Healthcare Turnover Rate: 18.5% in Hospitals

The latest national hospital benchmark is 18.5% turnover. Staff RN turnover is 17.6%. Both figures come from the 2026 NSI National Health Care Retention & RN Staffing Report, which covers calendar-year 2025 data from 527 US acute care hospitals.

This reference page gives you the current hospital and nurse turnover rates, five-year trends, role and tenure breakdowns, vacancy and replacement-cost benchmarks, source notes, and the calculation method behind the numbers.

12 healthcare turnover statistics to cite

1. Hospital turnover averaged 18.5%. The reported range was 7.6% to 33.1%.
2. Staff RN turnover averaged 17.6%. The reported range was 5.6% to 40.0%.
3. Full-time and part-time-only hospital turnover was 15.8%. This is lower than the all-employment-classifications benchmark.
4. Full-time and part-time-only RN turnover was 14.6%. Inclusion rules materially change the result.
5. First-year employee turnover reached 29.5%. Nearly three in ten new hospital hires left within one year.
6. First-year RN turnover was 22.7%. NSI says this includes experienced and newly graduated nurses.
7. Patient care technician turnover was 33.8%. It was the highest role rate shown in NSI's job comparison.
8. Certified nursing assistant turnover was 32.5%. CNAs and PCTs were the two highest-turnover roles.
9. Staff RN turnover cost averaged $60,090 per departure. That is the participating hospitals' estimate, not a universal accounting rule.
10. Average annual hospital RN turnover cost was $5.19 million. NSI estimated about $294,976 gained or lost for every one-point change in RN turnover.
11. The average RN vacancy rate was 8.6%. One-third of hospitals reported vacancy rates of at least 10%.
12. Average RN time-to-fill was 78 days. That is more than two and a half months for an experienced RN.

All 12 figures are from the 2026 NSI report. The survey was published in March 2026 and reports January through December 2025 data.

The hospital and RN turnover trend

Hospital turnover fell sharply from 25.9% in 2021 to 18.3% in 2024, then edged up to 18.5% in 2025. Staff RN turnover followed the same pattern, dropping from 27.1% to 16.4% before rising to 17.6%.

The direction matters, but so does the denominator. NSI reports separate all-classification and full-time/part-time-only rates because hospitals do not all count per-diem, PRN, casual, and occasional workers the same way.

Turnover by hospital role

The 2026 report shows a clear frontline gap. Patient care technicians and certified nursing assistants turned over at roughly one-third per year, almost twice the hospital average.

These are acute-care hospital role benchmarks. They should not be reused as rates for home health, nursing homes, outpatient clinics, or the entire healthcare economy.

First-year turnover is the sharpest warning

NSI found that 29.5% of new hospital employees left within one year. That group accounted for 35.6% of all turnover. When employees with less than two years of tenure were combined, they represented 56.8% of departures.

For RNs, 22.7% of newly hired nurses left within a year, and first-year exits represented 29.0% of RN separations. This is an employer-tenure measure, not a new-graduate-only turnover rate.

That distinction matters operationally. A hospital can improve its overall rate while still losing too many new hires before onboarding, team fit, and schedule routines settle.

The cost and vacancy benchmarks

These figures belong together. Vacancies create pressure to use overtime, critical-staffing pay, travel nurses, and internal pools. Turnover then adds replacement cost and keeps positions open longer.

Why nurses left

The five most frequently selected reasons for voluntary RN resignation were:

1. personal issues
2. relocation
3. retirement
4. career advancement
5. scheduling conflict

Education, salary, commute, working conditions, and workload or staffing ratios completed the top ten. The report does not assign a percentage to each reason, so it would be wrong to turn this ordered list into a causal share.

Scheduling is not the whole retention problem. It is one part managers can improve without pretending to solve pay, retirement, career progression, or staffing supply. More predictable rotas, visible availability, manager-approved swaps, open-shift coverage, and accurate overtime records remove avoidable friction.

For the practical side, use the healthcare shift scheduling guide and the broader shift-work health and safety statistics.

Source table

Methodology and limitations

NSI invited acute care hospitals to report January through December 2025 data. The final survey covered 527 hospitals in 40 states, 965,886 healthcare workers, and 262,405 RNs. Temporary, agency, and travel staff were excluded, as were internal transfers.

NSI defines turnover as:

Turnover rate = separations ÷ average number of employees × 100

Four limitations matter:

• This is a hospital survey. It does not represent every clinic, care home, home-health agency, or healthcare employer.
• Employment classifications vary. Some hospitals include per-diem, PRN, casual, and occasional workers; others count only full-time and part-time staff.
• Cost is self-reported. The $60,090 RN replacement figure is an average of ranges selected by participating hospitals, not an audited universal cost.
• The publication year and data year differ. The 2026 report describes calendar-year 2025 results.

For a cross-industry comparison using one public definition, use the BLS-based turnover rates by industry. For the financial model behind replacement costs, use the employee turnover cost guide.