New grad RN jobs and nurse residency programs in Georgia

A quarter of Georgia RNs earn less than $38.02 an hour ($79,090 a year) and half earn more than $44.98. First-year offers tend to sit near the lower figure, since hospital pay scales usually rise with experience.

That puts Georgia 27th of the 50 states and DC for median RN pay.

$6.96 an hour separates the 25th percentile from the median here, close to the typical gap across the states.

Atlanta-Sandy Springs-Roswell employs 56,460 RNs, 56% of the state's total, so most RN jobs in Georgia are there.

When people search for new grad RN jobs in Georgia, the places they name most often are Atlanta, Savannah and Augusta.

The Georgia Board of Nursing licenses RNs in Georgia.

Georgia is in the Nurse Licensure Compact. If Georgia is your primary state of residence, the license you earn after the NCLEX can be multistate, valid in every compact state. Nurses who live in another compact state can work in Georgia on their home state's multistate license.

Every one of its neighboring states is in the compact too, so one license covers the whole region.

No. Georgia's exam rules offer a temporary permit only to graduates of nontraditional programs completing a board-approved preceptorship. Graduates of traditional programs wait for their license.

Source: Georgia Board of Nursing rules, Chapter 410-2, read October 2026.

Of its neighboring states, Alabama, Florida and South Carolina do let new graduates work on a permit before passing. See every state's rule.

4,704 of the 5,468 first-time, U.S.-educated candidates who took the NCLEX-RN for Georgia in 2025 passed: 86.0%, 0.7 points below the national rate of 86.7%.

With 59 new-grad programs on our list, that is about 93 new test takers for each one, near the national figure of about 114.

The exam is the same everywhere; the rate tells you about the graduates who tested here, not about your own chances. See pass rates in every state.

Georgia pays RNs more than any of its neighboring states. Florida has the most new-grad programs on our list (143).