RN Salary in Minnesota: $101,510 Median Pay in 2026

The median rn salary in Minnesota is $101,510 a year, or $48.80 an hour, based on the BLS's May 2025 estimates for registered nurses (occupation code 29-1141). The mean sits a bit higher at $103,420, which tells you a smaller group of high earners is pulling the average up above the median, a pattern that shows up in almost every state's RN pay data.

The real story is in the spread. The bottom 10 percent of Minnesota RNs earn $79,960 or less, while the top 10 percent clear $132,430. That's a $52,470 gap between the floor and the ceiling, and it isn't random. Nurses at the bottom of that range tend to be new graduates still on orientation pay, RNs working in long-term care and skilled nursing facilities where reimbursement rates run lower, and nurses in rural Minnesota counties where hospital systems have less pricing power. The 25th percentile, $88,940, is closer to what a nurse with a year or two of acute-care experience should expect.

At the top end, the 75th percentile ($114,760) and 90th percentile ($132,430) belong to nurses who've stacked years of experience with something else: a specialty certification, a union contract with a mature wage scale, a role in a high-acuity unit like the ICU or the OR, or enough seniority to load up on night and weekend differential pay. None of that happens by accident. It's the accumulation of choices, mostly around setting and certification, made over years, and it's the difference between RN pay near $80,000 and RN pay over $130,000 in the same state.

Minnesota's $101,510 median rn salary beats the national median of $97,550 by $3,960, and ranks 12th out of 51 states and D.C., per the same BLS release covered in depth in our national RN salary guide. That's a solid position, not a spectacular one. Minnesota isn't California or Hawaii money, but it's clearly ahead of the middle of the pack.

The more useful comparison, if you're a working nurse weighing a move, is against the states Minnesota actually borders. Every neighboring state pays less, and by a lot. Iowa's median is $78,630, a full $22,880 below Minnesota. North Dakota comes in at $80,730, $20,780 below. South Dakota is the lowest of the group at $78,060, a $23,450 gap. Wisconsin is the closest competitor at $95,530, still $5,980 short of Minnesota's number.

For a nurse living near the border in a Wisconsin town like La Crosse, or near a South Dakota town close to Sioux Falls, that gap is real money for a commute distance many nurses already drive. A $20,000-plus gap against Iowa or the Dakotas isn't something a lower cost of living quietly erases; it's simply more take-home pay for comparable work, before factoring in that Minnesota applies its state income tax to wages the same as most other income-tax states. The honest verdict: if you already live near the Minnesota border and you're working in Iowa, North Dakota, or South Dakota, the math for crossing into Minnesota is hard to ignore. Wisconsin is a closer call, since a $5,980 gap is easier for a longer commute or a hospital system you like to absorb.

Minnesota's RN percentile ladder maps out a realistic career arc for anyone tracking her own RN pay over time. A nurse near the 25th percentile, around $88,940, usually looks like someone one to three years into acute-care nursing: past orientation, but not yet holding a specialty certification or much seniority. By the 75th percentile, $114,760, that same nurse has usually added something specific: years of tenure at one hospital system, a certification like CCRN for critical care or CEN for emergency nursing, and a shift pattern that includes nights or weekends, which most Minnesota hospital systems pay a real differential for.

The jump from the middle of the pay scale to the top isn't just about clocking years. Unionized hospital systems in Minnesota, which cover a meaningful share of the state's acute-care workforce, bargain wage scales that build in automatic step increases for tenure, something a nurse at a non-union facility has to negotiate for individually or earn through promotion instead. Setting matters just as much as tenure. A nurse who moves from a skilled nursing facility into a Level I trauma center's ICU is likely to see her pay climb toward that 75th-to-90th percentile range, not because her title changed but because the acuity, the shift differentials, and the union or system-level wage scale all changed with it.

Certifications are the one lever a registered nurse fully controls. CCRN, CEN, OCN, and similar specialty credentials don't just signal expertise, they're frequently tied directly to a pay step or a bonus in hospital compensation structures. Combined with a few years of tenure and a willingness to work the shifts that carry differential pay, that's the realistic path from the $88,940 mark to the $114,760 mark and beyond, all within the RN license, no additional degree required.

If raw dollars are the goal, nothing moves an rn salary in Minnesota like becoming a nurse practitioner. The median NP salary in Minnesota is $133,260, which is $31,750 a year above the RN median of $101,510. That's the single biggest jump available to a Minnesota nurse, and it dwarfs anything achievable by staying at the bedside. The full nurse practitioner salary numbers hold up across most settings, and Minnesota's nurse practitioner programs are the on-ramp if you're ready for graduate school. But an NP role is a different job, not a promoted version of RN work: more autonomy, more diagnostic responsibility, and a multi-year graduate program most nurses complete while still working. It's the wrong move for a nurse who wants less responsibility rather than more, or who is close to retirement without enough years left to recoup the time and tuition a graduate degree costs.

For nurses who aren't ready for graduate school, the next-best lever is finishing a BSN. Many Minnesota hospital systems, particularly the larger Magnet-recognized ones, use BSN completion as a gate for charge nurse roles, specialty units, and the top steps of internal pay ladders. An associate-degree RN working toward a bachelor's through one of Minnesota's RN-to-BSN programs is typically working toward exactly the kind of role that shows up at the 75th percentile and above in the state's RN pay data, not a guaranteed raise on day one, but a prerequisite for the roles that pay more.

Below that, specialty and setting switches are the most accessible short-term move. Moving from long-term care into acute care, or from a general medical-surgical floor into a specialty unit like the ICU, ED, or OR, tends to bring both higher base pay and more differential and on-call opportunities. Travel nursing contracts are worth a mention too: hospitals use travel and per diem contracts to cover short-term staffing gaps, and those contracts are priced separately from the standard employment wage data covered here, so a travel assignment can pay meaningfully more than a staff RN role in the same unit, though the trade-off is no long-term benefits and no guarantee of renewal. For a Minnesota RN weighing all four paths, the order is clear: NP first, BSN second, specialty or setting third, travel work as a flexible supplement rather than a long-term plan.

Minnesota employs 70,110 registered nurses, the 17th-largest RN workforce of any state, out of 3,379,720 RNs nationwide. That's a substantial, established job market, not a niche one, and it means Minnesota's above-average RN pay isn't the product of a tiny, hard-to-staff workforce commanding a premium. Nationally, the BLS projects 6 percent growth in RN employment from 2022 to 2032, and there's no reason Minnesota's hospital and clinic systems, several of which are among the largest employers in the state, would move against that trend.

For a licensed practical nurse in Minnesota weighing the jump to RN, the math is direct: Minnesota's LPN median is $63,750, and the RN median of $101,510 sits $37,760 higher. That gap alone justifies the bridge coursework for most LPNs who can commit the time, especially since LPN-to-RN bridge tracks are shorter than starting a nursing degree from scratch.

Put it together and Minnesota is a genuinely strong state to earn an rn salary: a median that beats the national number and every bordering state, a workforce large enough that job security isn't a constant worry, and a documented path upward through certification, BSN completion, or graduate school. If you're mapping out where to train or how to move up from here, start with Minnesota's best RN programs in Minnesota and work backward from the role you actually want in five years.