Background: Diabetes mellitus is one of chronic diseases which have many complications. Self-management is the most important thing for managing diabetes mellitus. Nurses need to be empowered to facilitate better diabetes self-manegement people with diabetes mellitus. Objective: This study was to determine the empowerment needs of primary health care nurses to facilitate self-management among peoples with type 2 diabetes mellitus. Research Method: This was descriptive study with cross sectional approach. Fifty-one publich health nurses from 9 public health centres in Bantul Yogyakarta were selected as participants in this study by using cluster sampling technique. The data were collected by using valid and reliable questionnaire named the Nurses Empowerment Needs Questionnare developed by the researchers.The data were analyzed by using descriptive statistics. Results: The results of this study showed that out of 51 nurses only 13 nurses participated in DM educator counseling training. Most of the nurses had motivation, self-efficacy, and skills in moderate level (64.7%, 76,5%, and 86.3% respectively). The nurses’ role as educator, communication, job satisfaction, and knowledge were in sufficient level (64.7%, 86.3%, 76.5%, and 80.4% for each variable). Conclusion: Public health center nurses still need to be empowered in term of motivation, self-efficacy, role as educators, communication, skills, job satisfaction, and knowledge regarding self-management DM. These are important to improve nurse ability to facilitate self-management among people with diabetes mellitus. Public health center can provide specific training to empower the nurses. Further research is needed to examine the nurses empowerment needs in hospital and develop program to empower nurses.