The District of Columbia has about 694,000 residents, fewer than any state except Wyoming. Registered nurses working in the District average $106,980 a year, the ninth highest figure among the fifty states and the District, well above both Maryland and Virginia next door.
Licensure
The District of Columbia Board of Nursing licenses registered nurses, licensed practical nurses and advanced practice registered nurses through D.C. Health. Its office is on North Capitol Street NE, telephone (877) 672-2174. Rules, applications and license verification are at dchealth.dc.gov/bon.
The District has not joined the Nurse Licensure Compact, though a bill has been before the Council. A multistate license carries no authority here, so a nurse needs a D.C. license obtained by endorsement.
That is a real problem for the region's workforce. Maryland and Virginia are both compact members, and hospitals in the District draw most of their staff from the suburbs on either side, so plenty of nurses carry two licenses and some carry three.
Nurse practitioner practice
The District is a full practice jurisdiction. Nurse practitioners evaluate patients, order and interpret tests, and prescribe under the nursing board's authority, with no physician agreement required. See nurse practitioner practice authority.
Nursing education
Georgetown University's School of Nursing, Howard University's College of Nursing and Allied Health Sciences, the Conway School of Nursing at the Catholic University of America, and the University of the District of Columbia all train nurses in the city. Howard's program is one of the oldest at a historically Black university and has supplied a substantial share of Black nursing leadership nationally. See history of nursing.
Pay and workforce
For a city of its size the District holds a striking amount of hospital and research nursing. MedStar Washington Hospital Center, George Washington University Hospital, Children's National Hospital, Howard University Hospital and the Veterans Affairs medical center all sit inside the city, and the National Institutes of Health campus is just over the Maryland line in Bethesda.
Federal employment takes a larger share of the nursing market here than anywhere else in the country, and that changes the licensing picture. A nurse at a federally operated facility such as an NIH clinical center, a military hospital or a Veterans Affairs medical center may hold a license from any state, so the District's absence from the compact does not bind there. See Indian Health Service and tribal nursing for the same rule applied elsewhere in the federal system.
Nursing history
Washington's hospitals were the center of Civil War nursing. The poet Walt Whitman spent the war years visiting the wounded in them, work he set down in The Wound Dresser. Clara Barton ran her search for missing Union soldiers out of a Washington boarding house and founded the American Association of the Red Cross in the city in 1881.
Related
- Licensure by endorsement
- Nurse Licensure Compact
- Nurse practitioner practice authority
- History of nursing
- Nursing by state
Sources
- U.S. Census Bureau, 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.
- District of Columbia 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.