Nurse Practitioner Salary in Utah 2026,
$130,920 Median | BLS Data by City

A median $130,920 a year, or $62.94 an hour, per BLS OEWS May 2025, with the middle half between $120,740 and $150,940 and a full range of $102,980 to $175,220. That is 1.0% below the $132,300 national median — essentially level — and the state's 75th percentile clears the national median by more than eighteen thousand dollars.

St. George at $139,590, well ahead of Provo-Orem-Lehi at $133,860, Logan at $133,110, Salt Lake City-Murray at $129,350 and Ogden at $129,000. St. George is a fast-growing retirement and recreation market in the far south-west with substantial clinical demand and a thin local workforce, and the ten-thousand-dollar premium over Salt Lake City reflects that.

Yes. Utah grants full practice authority, meaning a nurse practitioner can evaluate, diagnose, order diagnostics and prescribe under the exclusive licensure authority of the Division of Professional Licensing, without a mandated collaborative or supervisory agreement with a physician. That includes the option of opening an independent practice — a route that simply does not exist in the restricted-practice states elsewhere in this batch, and one that sits entirely outside what a wage series measures.

Hold an active registered nurse licence, complete a graduate nursing programme in your population focus and obtain national certification, then apply to the Division of Professional Licensing at the Department of Commerce for advanced practice registered nurse licensure. Controlled substance prescribing follows the division's requirements alongside federal registration. Because Utah is a full practice authority state, there is no collaborative agreement to negotiate as part of the process.

A location quotient of 0.76 means about three-quarters the national rate per worker, on roughly 2,740 posts — and it reflects timing rather than policy. Utah's population growth has outpaced its clinical workforce build-out, and its nurse practitioner numbers are still catching up. With 40.1% projected national growth and full practice authority removing the physician-agreement bottleneck, the state is well positioned to expand quickly, which is why demand-side pressure shows up most clearly in the hardest-to-staff markets like St. George.

More than the wage series shows, which is the point. In a restricted-practice state, a nurse practitioner's alternatives are limited to other employed posts, and that ceiling on options feeds through into salary. In Utah, a nurse practitioner can open a clinic — which both creates a genuine outside option that supports employed salaries and creates an earnings route entirely outside the published band. The $175,220 ninetieth percentile captures employed specialty practice; it does not capture practice ownership. Compare Utah with Alabama in this same batch, where a jointly approved collaborative agreement is required and the median sits twenty per cent below the national figure despite far higher employment concentration.

Population focus, which is invisible in the median and matters more than the state comparison does. Psychiatric mental health and acute care nurse practitioners earn substantially above family practice ones, and both sit inside this number — much of what the $102,980 to $175,220 range describes. The figure also excludes productivity arrangements and call pay, and it does not capture independent practice income at all. And with a location quotient of 0.76 the state workforce is comparatively small, so read the percentile ladder as a reliable shape rather than a precise scale.

Population focus first — psychiatric mental health, then acute and critical care and surgical subspecialties, which are what reach the $150,940 seventy-fifth percentile and the $175,220 ninetieth. Location second, and it points south: St. George at $139,590 against Salt Lake City-Murray at $129,350. Then employer type, with Intermountain and University of Utah Health offering lead advanced practice roles. And uniquely among most of this batch, independent practice is a live option here — for a nurse practitioner with a business inclination, Utah's regulatory position is the most valuable thing on this page.