CRNA Pay Report, Q3 2026: What Job Postings Show
By Andrew Woodmancey, Managing Director · Published
The short answer: in staff (W-2 or unspecified) CRNA job postings that stated pay over the six months to September 2026, the median offer was $280,000 a year, up from $270,000 in the six months before, about 4%. The middle half of offers ran from $250,000 to $315,000.
- Pay is still rising, slowly. The national median is up about 4% on the prior six months; anesthesiologist pay has not moved.
- Where you hire matters more than when. State medians differ by up to 71%, and regions run from $255,000 (South Atlantic) to $330,000 (Pacific). Test a renewal ask against your own market, not the nation.
- What the rise costs. The $10,000 increase adds about $15,000 a year to every CRNA-staffed location, about $150,000 for a 10-location program.
Every state’s CRNA median is in the tables below, with its region’s figure where a state has too few postings.
This is AOC’s quarterly CRNA pay report for Q3 2026. The anesthesiologist figures for the same period are in the anesthesiologist pay report for Q3 2026: a median of $550,000, unchanged on the prior six months.
For a hospital paying for anesthesia coverage, the CRNA figure is the one to watch: it is moving faster than physician pay, it varies far more from state to state, and among CRNA openings that say how they pay, most are hourly or locums work rather than salaried jobs. Each of those shows up in what coverage costs, and so in the subsidy.
What it means for your budget
A location has to be covered every day it runs. With about 1.25 full-time clinicians per location to cover 250 days a year with breaks and relief, and 20% for benefits, every dollar of pay costs about $1.50 a year per location.
At the national median, CRNA pay for one location comes to about $420,000 a year. The rise on the prior six months added about $15,000 per location, or $150,000 for a 10-location program. In a care team the anesthesiologists directing those rooms come on top: what each care team ratio costs.
- Test a CRNA-driven renewal ask against your state, not the nation. The national median is up about 4% on the prior six months, but state medians differ by up to 71%. The right comparison is the market your group actually recruits in.
- Check the raise your group assumes. Put it into the state finder above: it compares the raise with what posted pay did in your region and prices the difference per location.
- Price the locums dependence. If open shifts are being filled hourly or through locums, that rate, not the salaried median, is what the schedule really costs. It is often the larger lever in a subsidy than base pay (what locums anesthesia costs).
To see what these pay levels mean for the cost of your own coverage, a benchmark review starts from these medians and your own schedule and payer mix. Our explainer on anesthesia subsidies covers how pay feeds the support a hospital pays its group, and the 2027 Medicare conversion factor covers the revenue side of the same gap.
Pay by region
The national median hides how much pay differs by region. Grouped into the nine Census divisions, CRNAs are offered from $255,000 at the median in the South Atlantic division to $330,000 in the Pacific division. The biggest moves on the prior six months: the West South Central division up about 7% ($270,000 to $290,000) and the Mountain division up about 6% ($270,000 to $285,000). A division pools every posting in its states, so it also gives a figure for states with too few postings of their own.
| Region | States | Median | Postings stating pay | vs prior six months |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Pacific | AK, CA, HI, OR, WA | $330,000 | 82 | −2% |
| Middle Atlantic | NJ, NY, PA | $305,000 | 239 | +5% |
| West South Central | AR, LA, OK, TX | $290,000 | 235 | +7% |
| New England | CT, ME, MA, NH, RI, VT | $290,000 | 59 | −2% |
| Mountain | AZ, CO, ID, MT, NV, NM, UT, WY | $285,000 | 87 | +6% |
| East North Central | IL, IN, MI, OH, WI | $280,000 | 293 | +2% |
| West North Central | IA, KS, MN, MO, NE, ND, SD | $275,000 | 112 | +2% |
| East South Central | AL, KY, MS, TN | $260,000 | 115 | +4% |
| South Atlantic | DE, DC, FL, GA, MD, NC, SC, VA, WV | $255,000 | 346 | no change |
How hard it is to hire
Pay is half of what coverage costs; the other half is whether the schedule can be filled with staff. Over the six months to September 2026, 8,816 CRNA openings were posted, about 11 for every 100 CRNAs, and 59% of them were locums or contract work. The tightest markets: the Mountain division (14.9 openings per 100, 67% locums or contract) and the South Atlantic division (13.1 openings per 100, 58% locums or contract). Where both figures are high, expect a group to lean on locums and to price open shifts at locums rates, which is often the bigger lever in a subsidy than salaried pay.
Pay by state
State medians cover the six months to September 2026 and include every state where at least 5 postings stated pay: 44 states. Figures with fewer than about 30 postings behind them are directional. The change column compares each state with the prior six months where both periods have at least 10 postings stating pay.
