Key Points
- Psychiatric nurses average $47.32 an hour on Indeed, about $98,400 a year at full-time hours, while ZipRecruiter ($86,659) and Salary.com ($88,800) report lower annual averages.
- New York pays the most at $61.22 an hour, followed by Maine ($60.27), Hawaii ($58.26), Oregon ($56.15), and New Hampshire ($55.68).
- Connecticut ($34.33), Arkansas ($36.63), and Ohio ($37.28) have the lowest averages among states with 20 or more reported salaries.
- Adjusted for living costs, Maine, Iowa, and Nebraska offer the strongest buying power, and California drops from ninth to 20th.
- New York City leads the metro areas at $66.77 an hour, and psychiatric nurse practitioners earn $129,431 to $149,344 a year depending on the source.
How Much Does a Psychiatric Nurse Make?
The most current national figure for psychiatric nurses, who also appear in postings as mental health nurses or psych nurses, comes from Indeed, which puts the average psychiatric nurse salary at $47.32 an hour based on 9,300 salaries pulled from job postings over the past 36 months (updated Sept. 28, 2026). At 2,080 hours a year, that is about $98,400 before overtime, and Indeed reports an average of $10,750 a year in overtime pay on top of it. Advertised rates range from a low of $32.06 to a high of $69.86 an hour.
Other sources land lower because they measure different things. ZipRecruiter reports a national average of $86,659 a year, or $41.66 an hour, with the 25th percentile at $64,000 and the 90th at $123,500 (Sept. 30, 2026). Salary.com puts the typical salary at $88,800 as of Oct. 1, 2026, with the middle half of psychiatric nurses earning between $81,100 and $99,100. Payscale, which relies on 1,164 self-reported profiles, shows $38.91 an hour (June 29, 2026).
Job postings tend to advertise what employers offer to fill open roles, while self-reported data reflects what nurses already in those roles say they earn, so the posting-based figures usually sit higher.
The only government figure covers nurses by setting rather than by specialty. BLS does not track psychiatric nurses as a separate occupation, but its industry data for the registered nurses who staff psychiatric and substance abuse hospitals, the setting many psychiatric nurses work in, shows a median of $40.71 an hour and an average annual wage of $94,440 across 40,830 nurses (May 2023, the latest year posted on BLS's industry page). Those wages are straight-time pay and leave out overtime, shift differentials, and bonuses, which is part of why they run below posting averages.
Psychiatric nurses are also a large group. The American Psychiatric Nurses Association counts about 104,220 psychiatric-mental health registered nurses nationwide as of October 2025 and describes them as the second-largest group of mental health professionals in the U.S. The table below shows what postings in each state advertise.
Psychiatric Nurse Salary in All 50 States and DC
Each figure is the average hourly pay for psychiatric nurse postings on Indeed in that state, with the annual equivalent calculated at 2,080 hours a year. States marked with an asterisk had fewer than 20 reported salaries, so treat those averages as rough.
Twenty of the 46 states with at least 20 reported salaries average more than the national figure of $47.32, and 13 of them top $50 an hour.
Psychiatric Nurse Hourly Wage and Overtime
Hourly pay is the number most psych nurse postings lead with, since so much of the work is shift-based. Indeed's $47.32 national average sits between two other hourly benchmarks: Vivian, which averages its active psychiatric nurse postings, lists $52.64 an hour as of Oct. 19, 2026, while Payscale's self-reported range runs from $30.57 at the 10th percentile to $51 at the 90th.
What you take home depends on more than the base rate. Evening, night, and weekend differentials, charge pay, and overtime add up in inpatient units, and Indeed's $10,750 overtime figure shows how common extra shifts are.
Travel contracts pay differently again: Vivian lists travel psychiatric nurse contracts at $2,106 a week nationally, based on 1,455 active jobs as of Oct. 19, 2026. Board certification is the main credential beyond the license. The ANCC's Psychiatric-Mental Health Nursing Certification (PMH-BC) requires two years of full-time nursing practice, 2,000 hours of clinical psychiatric nursing within the past three years, and 30 hours of psychiatric nursing continuing education in the same window, and it is valid for five years.
Psychiatric Nurse vs. Psychiatric Nurse Practitioner Pay
Psychiatric nurse and psychiatric-mental health nurse practitioner (PMHNP) are different jobs with different licenses, and salary sites often blur them. PMHNPs assess, diagnose, and prescribe, which requires a master's or doctoral degree plus separate board certification. Their pay reflects that: Indeed lists an average of $149,344 a year for PMHNPs based on 6,800 salaries from job postings (updated July 26, 2026), and Payscale reports $129,431 from 1,034 self-reported profiles (July 10, 2026).
That is roughly $30,000 to $50,000 a year above the psychiatric nurse average, so the graduate route is the clearest path to a higher pay band while staying in mental health. Our guide to nurse practitioner salary breaks down how NP pay grows with experience. If you want to compare schools first, Dreambound lists graduate nursing programs near you so you can line up programs by location and format before you apply.
Highest-Paying States for Psychiatric Nurses
New York pays psychiatric nurses the most, with postings averaging $61.22 an hour, or about $127,300 a year, across 951 reported salaries on Indeed (updated Oct. 11, 2026). Maine is close behind at $60.27, and Hawaii, Oregon, and New Hampshire round out the top five. The ranking below includes only states with at least 20 reported salaries.
