Registered Nurses salary in Portland, Oregon

About 24,930 Registered Nurses worked in the Portland metro in 2024, making it one of the larger nursing labor markets on the West Coast. The median annual wage was $127,980, roughly 3% above the Oregon median of $123,990 and 35% above the national median of $94,511.

The spread between top and bottom earners is narrower here than in many high-wage metros. Nurses at the 10th percentile earned $99,710, while those at the 90th earned $146,720. Top earners made about 1.5 times what entry-level peers did. That compressed range suggests the Portland market rewards experience, but not dramatically so compared to, say, a market with a heavier concentration of specialized acute-care roles.

One detail worth noting: the mean wage of $123,580 sits below the median of $127,980. That is unusual. In most occupations the mean runs above the median because high earners pull the average up. Here the opposite holds, which suggests the bottom of the distribution is not dragging wages down, and the top is not an outlier pulling them sharply upward. The wages cluster tightly around the middle range.

Portland pays Oregon nurses a modest premium over the statewide figure, and a substantial one over the national baseline. For nurses comparing markets across state lines, the 35-percentage-point gap over the US median is the more meaningful number.