ABSTRACT Objective: to analyze the empathy of nursing professionals who work in an urgency and emergency hospital service. Method: a cross-sectional study with 230 nursing professionals working in a public hospital in Maceió (Alagoas/Brazil). Data collected by sociodemographic questionnaire and Empathy Inventory between 2014 and 2015. Descriptive statistics of the data, analysis of variance and Cronbach's alpha of significance 0.05. Results: out of the 230 professionals, 59 were nurses and 171 mid-level nursing professionals, with a mean age of 42.3 years old, 205 were women, 120 were married, 175 had children and 108 had a college education. Participants had higher levels of affective sensitivity (82.9%) and perspective (73.0%), followed by altruism (64.7%) and interpersonal flexibility (59.7%). In general, there was a statistically significant difference between the nursing professionals in relation to empathy, and the nurse was more empathic (p value=0.039) than the other professionals. Conclusion: among the four factors that make up the empathy ability, the greater ability to take perspective, to raise awareness of other people's situations, to accept ideas that are foreign to theirs, and to sacrifice themselves for the benefit of others, have stood out among the nursing professionals in the emergency service. In nursing, empathy is generally associated with the professional category.