ABSTRACT Objective: to analyze the daily work of rural Family Health Strategy (FHS) nurses. Method: a qualitative, descriptive and exploratory research. The data were collected with eleven rural nurses of the city of Campina Grande, Paraíba State, through semi-structured interviews, between January and March of 2017, using Content Analysis. Results: rural nurses have a strong relationship with the population. However, they reveal a daily work with various organizational barriers that range from the team displacement to the workplace to the operationalization of health actions, which are mediated by the characteristics of rurality. Some of these barriers can be remedied by a more proactive action from the management. Final considerations: conditioned by the characteristics of rurality, the differentiated dynamics work reveal weaknesses in the quality of nursing care and lower effectiveness of the FHS.