A nurses email list starts with a license: registered nurse, licensed practical nurse or nurse practitioner, which are three separate files. Registered nurses held about 3.5 million jobs in 2025, 59% of them in hospitals (BLS). Most nurses are reached through the place that employs them, so the employer comes before the name.
Registered nurses: licenses, jobs and identifiers
| Count | What is counted | Source | Date |
|---|---|---|---|
| 247,386 | individual providers whose primary taxonomy is registered nurse (NUCC codes starting with 163W), active NPIs. This undercounts the profession: many registered nurses never obtain an NPI | NPPES downloadable file, CMS | September 2026 file |
| 6,071,742 | active registered nurse licenses reported by state boards; a nurse licensed in several states is counted in each | NCSBN licensure statistics | updated 3 October 2026 |
| 3,465,400 | jobs held by registered nurses | BLS Occupational Outlook Handbook | 2025 |
| 981,607 | active practical nurse licenses (LPN and LVN), a different license, not included in the RN rows | NCSBN licensure statistics | updated 3 October 2026 |
| 666,900 | jobs held by licensed practical and licensed vocational nurses, not included in the RN rows | BLS Occupational Outlook Handbook | 2025 |
NPPES downloadable file, September 2026, CMS; active NPIs only, primary taxonomy only; counted by Premium Data on 3 October 2026.
The NPPES row undercounts for a reason. CMS requires an NPI only from providers who send standard electronic health transactions. A staff nurse whose work is billed by the hospital has no reason to apply, so the NPPES count shows the nurses who bill or who chose to register, not the profession. The NCSBN row counts licenses: a nurse licensed in three states is three entries, and a nurse who keeps a license after leaving the bedside is still one. BLS counts jobs. The 2.6 million gap between licenses and jobs is made of those duplicates, of license holders who no longer work as nurses, of nurse practitioners, who keep their RN license but are counted in a different occupation, and of two different dates.
Registered, practical, advanced: which nurse you are buying
The three licenses do not do the same work, do not sit in the same places, and do not buy the same things.
| License | NUCC code | Where the jobs are (BLS, 2025) |
|---|---|---|
| Registered nurse (RN) | 163W, 56 codes in all, one per specialization plus the general code | hospitals 59%, ambulatory healthcare services 19%, nursing and residential care facilities 6%, government 5%, educational services 3% |
| Licensed practical or vocational nurse (LPN, LVN) | 164W and 164X | nursing and residential care facilities 37%, hospitals 16%, home healthcare services 12%, offices of physicians 11% |
| Nurse practitioner (NP) | 363L | a registered nurse with graduate preparation for advanced practice, listed separately in our role index |
- In this file by default: registered nurses, from staff nurse and charge nurse to nurse manager, director of nursing and chief nursing officer. A chief nursing officer is an RN by license and an executive by job.
- Out: nursing assistants (the NUCC code 376K00000X, nurse's aide), nursing students, nurse anesthetists and nurse midwives.
- Edge cases: travel nurses, employed by an agency but working at a hospital; school nurses, employed by a district; home health nurses, who have no fixed site; nurse educators in schools of nursing.
Where nurse data actually lives
| Source | What it gives | What it does not give |
|---|---|---|
| State boards of nursing, aggregated by NCSBN from 58 boards | license type, status, state of issue | the employer, and any way to reach the nurse |
| Nurse Licensure Compact | 43 participating jurisdictions; one multistate RN or LPN/VN license, issued by the home state | where the nurse actually works this year |
| NPPES (CMS) | the nurses who hold an NPI, with an address | the many nurses who never applied |
| BLS | how jobs split between hospitals, clinics, care facilities, schools | a single name |
| The employer: hospital, clinic, nursing home, agency, school district | the department, the unit, the nurse leaders by title | a direct line for a staff nurse, most of the time |
Five steps from license to a nurse you can reach
- Name the license first: RN, LPN/LVN or NP, never two in one file unless you ask for both.
- Name the setting: hospital, clinic, care facility, school, home health.
- Build the employer list for that setting, then the nursing roles inside each employer.
- Confirm each nurse with the employer, by department and title.
- Add a number that reaches them, and a work email where one exists.
What these steps share with every other target is in the full method.
The work behind a nurse list, in actions
- 59% of 3,465,400 RN jobs are in hospitals: about 2,044,600 jobs reached through a hospital, one department at a time.
- 19% are in ambulatory healthcare services: about 658,400 RN jobs in clinics, offices and outpatient centers, each behind a front desk.
- 6% are in nursing and residential care facilities: about 207,900 RN jobs, in the setting where LPNs are most present (37% of 666,900 LPN jobs, about 246,800).
- 6,071,742 licenses against 3,465,400 jobs: a list built from licenses carries about 2.6 million records with no RN job behind them, and every one has to be discarded or explained.
What goes wrong with nurse lists
Three licenses in one file
A file sold as nurses often mixes RNs, LPNs and NPs. They hold different licenses, do different work and sit in different places: LPN jobs are concentrated in care facilities, RN jobs in hospitals, and NPs see their own patients. Mixing them inflates the count and sends your message to people who cannot use it. One license per file, or one column that says which license each line holds.
The license state is not the work state
43 jurisdictions take part in the Nurse Licensure Compact. A nurse who lives in one of them can hold a single multistate license and practice in the others. A state board record tells you where the license was issued, not where the nurse clocks in. Travel nurses make this gap wider. The compact covers RN and LPN/VN licenses only, not advanced practice.
The nurse is reached through a unit
Staff nurses rarely have a phone line of their own at work. The number that reaches them is the unit's, answered by whoever is on shift. Nurse managers, directors and chief nursing officers usually have a line and an inbox of their own. If you sell to nursing as a department, buy the leaders. If you need every nurse, expect to go through the employer.
What Premium Data provides for a nursing target
- A company line for the employer (name, address, main phone, website) or a person line for the nurse (name, title, employer, a phone that reaches them, work email when one exists).
- Built on the day the order is placed, on the license, setting and area you described.
- Three checks: the employer, the nurse, and whether the nurse is still on staff.
- A nurse line is invoiced only if it arrives with a phone number, and the total never passes your ceiling.
- A wrong line is refunded at the price paid, on proof (call recording, hard bounce, public profile), within thirty days of delivery.
- Counting is free: a 30 minute call, in which you call one line of the file with us before any payment.
Before your first call to a hospital or a clinic, read the federal outreach rules on our United States page.
In short: nurses in three sentences
- On 3 October 2026, the NCSBN national nursing database counted 6,071,742 active registered nurse licenses, a count of licenses rather than of nurses (NCSBN licensure statistics, updated 3 October 2026).
- Registered nurses held about 3.5 million jobs in the United States in 2025, 59% of them in hospitals (BLS Occupational Outlook Handbook, read on 3 October 2026).
- On 3 October 2026, 43 jurisdictions took part in the Nurse Licensure Compact, which covers RN and LPN/VN licenses but not advanced practice licenses (NCSBN).