Nurse Practitioner Salary in Los Angeles, CA 2026, $161,470 Median | BLS + Market Data
NP pay across the Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim metro, where union-covered health systems, a high cost base and California's phased practice authority shape one of the strongest published bands in the country.
Updated July 2026 · BLS OEWS May 2025
Compiled by GlobalCybers Labor Market Research · Reviewed by Karen Osei, RN, BSN, Clinical Recruitment Lead · See methodology & sources →
Los Angeles Median
$161,470
$77.63/hr BLS
P75
$178,790
$85.96/hr
Sector Peak
$216,180
Metro P90
BLS Workers
10,060
Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim MSA
vs CA Median
−$7,050
−4.2% below CA
Direct Answer
How much do nurse practitioners make in Los Angeles, CA in 2026?
Los Angeles nurse practitioners earn a BLS MSA median of $161,470/yr ($77.63/hr), 22% above the US figure but 4.2% below the California statewide median. The metro band runs $119,950 to $216,180. Los Angeles is a union-dense health market, so much of the local NP workforce is on a published step schedule rather than negotiated pay, and progression through those steps rather than specialty explains a large part of the local distribution. → Full nurse practitioner career guide, career path, BRN licence, and Los Angeles job placement →
Key takeaways
Los Angeles nurse practitioners earn a BLS MSA median of $161,470/yr ($77.63/hr) per BLS OEWS May 2025 (SOC 29-1171, Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim MSA), with a metro P10–P90 range of $119,950 to $216,180.
LA NPs earn 22% above the US figure but 4.2% below the California statewide median, which Bay Area pay pulls upward.
Union-covered step schedules at the metro's large health systems mean much of the local band reflects step progression rather than negotiation.
California's income tax takes a meaningful share at this pay level, so the effective gap against a no-tax metro is narrower than the headline suggests.
Los Angeles Nurse Practitioner Pay Distribution · BLS OEWS May 2025
Source: BLS OEWS May 2025
Los Angeles Pay by Level · BLS OEWS May 2025
How much do Los Angeles nurse practitioners earn at each level?
BLS OEWS publishes one blended metro wage for the whole occupation and does not break pay out by credential or practice level. The levels below distribute this MSA's own published percentile range across the tiers Los Angeles employers actually hire at.
Level
MSA Median (BLS percentile-aligned)
New-graduate NP, first year
$119,950
Certified family NP (FNP), ambulatory
$161,470
NP with California 103 practice authority
$178,790
Inpatient specialty or surgical-service NP
$216,180
Level medians are aligned to this metro's own published BLS OEWS May 2025 percentiles for SOC 29-1171; BLS does not publish a wage by credential level. GlobalCybers holds no verified placement sample for Los Angeles nurse practitioners, so no verified median is shown.
Methodology & Sources
Published (BLS): BLS OEWS May 2025, SOC 29-1171, Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim, CA MSA. No verified placement data: GlobalCybers has no placement sample for Los Angeles nurse practitioners, so every figure on this page is a published BLS estimate and no verified median is claimed. MSA sample size: an OEWS metro cell is drawn from a much smaller establishment sample than the statewide cell, so metro medians carry wider uncertainty and move more between releases. Where BLS suppresses or top-codes the metro wage for this occupation, this page reports the national figure and says so rather than asserting a Los Angeles median. Employer names mentioned on this page (e.g. in sector or FAQ copy) are illustrative examples of who hires in each market, not a claim of partnership. Full statewide methodology → · Full site methodology & data sources →
Full Data
How much do nurse practitioners make in Los Angeles CA in 2026?
Metric
Value
Source
BLS MSA Median (Annual)
$161,470
BLS OEWS May 2025
BLS Median Hourly
$77.63/hr
BLS OEWS May 2025
P10 (Bottom 10%)
$119,950/yr · $57.67/hr
BLS OEWS
P25
$133,240/yr · $64.06/hr
BLS OEWS
P75
$178,790/yr · $85.96/hr
BLS OEWS
P90 (Top 10%)
$216,180/yr · $103.93/hr
BLS OEWS
vs California Median
−$7,050 (−4.2%)
vs $168,520 CA
vs National Median
+$29,170 (+22%)
vs $132,300 US
California State Income Tax
9.3%
California Tax Code
Licensing Authority
BRN (California Board of Registered Nursing, Department of Consumer Affairs)
State board
Reading this page's sources:BLS OEWS is the official published wage, sampled 1–2 years back. Market intelligence rows are directional signals from recruiter conversations and industry sources, not independently verified — treat them as a range, not a benchmark.
