Licensed Practical Nurse Salary in Texas: Pay by Experience, City & Take-Home

A Licensed Practical Nurse in Texas earns a median of $62,240 a year, or about $29.92 an hour, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (2025). Most LPNs in the state land between $48,910 at the 10th percentile and $76,140 at the 90th. Texas has no state income tax, so more of that pay reaches your bank account than it would in most states.

How Texas LPN pay compares to the national median

The national median for Licensed Practical Nurses is $64,400, per the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (2025). Texas comes in at $62,240, which is $2,160 below the national figure. On paper that looks like Texas pays a little under the U.S. average. The gross number tells only part of the story.

Texas charges no state income tax. In states that do, a chunk of that higher gross pay disappears before it reaches you. So while a Texas LPN starts $2,160 behind on the sticker price, the take-home math closes most of that gap and, against many high-tax states, flips it in your favor. We break the exact dollars down in the take-home section below.

The state employs 57,560 Licensed Practical Nurses, one of the largest LPN workforces in the country. That scale matters. It means steady demand across hospitals, nursing homes, clinics, and home health, and it means you have real bargaining power to move between employers and settings to push your pay up. The mean (average) wage in Texas is $62,770, just above the median, which tells you the pay distribution is fairly even rather than skewed by a small number of very high earners.

It also helps to read the full Texas range against the national picture, not just the midpoint. A Texas LPN at the 25th percentile earns $57,110, while one at the 75th earns $68,410. That $11,300 spread between the early-career and experienced tiers is where most of the pay movement happens, and it is wide enough that two LPNs with the same license in the same city can be thousands of dollars apart based on setting, certifications, and tenure. The national median of $64,400 sits between the Texas median ($62,240) and the Texas 75th percentile ($68,410), so an experienced Texas LPN clears the national median comfortably even before you account for the no-tax advantage.

Texas LPN salary by experience

Experience is the single biggest lever on LPN pay in Texas. A nurse just off the NCLEX-PN sits near the bottom of the range. A seasoned LPN with a specialty, a charge role, or years in a high-acuity setting sits near the top. Here is the full spread from the BLS percentile data.

The jump from entry to median is the steepest part of the climb. A new LPN at $48,910 who reaches the median is earning $13,330 more a year. That move usually happens within the first three to five years, as you clear your probationary period, pick up a specialty, and become someone the unit can rely on without supervision.

From the median to the 75th percentile is another $6,170. That step tends to reward LPNs who move into higher-paying settings (think correctional facilities, government clinics, or hospital floors over nursing homes) or who take on charge-nurse duties. The top tier at the 90th percentile, $76,140, is $13,900 above the median. Reaching it almost always means a combination of a high-paying setting, a specialty certification, and years on the job. The hourly figures above are derived from the annual percentiles at a standard 2,080-hour year, so treat them as close approximations rather than posted rates.

It is worth looking at the full distance an LPN can travel inside this one license. The gap from the 10th percentile ($48,910) to the 90th ($76,140) is $27,230. In hourly terms, that is the difference between roughly $23.51 and $36.61 an hour for the same credential. Very few of the people earning $48,910 and $76,140 are doing identical work in identical settings, and that is the point: the range is a map of the choices in front of you, not a fixed ceiling. The first half of the climb, from entry to the median, comes mostly from experience and reliability. The second half, from the median up to the top, comes from deliberate moves, a specialty, a better-paying employer, a supervisory title, or a relocation.

A useful way to think about it: each percentile step up is worth real monthly money once you account for the zero state tax. The $13,330 raise from entry to median lifts net monthly pay from $3,445 to $4,337. The further $13,900 from median to the 90th percentile lifts net monthly pay from $4,337 to $5,163. So the full journey across the LPN range in Texas is worth roughly $1,718 more in your pocket every month, after tax, at the top versus the bottom.

Texas LPN salary by metro area

Where you work inside Texas changes your pay more than most people expect. The big metros pay several thousand dollars above the rural and border regions. Here are the five largest Texas metros for LPN employment, with median pay and how many LPNs each one employs.

Austin tops the list at $64,580, with Dallas-Fort Worth close behind at $64,370. Both sit above the statewide median of $62,240 and even edge past the national median of $64,400 in Austin’s case. Dallas-Fort Worth also offers the deepest job market of any Texas metro, with 12,590 LPNs employed, so it pairs strong pay with the most openings.

Houston follows at $63,670 across 10,730 LPN jobs, and San Antonio sits right at the state median at $62,280. The McAllen-Edinburg-Mission area along the border is the outlier at $56,250, which is $5,990 below the state median and $8,330 below Austin. That spread is the clearest pay-versus-cost-of-living trade in the state: the border metros are cheaper to live in, but the paycheck reflects that. If you are mobile, the gap between McAllen and Austin is real money, $8,330 a year, before you even weigh housing.

One practical note. The big-three metros (Dallas-Fort Worth, Houston, San Antonio) hold roughly 29,290 of the state’s 57,560 LPN jobs between them. That concentration means more employers competing for nurses, which gives you room to negotiate and to switch jobs without relocating.

Look closer and the metros split into two tiers. Austin ($64,580), Dallas-Fort Worth ($64,370), and Houston ($63,670) form the high band, all above the $62,240 state median. San Antonio sits right at the median at $62,280, and McAllen trails the field at $56,250. The four high-and-mid metros plus McAllen together account for 34,770 of the state’s LPN jobs, which means the pay figures above are not thin samples. Dallas-Fort Worth alone, with 12,590 LPNs, employs more than one in five LPNs in the whole state, so its $64,370 median is a deep, reliable benchmark to negotiate against.

