Nurse Practitioner: how many are there, and how many are in private practice?

National totals

What this specialty covers

(1) A registered nurse provider with a graduate degree in nursing prepared for advanced practice involving independent and interdependent decision making and direct accountability for clinical judgment across the health care continuum or in a certified specialty. (2) A registered nurse who has completed additional training beyond basic nursing education and who provides primary health care services in accordance with state nurse practice laws or statutes. Tasks performed by nurse practitioners vary with practice requirements mandated by geographic, political, economic, and social factors. Nurse practitioner specialists include, but are not limited to, family nurse practitioners, gerontological nurse practitioners, pediatric nurse practitioners, obstetric-gynecologic nurse practitioners, and school nurse practitioners.

Reading the sole-proprietor share

For Nurse Practitioners, the sole-proprietor share indicates how many records have the NPPES sole-proprietor flag, not how many clinicians operate independent practices. Because the field is self-reported and an NPI may represent a person or organization, this share is an imperfect proxy for private practice and should not be read as a measure of employment status, clinical independence, or ownership.

By state

New NPI registrations by year

Counts reflect the year each NPI was first issued, among records still active today. The final year is partial: this data covers through 2026-01-11.

Data notes

• The sole-proprietor field is self-reported by the provider in NPPES and is an imperfect proxy for private practice.
• A sole-proprietor count shown as <11 is suppressed: the true value is below 11, which could include zero.
• These counts include records with Nurse Practitioner as the primary taxonomy and may not represent unique clinicians.
• An NPI record does not by itself confirm current clinical activity, employment status, or practice ownership.
• NPI enumeration year reflects record creation and not necessarily the start or continuation of clinical practice.
• Providers are counted once, by their primary taxonomy code only.

Source: CMS National Plan and Provider Enumeration System (NPPES) Data Dissemination file, FOIA-disclosable public data under CMS-6060-N. Aggregated by Hero EMR on 2026-08-03; deactivated NPIs excluded; specialty assigned from the primary taxonomy code (NUCC 25.1). Counts below 11 are suppressed. Individual providers are never published. All provider data pages.

Common questions