Loan Officer Salary in Texas: Pay by Experience, City & Take-Home

A loan officer in Texas earns a median of $66,370 a year, or about $31.91 an hour, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (2025). Most of the field sits between $48,030 at the 25th percentile and $95,770 at the 75th, with the top 10% clearing $135,280. Texas pays below the national median of $76,690, but it charges no state income tax, which changes the take-home math a lot.

How Texas pay compares to the national number

The national median for loan officers is $76,690, per the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (2025). Texas comes in at $66,370. That’s a gap of $10,320, or roughly 13.5% below the U.S. middle. On paper that looks like a discount, and for the headline gross figure it is. The picture flips once you account for tax, because Texas levies no state income tax while the high-pay states it trails, like California and New York, take a meaningful cut off the top.

It helps to see where Texas pay actually lands across the curve. The 10th percentile here earns $34,150, the 25th earns $48,030, the median is $66,370, the 75th reaches $95,770, and the 90th tops out at $135,280. That spread, from about $34k to $135k, is wide for a single job title, and it tells you the real story: pay for this role tracks production and book of business far more than seniority alone. A mortgage loan officer paid heavily on commission can sit anywhere on that line depending on volume and the rate environment in a given year.

Texas also employs a lot of these workers. The state reports 21,200 loan officer jobs, one of the largest counts in the country, so the median rests on a deep sample rather than a thin one. The state mean of $79,410 runs well above the $66,370 median, which is the signature of a commission-driven field: a smaller group of high producers pulls the average up while the typical worker sits lower.

That mean-versus-median gap is worth sitting with for a second, because it changes how you should read any single number you see online. The mean of $79,410 is $13,040 higher than the median of $66,370. When the average runs that far ahead of the midpoint, it tells you the top of the distribution is stretched: a band of officers near and above the $135,280 ninetieth percentile is doing the heavy lifting. So if a job ad or a recruiter quotes you an “average” of around $79,000, understand that the typical Texas loan officer actually takes home the $66,370 figure, and reaching the average means out-producing roughly half the field. The national median of $76,690 sits almost exactly on the Texas mean, which is a neat way to remember it: an average Texas producer earns what a typical loan officer earns nationally.

Loan officer pay in Texas by experience

BLS does not publish pay by years on the job, so we use the percentile distribution as the honest proxy. Early-career and lower-volume officers cluster near the 10th and 25th percentiles, mid-career officers with a steady pipeline sit around the median, and senior producers with a referral network and a repeat-client book land at the 75th and 90th. Here is the Texas distribution.

The jump from median to experienced is the one to study. Moving from the 50th to the 75th percentile adds $29,400, a 44% raise, and it usually comes from one thing: closing more loans. The step from $95,770 to $135,280 at the top adds another $39,510. In commercial and mortgage lending, that top tier is where officers with builder relationships, real estate agent referral pipelines, or a commercial book operate. The lower rungs, $34,150 at entry, often reflect a base-heavy first year before a pipeline matures, or part-year and part-commission roles at banks and credit unions.

Notice how uneven the rungs are. The climb from the 10th percentile ($34,150) to the 25th ($48,030) is $13,880, and from the 25th to the median ($66,370) it’s another $18,340. Those early steps are about getting licensed, learning the products, and assembling a first set of referral sources. After the median, the steps get bigger, $29,400 then $39,510, which is the commission curve doing its work. In plain terms, the early years of a loan officer career are about survival and pipeline-building, and the back half is where compounding referrals turn into outsized pay. That shape is the single most important thing to understand about this job in Texas: the difference between a $48,030 officer and a $135,280 officer is rarely talent alone, it’s years of book-building and the market cycle they’re building into.

A second read on the entry figure: $34,150 a year is close to $16.42 an hour, which is roughly what a salaried processor or junior banker base looks like before commission. Many Texas loan officers start in a hybrid seat at a bank or credit union, drawing a modest base while they learn to source and close, and only later move to a higher-commission brokerage once they can carry their own volume. If you’re weighing that first offer, the base is the floor, and the realistic ceiling for your first two years is closer to the 25th percentile until the pipeline matures.

Loan officer salary by Texas metro

Where you work inside Texas matters. The five largest metro areas for this job show a $15,000 swing in median pay, driven by housing prices, loan sizes, and how much commercial lending sits in each market. Bigger average loan amounts mean bigger commission checks, which is why the Dallas-Fort Worth corridor leads.

Dallas-Fort Worth is both the highest paying and the largest market, with 8,370 loan officers earning a median of $73,930, well above the statewide $66,370. The metro’s concentration of corporate relocations, new construction, and commercial real estate keeps loan volume and loan sizes high. Houston follows at $67,560 across 3,410 jobs, and San Antonio sits close behind at $66,810. Austin is the surprise: despite its high home prices, the metro median is $59,210, the second lowest of the five, which reflects a market weighted toward purchase mortgages with tighter margins rather than the commercial mix that lifts Dallas. El Paso, the smallest market at 370 jobs, posts $58,910, consistent with smaller average loan amounts along the border.

One practical read: if you can choose your base, the Dallas-Fort Worth and Houston markets give a loan officer the most room to grow a book, because deal flow and loan sizes are larger. A move from Austin to Dallas-Fort Worth represents a $14,720 difference in median pay before commission upside is even counted.