If you are choosing between metros, weigh the pay against the listings. Austin pays the most but has the fewest LPN jobs of the five at 3,620, so openings can be tighter. Dallas-Fort Worth pays nearly as much ($64,370) and has the deepest market by far. Houston offers the second-deepest market at 10,730 jobs and a $63,670 median. For most LPNs who want both strong pay and steady opportunity, the Dallas-Fort Worth and Houston metros are the practical sweet spot.

Texas LPN take-home pay after taxes

Gross salary is not what you live on. Here is what an LPN actually keeps at each stage of the career, after federal income tax and FICA (Social Security and Medicare). Texas charges no state income tax, so the state column is zero at every level, which is the whole reason Texas take-home runs ahead of most of the country.

The median Texas LPN keeps $52,048 of a $62,240 salary, an effective tax rate of 16.4 percent, which works out to $4,337 a month. An entry-level LPN keeps $41,338 (a 15.5 percent rate), while a senior LPN at the 90th percentile keeps $61,950 (18.6 percent). The rate climbs with pay because federal income tax is progressive, but FICA and the zero state tax keep the bite far smaller than it would be in a high-tax state.

Here is the comparison that matters most, and the one a quick search result will not give you. Take the same $62,240 LPN salary and drop it into California. After California’s state income tax, that nurse nets $50,052. In Texas, the same salary nets $52,048. That is a gap of $1,996 a year that a Texas LPN keeps simply by working in a no-income-tax state. Remember the gross gap from earlier? Texas’s median was $2,160 below the national figure. The no-tax advantage erases almost all of that gap against the country and beats high-tax states outright on what you take home.

The advantage scales with pay, too. At the senior 90th-percentile salary of $76,140, a Texas LPN nets $61,950 a year, an effective rate of just 18.6 percent. The same gross in a high-tax state would shed several more percentage points to state income tax alone. The higher you climb in the LPN range, the more the no-tax structure is worth in absolute dollars, because there is simply more income that the state never touches. An entry-level LPN keeping $41,338 saves less from the zero state tax than a senior LPN keeping $61,950, but both keep every dollar of state tax they would have owed elsewhere.

One caveat worth keeping in front of you. Net pay minus local housing is the number that actually decides your standard of living. A bigger net check in Austin can buy less than a smaller one in McAllen once rent is paid. Run your own numbers, including your zip code’s housing cost, before you compare two offers. The fastest way to see your real net for a specific salary and pay schedule is to run it through the Texas paycheck calculator. If you want to model deductions, a side gig, or a spouse’s income at filing time, tax software like TurboTax will walk through the full picture.

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How to earn more as an LPN in Texas

The percentile data points straight at where the extra money is. Moving from the median to the 90th percentile is $13,900 a year in Texas. Here is how LPNs actually get there.

• Move to a higher-paying metro. The gap between McAllen ($56,250) and Austin ($64,580) is $8,330 a year for the same license. If you are willing and able to relocate, that is the single largest one-step raise available.
• Switch settings. LPN pay varies sharply by employer type. Government clinics, correctional facilities, and hospitals tend to pay above nursing homes and physician offices. A lateral move into a higher-paying setting can lift you from the median toward the 75th percentile ($68,410) without any new credential.
• Add a specialty certification. IV therapy, wound care, gerontology, and pharmacology certifications make you more valuable on the floor and harder to replace. They are the credentials that justify pushing toward the top of the range. Short, focused courses through a provider like Coursera can help you prep for certification exams around a full-time schedule.
• Take a charge or shift-lead role. Supervisory duties usually come with a pay bump and put you on the path toward the experienced and senior tiers.
• Bridge to RN. This is the biggest jump of all, covered in the related-roles section below. An LPN-to-RN bridge program is the clearest route from the LPN range into a much higher pay band in Texas.
• Negotiate with the data. When you have a competing offer or are up for a review, the BLS percentiles give you a defensible target. If you are producing at an experienced level, the 75th percentile of $68,410 is a number you can point to.

Job outlook for LPNs in Texas

Texas employs 57,560 Licensed Practical Nurses, among the largest LPN workforces of any state, spread across the big metros and into smaller cities and rural counties. That scale is the strongest signal of a durable job market. An aging population and steady demand in long-term care, home health, and outpatient settings keep openings flowing.

Practical takeaway: with this much employment concentrated in Dallas-Fort Worth, Houston, and San Antonio, you can usually change jobs without changing cities, which is exactly the bargaining power you need to raise your pay over time. To see live openings and pay ranges by metro, a job board like ZipRecruiter lets you filter by city and setting in minutes.

Related and higher-paying roles in Texas

If you are weighing your next move, two roles sit on either side of the LPN in Texas. The numbers below are Texas medians from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (2025).

A Registered Nurse in Texas earns a median of $95,970, which is $33,730 more than an LPN. That is the single largest pay step available to you, and it is the reason LPN-to-RN bridge programs are so popular in the state. A Medical Assistant in Texas earns a median of $39,520, which is $22,720 less than an LPN, so your LPN license already sits well above that rung.

Texas LPN salary FAQ

Sources: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (OEWS) 2025; federal and FICA tax tables for tax year 2026. Last updated 2026. See our methodology.