Nurse Practitioner Salary in South Carolina 2026,
$123,290 Median | BLS Data by City

A median $123,290 a year, or $59.28 an hour, per BLS OEWS May 2025, with the middle half between $107,930 and $132,220 and a full range of $97,080 to $160,170. That is 6.8% below the $132,300 national median, though the state's 75th percentile lands almost exactly on that national figure.

Charleston-North Charleston at $127,780, ahead of Florence at $121,930, Myrtle Beach at $121,390, Spartanburg at $121,120 and Greenville-Anderson-Greer at $119,280. The spread from Charleston to Greenville is about eight and a half thousand dollars, so the metro matters here more than it does for several other South Carolina occupations, but less than specialty does.

No. South Carolina requires a written practice agreement with a collaborating physician, which governs prescriptive authority including controlled substances. It is not a full practice authority state, and the collaboration requirements are a genuine constraint on opening or staffing a solo rural clinic. That regulatory position is part of why the state median sits below the national one despite heavy reliance on nurse practitioners.

Hold an active registered nurse licence — South Carolina is a Nurse Licensure Compact state at the RN level — then complete a graduate nursing programme in your population focus and obtain national certification. You apply to the South Carolina Board of Nursing for advanced practice registered nurse licensure and file a practice agreement with a collaborating physician. Prescriptive authority, including for controlled substances, is granted through that agreement.

Because physicians are scarce where the patients are. A location quotient of 1.18 on about 5,670 posts reflects primary care shortage designations across the Pee Dee, the I-95 corridor and the rural Upstate, plus a coastal retiree population growing faster than almost anywhere in the country. Employers lean on nurse practitioners to cover access. The tension in this state is that the same rural areas most dependent on them are the hardest places to satisfy a collaborating physician requirement.

Less in salary than in optionality. The direct wage effect is visible in the state median sitting 6.8% below the national figure while employment concentration runs 18% above it — that combination usually indicates a market where employers can hire readily on their own terms. But the bigger effect is structural: full practice authority states let a nurse practitioner open an independent clinic, and South Carolina does not, so the entrepreneurial ceiling that exists elsewhere is closed here. What remains is employed practice, where the $132,220 seventy-fifth percentile and the $160,170 ninetieth are reached through specialty and acuity rather than ownership.

Population focus is invisible in it. Psychiatric mental health nurse practitioners, acute care nurse practitioners and surgical subspecialty roles earn materially more than family practice ones, and all sit inside this single number — which is most of what the range from $97,080 to $160,170 is describing. The figure also excludes productivity bonuses, call pay and the rural incentive packages South Carolina employers use in shortage areas, and it does not adjust for the part-time work that is common in this occupation.

Population focus, decisively. Psychiatric mental health is the highest-demand and best-paid focus in this state by a clear margin, followed by acute and critical care and the surgical subspecialties — those are what reach the $132,220 seventy-fifth percentile and the $160,170 ninetieth. Charleston at $127,780 is worth about eight and a half thousand over Greenville at $119,280. Beyond that: lead advanced practice roles in the large systems, negotiated productivity arrangements, and rural shortage-area incentives, which in South Carolina are substantial precisely because the collaborating physician requirement makes those posts hard to fill.