Aim: This study was conducted to determine the innovation characteristics of nursing students and the affecting factors. Methods: The study was conducted using a Data Collection Form and Individual Innovativeness Scale with nursing students at a university faculty of health sciences. The Cronbach alpha of the scale was found to be 0.76. The value p<0.05 was accepted as statistically significant. Results: The mean age of the students was 20.48±1.80 years and 31.9% were first-year students. It was found that 65.4% of the students graduated from Anatolian high schools or similar schools, 70.1% of students came from a nuclear family, and 66.5% of families were middle income. Results showed that 42.6% of students were late majority, 34.3% were laggards, 19.8% were early majority, 2.5% were early adopters, and 0.8% were found to be innovators according to their innovation characteristics. It was concluded that as the students’ number of siblings, preference order for nursing as a field of study, and the birth order in their family increased, their level of innovation decreased. Conclusion: It was found that most of the nursing students were late majority and laggards, and only a few of them were innovators.