Registered Nurses salary in North Dakota

Registered Nurses in North Dakota earned a median annual wage of $78,260 in 2024, about 17% below the US median of $94,511. That gap looks significant on paper. North Dakota's cost of living runs roughly 8% below the national average, so after accounting for what the money actually buys, the real gap closes to around 9 or 10 percentage points.

The spread from the 10th to the 90th percentile runs from $65,770 to $99,540. That is a $33,770 range, which is moderate compared to what we see in higher-wage states. Most of the movement happens in the upper half: the jump from the 25th percentile ($67,490) to the 75th ($86,050) is nearly $19,000. Experience and specialty appear to drive a meaningful portion of that difference, though the state-level data does not break it down further.

Employment for the occupation sits at about 11,000 statewide. For a state with North Dakota's population, that is a substantial share of the workforce in a single occupation, which reflects how heavily rural health systems here rely on RNs to cover a range of clinical roles that larger metro hospitals might distribute across more specialized staff.

BLS projects 4.9% growth for Registered Nurses nationally between 2024 and 2034, an average pace by their classification. North Dakota's projection data tracks the national outlook category. Whether that rate holds at the state level depends partly on how the rural hospital system continues to respond to staffing pressures that have shaped hiring patterns across the Great Plains over the past several years.