Los Angeles Sectors
Which Los Angeles sector pays nurse practitioners the most?
BLS OEWS publishes one blended wage for nurse practitioners across the whole Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim metro and does not break it out by industry. The sectors below are ranked in the order Los Angeles employers actually pay, with each row anchored to this metro's own published percentile ladder (BLS OEWS May 2025, SOC 29-1171).
Sector
MSA Median
Notes
Inpatient specialty and surgical-service NPs
$216,180
Specialty and surgical-service NPs at the metro's academic and integrated systems reach the $216,180 top of the published band, typically on senior union steps with differentials.
Senior steps at integrated health systems
$178,790
NPs several steps into a system schedule sit around the $178,790 P75; in this market seniority moves pay more reliably than in most.
System-employed primary and ambulatory care
$161,470
The typical LA nurse practitioner in an employed ambulatory role sits at the $161,470 metro median.
Community clinics, FQHCs and new-graduate roles
$133,240
Federally qualified health centres, county clinics and first-year NP posts sit near the $133,240 P25, where much of the metro's safety-net workforce is employed.
Real Take-Home
What is the actual take-home pay for a Los Angeles nurse practitioner?
Real Los Angeles scenarios, line by line. California's progressive income tax bites hardest exactly here: at the $161,470 metro median an LA nurse practitioner is in the upper-middle brackets, and state withholding is the second-largest deduction after federal tax. NPs comparing an LA offer against a Texas or Washington one should model take-home rather than gross, because the nominal LA advantage narrows substantially.
Estimates only. Pre-tax deductions (401k, health premium) reduce taxable income further. Consult a tax professional.
Los Angeles Nurse Practitioner Salary, Frequently Asked Questions
How much do nurse practitioners make in Los Angeles?
Los Angeles nurse practitioners earn a BLS MSA median of $161,470/yr, or $77.63/hr, with a published metro range of $119,950 to $216,180. That is 22% above the US figure. Much of the local workforce is on union step schedules at large integrated systems, so movement through the band is more predictable here than in most metros.
Do nurse practitioners earn more in Los Angeles than elsewhere in California?
No — Los Angeles sits 4.2% below the California statewide median. Bay Area NP pay is high enough to pull the state figure above what the state's largest metro pays, which is a pattern LA shares across several healthcare occupations.
Which Los Angeles NP roles pay the most?
Inpatient specialty and surgical-service roles at the academic and integrated systems sit at the top of the published band, near $216,180, usually combining a senior step with differentials. Safety-net and FQHC roles anchor the lower quartile around $133,240, a spread of well over 60% within the same licence.
Does California grant nurse practitioners full practice authority?
California phases it: NPs who complete a defined period of supervised practice can qualify to practise without standardised procedures within a specified setting, with a further category permitting practice outside one. It is a genuine commercial differentiator in Los Angeles, because it opens independent and telehealth roles closed to NPs still working under standardised procedures.
What licence do LA nurse practitioners need?
Certification as a nurse practitioner by the California Board of Registered Nursing within the Department of Consumer Affairs, held alongside a California RN licence, plus national certification in your population focus and a separate furnishing number to prescribe.
Why LA pays below the California average
The state median is lifted by Bay Area health systems whose pay scales run well ahead of Southern California's, and Los Angeles has a proportionally larger safety-net sector — county facilities and federally qualified health centres — that anchors the bottom of its band. The combination puts the country's second-largest metro 4.2% under its own state's median despite paying 22% above the national figure.
What this figure does not capture
Base wage only: LA's union-covered systems pay evening, night and weekend differentials that materially change annual earnings, and none of that is in the published median. The estimate also blends every NP population focus and stretches from central Los Angeles to Anaheim, areas with different employer mixes.
The step-schedule mechanic
A large share of LA nurse practitioners work under collective agreements with published step schedules, so pay progression is a function of years in the system rather than of negotiation at hire. In practice that makes the LA band unusually legible — you can predict where an NP will sit after five years — but it also means the fastest route upward is a specialty move rather than a better offer at the same step.
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Outlook & openings: Nurse practitioner employment is projected to grow 40.1% nationally across 2024–2034; scaled to the Los Angeles metro's share of national employment that is roughly 920 openings a year, a pro-rated figure from the national EP total rather than an LA-specific projection. (2024–2034 · national BLS EP 2024–34, pro-rated to the metro)
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