,120 nurse practitioners, but Texas and Florida employ comparable numbers at medians roughly $37,000 lower. A large market at a middling median often beats a small market at a high one, because more employers means more leverage when you negotiate.

What these numbers actually measure

BLS surveys employers, not job titles. Nurse practitioners are a single occupation code, 29-1171, covering family, psychiatric, pediatric, acute care, women's health, and every other focus. A psychiatric-mental health NP in Ohio and a family NP in Ohio land in the same bucket, so no state median on this page is PMHNP-specific and none can be pulled out of the data. Any PMHNP salary by state table, ours included, is built on that limitation.

For a PMHNP-specific figure you have to leave BLS entirely. The American Association of Nurse Practitioners reports a median total income near $137,000 for full-time PMHNPs. That's a professional-association survey of members who chose to respond, not a federal survey of employer payroll records, so it's weaker evidence than the state figures above even though it's closer to your specialty. Both are worth knowing. They're just useful for different things, and anyone quoting one without naming which is doing you a disservice.

The highest-paying states for nurse practitioners

The top of the table is a West Coast and Northeast story:

• California at $168,520, with 25,120 nurse practitioners employed.
• New Jersey at $159,310, with 9,950 nurse practitioners employed.
• Washington at $156,100, with 6,700 nurse practitioners employed.
• Oregon at $155,680, with 2,820 nurse practitioners employed.
• Alaska at $155,170, with 710 nurse practitioners employed.

Before you start packing, weigh the number against what it costs to live there. California's $168,520 median leads the country, but housing in its major metros absorbs a large share of the difference. The states where a high median goes furthest tend to be the ones nobody talks about. Washington and Oregon pay near the top, and Alaska, New Mexico, and Montana all sit above the national median with costs well below the coastal metros.

Where the pay is lowest

Alabama sits at the bottom at $105,750, about $26,550 below the national median. Tennessee, Kentucky, South Carolina and Mississippi fill out the rest of the bottom five.

A low median doesn't mean a low ceiling, and most state rankings never mention it. Look at the percentile column: Alabama's 90th percentile is $134,650, which is higher than the median in 35 of 51 states. The spread inside a single state is routinely wider than the spread between states. In 50 of 51 states, the percentile band covers $50,000 or more. What you do matters more than where you do it.

Why your state matters less than you'd think

State is the variable everyone researches first, and it's rarely the one that moves the number most. Three things move it more:

• Practice setting. Community mental health and FQHC roles sit at the bottom of the range, hospital psychiatric units in the middle, telepsychiatry and cash-pay private practice at the top. That gap is wider than the $62,770 between Alabama and California.
• Practice model. Employed staff PMHNP versus practice owner is the biggest fork in the road. Owners carry the risk and keep the margin.
• Payer mix and volume. A cash-pay panel and an all-Medicaid panel pay very differently for the same hour of work.

Our PMHNP salary guide breaks all three down against the national numbers, and PMHNP salary by setting puts the setting ranges side by side. If you're weighing psychiatry against the physician route, PMHNP vs. psychiatrist salary covers that comparison.

Does practice authority change what you earn?

It changes what you're allowed to build, and over a career that changes what you earn. In a full practice authority state a PMHNP can open and run an independent practice without a collaborating physician. In reduced and restricted states you need a written agreement with a physician, and those agreements often carry a fee, so you're paying for oversight you may rarely use.

That doesn't show up cleanly in a state median, because most nurse practitioners in every state are salaried employees. It shows up at the top of the range, in the 90th percentile column, where the practice owners are. Our state requirements guide has the current rule for each state, and the PMHNP programs by state directory lists accredited programs wherever you're planning to land.