Registered Nurse
148,448 active US providers register Registered Nurse as their primary taxonomy. That is 1.6% of every provider in the registry, and the 16th largest of 584 specialties with a page here.
- Taxonomy code
- 163W00000X
- Grouping
- Nursing Service Providers
- Classification
- Registered Nurse
- Active providers
- 148,448
- States covered
- 51 of 51
What the code means
(1) A registered nurse is a person qualified by graduation from an accredited nursing school (depending upon schooling, a registered nurse may receive either a diploma from a hospital program, an associate degree in nursing (A.D.N.) or a Bachelor of Science degree in nursing (B.S.N.), who is licensed or certified by the state, and is practicing within the scope of that license or certification. R.N.'s assist patient in recovering and maintaining their physical or mental health. They assist physicians during treatments and examinations and administer medications. (2) A provider who is trained and educated in a formal nursing education program at an accredited school of nursing, passes a national certification examination, and is licensed by the state to practice nursing. The individual provides nursing services to patients or clients in areas such as health promotion, disease prevention, acute and chronic care and restoration and maintenance of health across the life span.
Definition quoted verbatim from the NUCC Health Care Provider Taxonomy code set, version 25.1. Not paraphrased.
Where they are
Counted by practice location, not by mailing address or by licence state. A provider practising across a state line is counted where they practise.
| State | Providers | Share |
|---|---|---|
| New York | 25,626 | |
| California | 13,285 | |
| Ohio | 9,651 | |
| Texas | 8,936 | |
| Washington | 5,821 | |
| Michigan | 5,522 | |
| Pennsylvania | 5,414 | |
| Massachusetts | 4,993 | |
| Florida | 4,767 | |
| Wisconsin | 4,632 | |
| Colorado | 4,605 | |
| Minnesota | 3,409 | |
| Georgia | 3,309 | |
| Tennessee | 3,203 | |
| Arizona | 3,120 |
Showing the 15 largest of 51 states with at least one.
Who registers under this code
Almost all of these are individual clinicians: 147,067 people against 1,381 organisations. Half of them had registered by 2019, and 63,736 registered in the last five years, 43% of the current population.
That is a fast-growing code. A population where a large share registered recently is either a genuinely expanding field or a category NPPES added late, and the taxonomy definition above usually tells you which.
Where the practices are
By practice-location city. City counts are noisier than state counts, because a large employer files one address for many providers.
- BROOKLYN, NY3,529
- NEW YORK, NY1,963
- BRONX, NY1,863
- SAN ANTONIO, TX1,320
- SAN DIEGO, CA1,212
- HOUSTON, TX1,160
- DENVER, CO1,071
- MINNEAPOLIS, MN1,050
- COLUMBUS, OH1,006
- SEATTLE, WA946
What else they list
Providers whose primary code is Registered Nurse most often carry these secondary taxonomies as well. This is the closest thing the registry has to a map of which specialties overlap in practice, and it is not published anywhere else.
| Also listed | Providers | Share |
|---|---|---|
| Licensed Practical Nurse | 1,464 | 1.0% |
| Home Health Registered Nurse | 775 | 0.5% |
| Community Health Registered Nurse | 503 | 0.3% |
| Case Management Registered Nurse | 466 | 0.3% |
| Family Nurse Practitioner | 457 | 0.3% |
| Psychiatric/Mental Health Registered Nurse | 425 | 0.3% |
| Case Manager/Care Coordinator | 378 | 0.3% |
| Certified Registered Nurse Anesthetist | 289 | 0.2% |
Nearby specialties
Other taxonomies NUCC files under Registered Nurse.
- School Registered Nurse10,969
- Psychiatric/Mental Health Registered Nurse10,815
- Home Health Registered Nurse10,397
- Community Health Registered Nurse7,501
- Case Management Registered Nurse5,718
- General Practice Registered Nurse4,739
Looking up a specific provider
These counts come from the monthly NPPES file. To check one provider, use their NPI: the lookup reads the live registry and shows whether the identifier is still active, which the monthly file cannot tell you about the last few weeks.
Counts from npidata_pfile_20050523-20260712.csv, built 2026-08-09. Primary taxonomy only, deactivated identifiers excluded.