Mississippi nurse salary 2026: RN, NP & travel pay

Mississippi RN wages average $78,950 — 22% below the national mean. Here's the full breakdown: what the data actually says, which markets pay more, and why the specialty premium is larger than you'd expect.

Mississippi sits near the bottom of every national RN salary ranking. That's not a surprise to anyone who has worked in the South, and it's not going to change dramatically in the next few years. What does surprise nurses who've never worked here is the specialty gap: CRNA pay in Mississippi is nearly at national parity ($245,822 vs. $248,320 national mean), ICU pay sits 24% above the ZipRecruiter national average, and travel nurse packages top $108K — all in a state where the baseline staff RN averages $78,950.

That divergence is the story of Mississippi nursing in 2026. The state has a structural shortage — over half of rural hospitals are at financial risk of closing, the Delta region has among the worst health outcomes in the country, and the nursing school pipeline can't fill the gaps. The floor is low. But the premium for specialist skills and travel flexibility is meaningful.

Below is the complete pay picture for registered nurses in Mississippi: BLS May 2025 OEWS data for the baseline, aggregator-sourced specialty numbers, market context for the major employers, and the state-specific factors that shape what you'll actually take home.

Mississippi RN Salary: What BLS May 2025 Actually Shows

The $78,950 mean puts Mississippi in the bottom three nationally — below Alabama ($77,020) and above South Dakota ($77,140), though those three states are statistical neighbors. The gap from the national mean of $101,420 is 22.1 percentage points, which is real money: $22,470 per year less than the average U.S. RN. Over a 30-year career, that compounds into a structural wealth disadvantage that isn't easily offset by Mississippi's lower cost of living alone.

That said, the COL adjustment matters. Mississippi has one of the lowest cost-of-living indices in the country — approximately 83–85 on a national index where 100 is average. Housing costs in Jackson run well below national norms, and outside the metro, rural Mississippi is genuinely affordable. A nurse earning $78,950 in Jackson is not living on the equivalent of a $78,950 lifestyle in Denver or Boston.

The 90th percentile — $100,350 — is what experienced RNs at UMMC or North Mississippi Medical Center can reasonably target. That's nearly at the national median, and it's achievable with 10+ years of experience, specialty certification, or a charge/supervisor role. The 50th percentile ($76,030) reflects what most Mississippi staff RNs are earning.

Mississippi Travel Nurse Pay in 2026

Travel nursing is where Mississippi's numbers get more interesting. Posted base rates average $95,779 per year (ZipRecruiter 2026) — 21% above the staff RN mean. Total packages with tax-free housing and M&IE stipends averaging $1,388 per week push the all-in number to approximately $108,000 per year.

The Delta region — Greenwood, Greenville, Clarksdale, Cleveland — consistently pays the highest travel premiums in the state. These are among the most medically underserved communities in the country, with a near-total reliance on traveling and locum staff to fill critical gaps. Contracts there routinely run $1,800–$2,200/week in taxable base pay before stipends. If you can handle the rural isolation and the acuity that comes with delayed-care patients, the Delta pays accordingly.

Mississippi is an NLC compact state, which streamlines travel logistics significantly. Your compact license covers you in all 41+ member states, so you're not waiting 6-8 weeks and paying separate BON fees to cross into Tennessee or Alabama for your next contract. Most Mississippi-based travel nurses keep their compact license here because it's the primary license, not a problem to manage around.

The state income tax phasedown also benefits travelers who can establish Mississippi domicile — a tax rate dropping to 4.0% in 2026 and continuing lower is more favorable than most southern states travelers currently use as domicile states.

NP Salary in Mississippi 2026

Nurse practitioners in Mississippi average $122,930 per year (BLS May 2025 OEWS) — 10.5% below the national NP mean of $137,300. That gap is directly connected to scope-of-practice restrictions. Mississippi remains a restricted practice state: all APRNs must maintain a collaborative practice arrangement with a physician, and that physician-dependency ceiling compresses NP market rates across the board.

Two bills — Senate Bill 2178 and House Bill 1490 — have been introduced in the Mississippi Legislature to grant full practice authority after 5,000–6,240 supervised hours. Neither has been enacted as of 2026. The physician lobbying opposition in Mississippi is substantial, and none of its neighbors has moved either: Alabama, Louisiana and Tennessee still require physician collaboration too.

In practical terms, restricted practice means Mississippi NPs cannot open independent practices, cannot prescribe without physician oversight, and cannot position themselves in the fully autonomous clinical and business models available in 34+ FPA states. NPs who want fully independent practice have to look beyond Mississippi’s immediate neighbors, none of which (Alabama, Louisiana, Tennessee) has granted it.

The restricted scope also affects specialty pay. Family practice NPs in rural Mississippi — exactly the specialty the state desperately needs to address its physician shortage — face both the income cap from required collaboration and the administrative overhead of maintaining a collaborative agreement that costs anywhere from $200–$800/month in physician fees. That overhead reduces effective NP net income further.

CRNA Salary in Mississippi 2026

CRNAs are where Mississippi's salary data becomes genuinely interesting. Despite ranking near the bottom nationally for RN wages, Mississippi CRNAs earn approximately $245,822 per year (TheCRNA.com 2026 blended data) — nearly at the national CRNA mean of $248,320. That's a relative premium of roughly 211% over the state's baseline RN wage, one of the largest CRNA-to-RN multipliers in the country.

