Rationale, Aims and Objectives: Early exercise has been extensively reported as safe and beneficial for critically ill patients. However, it is not widely implemented as frequently as expected in intensive care units (ICUs). Little is known regarding nurses’ current practice status and their intention toward early exercise. This paper aimed to investigate intensive care unit (ICU) nurses’ current practice, limitations and intention to implement early exercise for ICU patients. Methods: A cross-sectional, multicenter survey with the e-questionnaire was conducted in the ICUs of four tertiary hospitals in Beijing, China. Results: A majority of the participants had experience with early exercise for critically ill patients during the last 3 months. Among 156 nurses who had early exercise experience, 49.3% performed early exercise less than once per week, only 29.5% of them spent >20 min on early exercise per patient, the main form of early exercise was in-bed exercise, with 55.8% performing out-of-bed exercise. Only 24.2% of participants reported having an early exercise guideline to follow in their work. The forms and frequencies of early exercise in different ICUs varied greatly, the emergency ICU was the least ideal, while the respiratory and surgical ICUs were better. Most participants showed positive intention to implement early exercise, and their intentions were significantly correlated with their education level (bachelor degree or above), support from their department, fewer perceived barriers, and working department. Conclusion: Although two-thirds of participants had experience with early exercise for critically ill patients, the implementation details of the early exercise were not ideal, including inadequate frequency and time etc. ICU managers should work to develop guidelines or regulations for early exercise, conduct training programs, overcome the limitations and provide adequate support for nurses to improve early exercise practices.