All 44 states: median, postings and change
| State | Median | Postings stating pay | vs prior six months |
|---|---|---|---|
| New Mexico | $385,000 | 10 | – |
| Pennsylvania | $375,000 | 95 | +29% |
| California | $370,000 | 42 | −13% |
| Louisiana | $350,000 | 18 | – |
| Alaska | $345,000 | 5 | – |
| Oklahoma | $330,000 | 8 | – |
| Nebraska | $315,000 | 5 | – |
| Maine | $310,000 | 18 | −48% |
| Oregon | $310,000 | 15 | −6% |
| New Hampshire | $310,000 | 14 | – |
| New York | $300,000 | 104 | no change |
| Maryland | $300,000 | 47 | +5% |
| Montana | $295,000 | 8 | – |
| Arkansas | $295,000 | 8 | – |
| New Jersey | $290,000 | 38 | no change |
| Kansas | $290,000 | 23 | – |
| Iowa | $290,000 | 20 | – |
| Rhode Island | $290,000 | 5 | – |
| Texas | $285,000 | 205 | +6% |
| Illinois | $285,000 | 123 | +2% |
| Washington | $285,000 | 23 | −8% |
| Massachusetts | $285,000 | 18 | −2% |
| Arizona | $285,000 | 17 | −25% |
| Indiana | $280,000 | 27 | +4% |
| Wisconsin | $280,000 | 12 | – |
| West Virginia | $280,000 | 8 | – |
| Minnesota | $275,000 | 21 | – |
| Colorado | $270,000 | 34 | no change |
| Nevada | $270,000 | 7 | – |
| Delaware | $270,000 | 5 | – |
| South Dakota | $265,000 | 5 | – |
| Virginia | $260,000 | 72 | no change |
| Florida | $260,000 | 69 | no change |
| Michigan | $260,000 | 67 | −4% |
| Tennessee | $260,000 | 59 | +2% |
| Kentucky | $260,000 | 28 | +4% |
| Utah | $260,000 | 7 | – |
| Georgia | $250,000 | 89 | +6% |
| Ohio | $250,000 | 65 | no change |
| Missouri | $250,000 | 36 | no change |
| North Carolina | $245,000 | 44 | – |
| Mississippi | $240,000 | 9 | – |
| Alabama | $230,000 | 19 | – |
| South Carolina | $225,000 | 13 | – |
CRNA medians run from $225,000 to $385,000, a 71% spread: a CRNA in New Mexico is advertised at 1.7 times the pay of one in South Carolina. For anesthesiologists the spread is 40%. New Mexico shows how local these markets are: it is among the lowest-paying states for anesthesiologists and among the highest for CRNAs.
The trend over the past year
Each month’s figure is the median of the six months ending that month, so it moves only when pay across half a year moves.
CRNAs: $260,000 in October 2025, $265,000 in November, $270,000 from December through August 2026 and $280,000 in September.
One caution on the rise. Over the same months the share of CRNA postings that state pay fell from roughly 51–57% to 46%, so part of the increase may reflect which employers chose to publish pay rather than a market-wide raise. We read it as a real increase whose exact size is uncertain.
How the openings are paid
This table counts every CRNA posting in the index (47,140) by how it says the job is paid, so it measures something different from the annual-pay figures above. More than half do not say. Among those that do, salaried employment is the smallest of the three main models: daily locums, hourly and salaried.
| Pay model | Share of CRNA postings |
|---|---|
| Daily locums | 17.7% |
| Hourly | 18.2% |
| Salaried | 6.2% |
| Productivity | under 0.5% |
| Fee per case or partnership | under 0.1% |
| Not stated | 57.6% |
For CRNAs, hourly and locums postings together outnumber salaried ones about six to one. A coverage model that leans on that market pays its going rate, which is set by the openings that are hardest to fill.
How these figures compare
Other benchmarks measure different things, so they sit at different levels. AMN Healthcare’s 2026 review of physician and advanced practitioner recruiting incentives puts the average starting salary it saw for CRNAs at $286,250, close to our $280,000 median of posted offers. The Bureau of Labor Statistics’ May 2025 wage survey puts the median at $236,590: that is what employed CRNAs were paid a year earlier, across every tenure and setting, so it runs below what new postings offer. For pricing a coverage contract today, posted offers in your own market are the closer guide.
How the index is built
- Source: publicly posted anesthesia job listings from national job boards, about 3,700 CRNA jobs in the six months, of which 1,569 stated annual pay.
- Pay: annual pay as posted: the salary range a posting lists (its midpoint) or a stated annual salary. Hourly and daily rates are not converted, so they are not counted. Posted pay is what employers advertise, not what is finally agreed, and it leaves out signing bonuses, call pay and benefits.
- Window: figures pool the six months to September 2026, and changes compare them with the six months before (October 2025 to March 2026). Each job counts once.
- Staff positions only: postings marked locums, 1099 or partnership, or paying a daily locum rate, are left out; postings that do not say how the job is employed stay in.
- Outliers: pay more than two standard deviations from the average (nationally, or within a state or region) is dropped.
- Thin data: a national figure needs at least 100 postings stating pay in its window; a state is shown from 5 and a region from 20.
- Recruiters: about 68% of postings in the index come from recruiters, who often omit pay, which is why fewer than half of postings contribute to the pay figures.
- Cost per location: 1.25 full-time clinicians per location (250 days a year, 220 shifts each plus 10% for breaks, relief and call) and 20% for benefits, so about $1.50 a year per dollar of pay.
About this report
AOC publishes its anesthesiologist and CRNA pay reports each quarter. This one covers Q3 2026: the six months to September 2026, compared with the six months before. The next report covers the six months to December 2026.
