Colorado has about 6.0 million residents. Registered nurses average $99,370 a year, 16th among the fifty states and the District of Columbia.
Licensure
The Colorado State Board of Nursing licenses registered nurses, licensed practical nurses and advanced practice nurses through the Division of Professions and Occupations. Its office is on Broadway in Denver, telephone (303) 894-7800. Rules and renewal information are at dpo.colorado.gov/Nursing.
Colorado belongs to the Nurse Licensure Compact, which is worth something in a state that borders six others, five of them members. A nurse living in Colorado holds one multistate license and needs no second application to work across those lines. Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming are all in.
Nurse practitioner practice
Colorado is a full practice state. Nurse practitioners evaluate patients, order and interpret tests, and prescribe under the nursing board's authority. The state does require a period of mentored prescribing before prescriptive authority becomes unrestricted, after which no physician agreement applies. See nurse practitioner practice authority.
Nursing education
The University of Colorado College of Nursing on the Anschutz Medical Campus in Aurora is the state's academic nursing school and its main source of advanced practice graduates. The University of Northern Colorado in Greeley and Regis University in Denver carry substantial programs, and the community college system supplies associate degree graduates across the Front Range and the mountain towns.
Pay and workforce
Nursing work in Colorado runs along the Front Range, from Fort Collins through Denver and Colorado Springs down to Pueblo. Metropolitan Denver holds the academic medical centers, including UCHealth's University of Colorado Hospital in Aurora and Children's Hospital Colorado, along with SCL Health and Denver Health.
West of the Continental Divide the picture is different. Mountain and Western Slope communities depend on small regional hospitals and critical access hospitals, where staffing turns on seasonal tourism, injuries from skiing and climbing, and long transport times to a trauma center. Housing costs in the resort counties are a serious obstacle to keeping nurses, because a hospital salary does not compete with second home prices. See rural and frontier nursing.
Related
- Nurse Licensure Compact
- Nurse practitioner practice authority
- Critical access hospitals
- Rural and frontier nursing
- Nursing by state
Sources
- U.S. Census Bureau, state population estimates for July 1, 2025. Accessed September 8, 2026.
- U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, registered nurses (29-1141), May 2025. Accessed September 8, 2026.
- Colorado State Board of Nursing, contact details and licensing information. Accessed September 8, 2026.
- Nurse Licensure Compact, member states. Accessed September 8, 2026.
- American Association of Nurse Practitioners, State Practice Environment. Accessed September 8, 2026.