The employment counts tell their own story. Dallas-Fort Worth alone holds 8,370 of the state’s 21,200 loan officer jobs, nearly 40% of the Texas total in one metro. Add Houston’s 3,410 and you have more than half the state’s loan officers working in just two markets. That concentration is good news for mobility: in either metro you can switch between a retail bank, an independent mortgage brokerage, a credit union, and a commercial lender without relocating, and competing employers in a dense market tend to bid up splits for proven producers. The thinner markets, El Paso at 370 jobs and San Antonio at 1,510, offer less internal competition for your services, which can cap how aggressively a single employer needs to pay.

It’s also worth flagging that metro medians here are blended across mortgage, commercial, and consumer lending, so your personal number depends heavily on which lane you’re in. A purchase-mortgage officer in a high-rate year and a commercial lender funding multifamily deals can both live in Houston and report very different W-2s. Use the metro figures to compare markets against each other, then weight your own expectation by loan type.

Take-home pay after tax in Texas

Texas is one of nine states with no personal income tax, so a loan officer here keeps everything the federal government and FICA don’t take. The table below runs each percentile point through 2026 federal brackets and the 7.65% FICA payroll tax for a single filer taking the standard deduction. Your real number shifts with filing status, retirement contributions, and health premiums, so treat this as the baseline.

The median loan officer keeps $55,077 of a $66,370 salary, an effective rate of 17.0%, which works out to $4,590 a month. At the senior level, the $135,280 earner nets $103,217, a 23.7% effective rate, as more income climbs into higher federal brackets. The state-tax column is $0 at every line, and that zero is the whole reason Texas competes with higher-gross states.

Here is the comparison that matters most. Take the same $66,370 median salary and pay it in California instead of Texas. In Texas, the net is $55,077. In California, after that state’s income tax, the net is $52,751. That’s a gap of $2,326 a year the Texas loan officer keeps and the California one does not, on identical gross pay. Over ten years that’s more than $23,000, before you account for California’s higher housing costs on top.

The advantage scales with income. At the senior $135,280 level, where more pay would fall into California’s higher marginal brackets, the dollar gap between the two states widens further than it does at the median, so the highest-earning Texas loan officers keep the most relative to a coastal peer on identical gross. That’s a real consideration for a top producer deciding where to plant a book: the no-tax structure is worth more to you the more you make.

The number that actually decides your standard of living is net pay minus local housing. A $55,077 net goes a lot further against Texas rents than the same net against coastal-California prices, which is why the no-tax advantage compounds. Picture the median officer netting $4,590 a month. In most Texas metros outside the priciest Austin and Dallas-Fort Worth pockets, that covers rent or a starter mortgage payment with room left for savings, whereas the same $4,590 in a high-cost coastal market can be swallowed almost entirely by housing. The lesson is to judge an offer by what’s left after tax and rent, not by the gross headline. Run your own figure through the Texas paycheck calculator to see your exact monthly take-home, and if you handle commission income or 1099 side work, software like TurboTax can estimate quarterly liability so a big spring closing season doesn’t surprise you in April.

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How to earn more as a loan officer in Texas

Pay for this role is mostly a function of volume and loan type, so the moves with the biggest payoff grow your pipeline or push you into bigger deals. Concrete steps that map to the percentile jumps above:

• Move toward commercial or jumbo lending. The gap between the median ($66,370) and the 75th percentile ($95,770) is largely a mix shift toward larger loans. Commercial real estate and high-balance mortgage books carry bigger commissions per close.
• Get the NMLS license and keep it active. Mortgage loan originators in Texas must hold a license through the Nationwide Multistate Licensing System, which means 20 hours of pre-licensing education, passing the SAFE exam, and annual continuing education. It’s the gate to commission-based mortgage roles where the top earners live.
• Base yourself in Dallas-Fort Worth or Houston. The two metros post the highest medians, $73,930 and $67,560, and the deepest deal flow, so there’s more volume to capture.
• Build a referral engine. Top producers get most loans from repeat real estate agents, builders, and past clients. A steady referral pipeline is what separates the 90th percentile ($135,280) from the median.
• Add a credential that signals analytical depth. Short courses in mortgage underwriting, credit analysis, or commercial lending on a platform like Coursera can move you into commercial or underwriting-adjacent roles that pay above the consumer-mortgage median.
• Negotiate the split, not just the base. In commission roles, the basis-point split on each loan and who pays for leads matters more over a year than the base salary number.

Job outlook for loan officers in Texas

Texas is one of the largest employers of loan officers in the nation, with 21,200 jobs on the books, per BLS (2025). That scale matters for stability: a deep market means more lateral moves between banks, credit unions, mortgage brokerages, and commercial lenders without leaving the state. The work is rate-sensitive, so mortgage-heavy roles swing with the housing cycle, while commercial and small-business lending tends to be steadier. Population and business growth across Dallas-Fort Worth, Houston, and the I-35 corridor keep loan demand in Texas structurally healthy. When you’re ready to compare openings and pay ranges, a board like ZipRecruiter lets you filter by metro and lender type.

Related and higher-paying roles in Texas

If your goal is a higher ceiling on guaranteed pay rather than commission upside, two finance roles in Texas out-earn the loan officer median. An accountant in Texas earns a median of $80,920, which is $14,550 more than a loan officer here. A financial analyst earns $99,150, a full $32,780 more than the $66,370 loan officer median. Both trade commission upside for higher and steadier base pay, and both lean on credentials, the CPA for accounting and the CFA track for analysis.

Frequently asked questions

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