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Nurses in New Zealand: data and downloads

Professionally active nurses was 73,577 in 2025, up 6.4% on a year earlier.

Updated

Source: OECD. Last retrieved 10 October 2026.

Nurses in New Zealand, number, 1990 to 2025

Professionally active nursesNurses licensed to practise
Nurses in New Zealand. Professionally active nurses, 1990 to 2025, latest 73,577. Nurses licensed to practise, 2005 to 2025, latest 85,462.020,00040,00060,00080,000100,0001990199620022008201420202025
Show the figures
PeriodProfessionally active nurses (number)Nurses licensed to practise (number)
202573,57785,462
202469,15378,703
202363,64569,621
202262,16265,419
202159,64862,342
202057,67759,866
201954,51257,833
201853,59556,355
201752,25555,289
201651,60753,922
201550,49552,729
201448,91651,385
201347,99350,060
201247,42849,347
201147,34548,527
201047,38448,563
200944,57851,762
200844,76248,683
200741,91344,801
200639,85444,520
Full data: nurses nz
2025Professionally active nurses 73,577Nurses licensed to practise 85,462
Nurses in New Zealand. Professionally active nurses: 73,577 in 2025. Nurses licensed to practise: 85,462 in 2025.

Lines break at accounting-basis changes and missing periods. Source: OECD.

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Nurses in New Zealand: data and downloads: definitions

The number of nurses in New Zealand and nurses per 1,000 people, as reported to the OECD: professionally active nurses (from 1990) and nurses licensed to practise (from 2005).

Nurses in New Zealand: data and downloads: comparison limits

These affect how the figures can be compared.

  • Licensed to practise counts everyone holding a practising certificate (85,462 in 2025, matching the Nursing Council); professionally active is narrower. Never compare one measure with the other.
  • These are workforce counts, not hires or Health NZ employees; year-on-year change is net of people leaving.

Nurses in New Zealand: data and downloads: data by period

The latest ten periods for up to the first six series. Downloads contain every published observation.

PeriodProfessionally active nursesNurses licensed to practiseProfessionally active nurses per 1,000 peopleLicensed nurses per 1,000 people
202573,57785,46213.83 per 1,000 people16.06 per 1,000 people
202469,15378,70313.07 per 1,000 people14.88 per 1,000 people
202363,64569,62112.24 per 1,000 people13.39 per 1,000 people
202262,16265,41912.23 per 1,000 people12.87 per 1,000 people
202159,64862,34211.73 per 1,000 people12.26 per 1,000 people
202057,67759,86611.37 per 1,000 people11.8 per 1,000 people
201954,51257,83310.97 per 1,000 people11.64 per 1,000 people
201853,59556,35510.94 per 1,000 people11.5 per 1,000 people
201752,25555,28910.86 per 1,000 people11.49 per 1,000 people
201651,60753,92210.95 per 1,000 people11.44 per 1,000 people

Nurses in New Zealand: data and downloads: questions for your AI

Download the file, attach it in the assistant you use, then paste the prompt. Whatever it tells you is its reading of the data, not ours.

  1. 1Download nurses-nz.csv
  2. 2Attach it in ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini or another assistant
  3. 3
    Paste this prompt

    The attached CSV is Nurses in New Zealand (nurses-nz), from OECD, Health workforce: nurses. Describe how each measure has changed, naming its unit and period. Treat changes in basis and missing periods as breaks. Distinguish observation from explanation. Limitations: Licensed to practise counts everyone holding a practising certificate (85,462 in 2025, matching the Nursing Council); professionally active is narrower. Never compare one measure with the other. These are workforce counts, not hires or Health NZ employees; year-on-year change is net of people leaving.. Do not infer causation from changes during government terms.

Data related to nurses in new zealand: data and downloads

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Nurses in New Zealand: data and downloads: sources

The source publication, licence and snapshot used to build this page.

Organisation
OECD, Health workforce: nurses
Licence
OECD Terms and Conditions (Data), reuse including commercial with citation. OECD (2026), Health workforce: nurses, OECD Data Explorer, https://data-explorer.oecd.org/ (accessed on 10 October 2026). Figures selected and transformed by NZ in Numbers. Anyone reusing these figures must keep this OECD citation.
Reuse limits
Some OECD datasets include third-party material with its own terms; check the OECD terms page before monetising.
Snapshot
data/raw/oecd-nurses/2026-10-10_bc9f7ed033da.csv
SHA256
bc9f7ed033dad8f001ceedccb68c817e0038c478cd93cb73cccfb3d5f81a17e4
Retrieved
10 October 2026