The Northeast leads the list. New York, Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont all appear in the top 10, and New York's 951 reported salaries make its average the most dependable of the group, with California (509) and New Hampshire (225) next. Nebraska is the surprise entry at $54.75 on 102 salaries. Hawaii's $58.26 rests on 26 reported salaries and Nevada's $54.72 on 33, so expect those two figures to shift as postings refresh.
Three states just outside the top 10 deserve a look. Massachusetts averages $52.91 an hour on 759 reported salaries, the second-largest sample in the country, while Oklahoma ($51.29 on 297) and West Virginia ($50.46 on 21) sit well above the national figure in states where living costs run low. That combination matters once cost of living enters the picture, as the next sections show.
Lowest-Paying States for Psychiatric Nurses
Connecticut has the lowest average for psychiatric nurse postings at $34.33 an hour, or about $71,400 a year, based on 427 reported salaries on Indeed (updated Oct. 9, 2026). Arkansas, Ohio, Idaho, and Utah follow. Again, only states with 20 or more reported salaries are ranked here.
Connecticut's position stands out. Its average comes from a large sample, so it is not a small-number quirk, yet it sits far below neighboring New York ($61.22) and Massachusetts ($52.91). Posting averages reflect the mix of employers and roles that happen to be hiring, so check the pay range on individual Connecticut postings before you rule the state out. Ohio's $37.28 also rests on a large sample of 469 salaries, which makes it one of the most reliable figures on the list.
The gap between the top and bottom of these rankings is wide. A psychiatric nurse in New York earns about $56,000 a year more than one in Connecticut at the average posted rate, and about $50,000 more than one in Ohio. Overtime, differentials, and travel contracts can narrow that gap for individual nurses, but they do not close it.
How Cost of Living Changes Psychiatric Nurse Pay by State
Adjusted for prices, Maine offers psychiatric nurses the strongest buying power in the country, with Iowa, Nebraska, Oklahoma, and New York close behind.
To compare buying power, each state's annual equivalent was divided by its 2024 Regional Price Parity, the latest state price index from the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA). An index of 110 means prices run 10% above the national level, so New York's $127,300 (index 107.9) buys roughly what $118,000 would at average U.S. prices, while Iowa's $111,200 (index 87.8) stretches to about $126,700.
The adjustment rewards the low-cost states. Iowa climbs from 10th to second, Nebraska from seventh to third, Oklahoma from 12th to fourth, and West Virginia from 13th to sixth, all because their prices sit well below the national average. Louisiana and South Dakota each jump 12 places, to 19th and 22nd, for the same reason.
The expensive states slide. California falls from ninth to 20th once its 110.7 price index is applied, Washington drops from 14th to 29th, and New Jersey falls 16 places to 41st. Hawaii slips from third to 11th and out of the top 10, and New York gives up the top spot to Maine, landing fifth. Connecticut remains last on both measures. If you are weighing offers in two states, run this math on the actual offer rather than the state average, since a $5 difference in hourly pay can disappear once rent is counted.
Top-Paying Metro Areas for Psychiatric Nurses
New York City is the top-paying metro area for psychiatric nurses, with postings averaging $66.77 an hour across 66 reported salaries on Indeed (updated Aug. 25, 2026). Sacramento, Albany, Boston, and Rochester follow. The table ranks the 10 highest averages among the 37 metros checked that had at least 10 reported salaries and a figure Indeed does not label as an estimate, with the count shown so you can weigh each figure.
Sample size matters here. New York, Rochester, Boston, and Chicago rest on 40 or more reported salaries, while Sacramento and Portland rest on 10 each, so a handful of new postings could move those two by several dollars an hour. Chicago rounds out the list just below the national average, on the largest sample of any metro. San Francisco ($68.65 on eight postings), Oakland ($68.23 on six), and Hartford ($62.54 on four) also show high averages, but on too few salaries to rank.
The big metros that fall below the national average are worth knowing too. Providence averages $45.46 on 44 reported salaries, Philadelphia $44.19 on 20, Phoenix $43.58 on 80, Columbus $38.98 on 48, and Denver $36.84 on 25. A large city does not guarantee a high rate for psychiatric nurses, since the mix of employers hiring in each market shapes the average more than city size does.
Psychiatric Nurse Salary in San Francisco and California
California psychiatric nurse postings average $54.28 an hour, or about $112,900 a year, across 509 reported salaries on Indeed (updated Aug. 10, 2026). That is ninth among the states, and after the state's 110.7 price index is applied it drops to 20th, so the headline number overstates what the pay buys.
San Francisco figures vary widely from one site to the next, and the spread is easy to misread. Indeed's San Francisco page shows an estimated $68.65 an hour, but it is based on only eight postings. Glassdoor reports a median total pay of $130,000 from 50 self-reported salaries, Salary.com estimates $110,800, and ZipRecruiter lists $125,949 for psychiatric registered nurses in the city as of Oct. 19, 2026. Each is measuring something different: a handful of postings, total pay including bonuses, a modeled estimate, or a national average scaled to the city.
Treat the $110,000 to $130,000 range as a reasonable band for staff roles and compare any offer against the hourly rate and shift differentials on the actual posting.
