Scaling is an important operation because of the iterative nature of arithmetic processes in digital signal processors (DSPs). In residue number system (RNS)–based DSPs, scaling represents a performance bottleneck based on the complexity of inter‐modulo operations. To design an efficient RNS scaler for special moduli sets, a body of literature has been dedicated to the study of the well‐known moduli sets {2n − 1, 2n, 2n + 1} and {2n, 2n − 1, 2n+1 − 1}, and their extension in vertical or horizontal forms. In this study, we propose an efficient programmable RNS scaler for the arithmetic‐friendly moduli set {2n+p, 2n − 1, 2n+1 − 1}. The proposed algorithm yields high speed and energy‐efficient realization of an RNS programmable scaler based on the effective exploitation of the mixed‐radix representation, parallelism, and a hardware sharing technique. Experimental results obtained for a 130 nm CMOS ASIC technology demonstrate the superiority of the proposed programmable scaler compared to the only available and highly effective hybrid programmable scaler for an identical moduli set. The proposed scaler provides 43.28% less power consumption, 33.27% faster execution, and 28.55% more area saving on average compared to the hybrid programmable scaler.