ICU Nurse Salary in Georgia 2026,
$93,550 Median | BLS Data by City

The published Georgia figure is $93,550 a year, or $44.98 an hour, per BLS OEWS May 2025, with a band from $68,920 at the 10th percentile to $128,640 at the 90th. That is 4.1% below the national median of $97,550. The row is SOC 29-1141, all registered nurses — BLS publishes no intensive care code — so the figure covers every RN specialty in Georgia and critical care assignments typically sit above the median rather than at it.

Atlanta-Sandy Springs-Roswell, at $100,490, well ahead of Augusta-Richmond County $87,760, Savannah $86,760, Macon-Bibb County $85,070 and Rome $83,880. The metro premium here is larger than for most Georgia health occupations because several large hospital systems compete directly for the same experienced critical care nurses, and travel agencies bid into the same pool.

No. The Georgia Board of Nursing issues one registered nurse licence, and nothing on it distinguishes an intensive care nurse from any other RN. Critical care is recognised by the CCRN credential from the American Association of Critical-Care Nurses, which requires documented direct-care hours and an examination, and by the employer's own unit competencies and ACLS requirements. Hospitals pay for the CCRN; the state neither requires nor records it.

Yes. Georgia is a compact member, so a nurse holding a multistate licence issued by another compact state may practise in Georgia without applying for a second licence, and a Georgia-domiciled nurse can hold a multistate licence for practice in other member states. That matters a great deal for critical care specifically, because it is the mechanism behind the travel and contract nursing market that competes with staff positions for experienced ICU nurses in metro Atlanta.

A substantial share of the distance from the $93,550 median to the $106,330 seventy-fifth percentile. Night, weekend and holiday differentials, charge pay, certification premiums and picked-up shifts are the standard mechanism, and intensive care carries more of all of them than most units because it never closes. Georgia's flat state income tax of 5.49%, falling to 5.39% for 2026, applies to every one of those hours at the same rate as base pay, which makes shift-heavy schedules compare more favourably here than in graduated-rate states.

It means the page is measuring the population an ICU nurse belongs to rather than the job itself. SOC 29-1141 covers all 100,950 Georgia registered nurses — school nurses, outpatient clinic nurses, operating theatre nurses, home health nurses and intensive care nurses on one row. Critical care sits toward the upper half of it: the acuity, the ratios and the mandatory off-shift coverage all attract premium pay, and the certification and charge structures add more. The honest reading of $93,550 is as the midpoint of Georgia nursing generally, with an ICU assignment being one of the reliable ways to be above it.

Because nursing labour markets are local and Atlanta's is genuinely competitive. A nurse cannot commute to a distant hospital the way a project manager can work remotely, so pay is set inside a metro rather than statewide. Metro Atlanta contains several large competing systems plus academic and specialty centres, and travel agencies bid into the same pool at contract rates. Augusta-Richmond County at $87,760, Savannah $86,760, Macon-Bibb County $85,070 and Rome $83,880 are each served by one or two dominant employers, which is a different bargaining structure entirely. The twelve-thousand-dollar-plus gap between Atlanta and the next metro is what that structural difference costs.

It makes the experienced ICU nurse mobile in a way that other Georgia professionals are not. Nurse Licensure Compact membership means a critical care nurse with a multistate licence can take a contract in another member state within weeks, and equally that nurses from across the compact can take contracts in Atlanta. The consequence is that Georgia hospitals are not competing on a Georgia wage — they are competing against contract rates set nationally for a nationally scarce skill. That pressure is the clearest explanation for why the $128,640 ninetieth percentile on an all-RN row in a state paying 4.1% below the national median is as high as it is.