The explanation is supply constraints. Mississippi has a thin CRNA workforce and limited CRNA training capacity. UMMC trains the majority of the state's CRNAs, and program throughput cannot meet rural demand. When a 25-bed critical access hospital in the Delta needs CRNA anesthesia coverage and the nearest alternative is a 90-minute drive, they price accordingly. The market for anesthesia services simply cannot be compressed the way general bedside nursing wages can.

Rural and critical-access CRNA positions in Mississippi frequently include stipends, loan repayment through NHSC programs, or other incentives that push total compensation above the base rates. For a CRNA willing to work outside Jackson — in places like Greenwood, Starkville, or Columbus — total packages can exceed $270,000 with incentives. That's a meaningful number even adjusted for the cost of living in rural Mississippi.

ICU and ER Nurse Salary in Mississippi

Mississippi specialty pay data from ZipRecruiter 2026 reveals an unusual pattern: ICU nurses actually earn significantly above the national average for their specialty, while ER nurses sit slightly below it.

The ICU premium is striking. Mississippi ICU nurses averaging $105,800 — 24% above the ZipRecruiter national ICU mean — reflects a genuine market dynamic: critical care nurses in Mississippi are in short supply, and hospitals like UMMC, North Mississippi Medical Center, and Singing River Health cannot hire enough local critical care staff to fill their ICUs. UMMC is a Level I Trauma Center with CICU, MICU, SICU, and NICU units all competing for the same thin pipeline of critical care nurses. That competition pushes wages well above what you'd expect given the baseline RN market.

ER nurses tell a different story. Mississippi emergency departments do staff at lower acuity in many rural hospitals, and the ER nurse market is more competitive with travel staff willing to work there. The -5.3% gap from national average is small and within the margin of aggregator variation — not a meaningful discount.

For nurses targeting maximum earnings in Mississippi, the play is clear: critical care specialty is where the state's structural shortage most directly translates into wage pressure above what the baseline RN market suggests. CCRN certification and ICU experience make you significantly more valuable in this specific market than the state's overall wage data implies.

Major Mississippi Hospital Employers and What They Pay

Mississippi's nursing employer landscape is defined by a dominant academic medical center in Jackson and a network of independent regional health systems, several of which are under serious financial strain.

UMMC — University of Mississippi Medical Center (Jackson)

UMMC is the undisputed top employer in the state: 748 beds, the only Level I Trauma Center in Mississippi, and the state's only academic medical center. It trains the largest share of the state's nurses, NPs, and CRNAs. UMMC consistently pays the highest RN wages in Mississippi — experienced ICU nurses at UMMC can reach $85,000–$100,000 per year, with charge nurse and supervisor differentials above that. It also has the most complex acuity in the state, which appeals to nurses who want critical care experience.

North Mississippi Medical Center (Tupelo)

NMMC is the largest rural hospital in the United States by bed count — 757 beds in Tupelo. It anchors healthcare in the northeastern part of the state and is consistently cited as one of the best rural hospitals nationally. Pay typically runs 5–8% above statewide averages for staff nurses, with a strong float pool and specialty unit structure. For nurses who want rural hospital practice without sacrificing unit variety or acuity, NMMC is the best non-UMMC option in Mississippi.

Singing River Health System (Biloxi/Ocean Springs)

The Gulf Coast market operates differently from the rest of Mississippi — proximity to New Orleans and the coastal tourism economy creates modest wage pressure that the Delta cannot generate. Singing River Health System operates hospitals in Biloxi and Ocean Springs, plus the Singing River at Pascagoula. Gulf Coast pay runs slightly above state averages, and the market draws nurses who want warmer climate and beach access alongside reasonable rural-adjacent pay.

Merit Health Systems and Delta Regional

Merit Health operates multiple facilities across central and western Mississippi (Vicksburg, Natchez, Madison, Central Mississippi). These are community hospitals with standard Mississippi pay scales — generally 5–10% below UMMC. Delta Regional Medical Center in Greenville is the primary safety-net hospital for the Delta region: low pay, high acuity, high patient complexity, and significant administrative burden. It's not where you go to maximize salary. It is where you go if you want to work with the most underserved patient population in the country and build clinical experience on low census with high-complexity cases.

Mississippi's Rural Hospital Crisis and What It Means for Nurse Jobs

More than half of Mississippi's rural hospitals are at risk of closure due to financial instability. This is not a projection — it's an ongoing reality that has already eliminated nursing positions and will continue to reshape the job market over the next decade.

The causes are layered: Mississippi is one of the states that declined Medicaid expansion under the ACA, leaving rural hospitals with high uncompensated care burdens that erode margins. The Big Beautiful Bill's $911 billion in Medicaid cuts over 10 years will hit Mississippi harder than almost any other state given its Medicaid dependency. Rural hospital closures eliminate RN positions but simultaneously drive up travel demand as remaining facilities try to cover the patient population left without a local hospital.

For nurses already working in Mississippi, the risk is real: if your facility closes or cuts services, you may be forced to commute significantly further or transition to travel nursing to maintain income. For travel nurses considering Mississippi contracts, the rural hospital crisis is what sustains the premium — as long as hospitals remain open but understaffed, contracts will continue to pay above staff rates.

UMMC's telehealth expansion is attempting to fill some of the gap, providing specialist coverage to rural hospitals that can no longer maintain full clinical teams. This creates a growing telehealth nursing market in Mississippi — an option for experienced RNs who want to work from Jackson (or remotely) while supporting rural facilities without living in them.