Idaho has about 2.0 million residents and has been among the fastest growing states for a decade. Registered nurses average $92,710 a year, 28th among the fifty states and the District of Columbia.
Licensure
The Idaho Board of Nursing licenses registered nurses, licensed practical nurses and advanced practice registered nurses through the Division of Occupational and Professional Licenses. Its office is on West Chinden Boulevard in Boise, telephone (208) 577-2476. Rules and applications are at dopl.idaho.gov/bon.
Idaho implemented the Nurse Licensure Compact in 2001, one of the earliest states to do so. A nurse living in Idaho holds one multistate license good in every other compact state, Montana, Wyoming, Utah and Washington among them. Oregon and Nevada are outside it.
Nurse practitioner practice
Idaho is a full practice state, and has been well ahead of most of the country on this. Nurse practitioners evaluate patients, order and interpret tests, and prescribe under the nursing board's authority, with no physician agreement required. In a state where wide stretches of country are hours from a hospital, that independence carries weight. See nurse practitioner practice authority.
Nursing education
Boise State University's School of Nursing is the largest program in the state. Idaho State University in Pocatello runs nursing programs including graduate tracks, Lewis-Clark State College serves the north, and the community colleges supply associate degree and practical nurse graduates. Idaho produces fewer nurses per resident than most states, so a substantial share of its workforce is licensed by endorsement or arrives on a compact license from elsewhere.
Pay and workforce
Metropolitan Boise holds most of Idaho's hospital nursing work, anchored by St. Luke's Health System and Saint Alphonsus Health System. Idaho Falls, Pocatello, Twin Falls and Coeur d'Alene support smaller markets, and nurses in Coeur d'Alene often work in or compete with Spokane just across the Washington line.
Rural Idaho depends on critical access hospitals and on nurse practitioners running clinics in towns with no resident physician. The state has long had one of the lowest ratios of clinicians to population in the country, so recruiting outside the Treasure Valley is hard going. See rural and frontier nursing and the nursing shortage.
Travel and flexible work
Idaho is the most travel-dependent nursing market in the country by this measure. Across NurseRecruiter's full archive of job listings, 2009 to 2026, it ranks first of the fifty states and the District of Columbia for travel assignments advertised per employed registered nurse, roughly twelve times the rate of the state at the bottom of that list. A small nursing workforce, 14,540 registered nurses statewide, and a heavy reliance on small rural hospitals is what produces it, and compact membership makes the state easy for a traveller from elsewhere to reach. See where the assignments are.
Idaho nurses also take that work themselves. Of the state's registered nurses with a profile on this site, 40 percent say they will consider travel assignments and 43 percent per diem shifts, against 39 and 46 percent nationally. See travel nursing and per diem nursing.
Related
- Nurse Licensure Compact
- Nurse practitioner practice authority
- Critical access hospitals
- Rural and frontier nursing
- Where the assignments are
- 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.
- Idaho 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.
- NurseRecruiter job listings, 2009 to September 2026, and nurse profiles, for travel postings per employed nurse and stated willingness. Method and limits are set out in where the assignments are.