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

A Licensed Practical Nurse in Illinois earns a median of $75,000 a year, or about $36.06 an hour, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (2025). Most LPNs in the state land between $58,880 and $89,810, depending on experience, employer, and metro. That median sits well above the national LPN median of $64,400, which makes Illinois one of the stronger states in the country for this license.

How Illinois LPN pay compares to the national number

Start with the gap, because it’s a big one. The national median for Licensed Practical Nurses is $64,400 a year, per BLS (2025). The Illinois median is $75,000. That’s $10,600 more, every year, for the same license. In percentage terms, an LPN in Illinois earns roughly 16% above the typical American LPN.

The mean (average) annual wage in Illinois is $73,430, which sits just below the median of $75,000. When the average lands under the median, it usually means the lower end of the pay range is pulling the average down rather than a handful of very high earners pulling it up. For you, that’s a useful signal: the bulk of LPN jobs in Illinois cluster in a fairly tight, healthy band rather than spreading into extremes.

About 17,440 people work as LPNs across Illinois, so this is a deep, stable job market rather than a niche one. A large employment base means more openings, more employer competition for licensed staff, and more room to move between settings without leaving the state. The table below frames the full Illinois spread against the single national reference point.

One detail worth sitting with: the Illinois 25th percentile of $63,580 is almost exactly the national median of $64,400. In plain terms, a below-average earner in Illinois still makes close to what a typical LPN makes nationwide. That floor is part of what makes the state attractive for this license.

Illinois LPN salary by experience level

Pay rises with experience, shift differentials, certifications, and the setting you work in. BLS reports the spread as percentiles rather than years on the job, but the percentiles map cleanly onto a career arc. Here’s how the Illinois numbers translate into stages.

The jump from entry to median is the steepest part of the curve. A new LPN at the 10th percentile earns $58,880. Reach the median and you’re at $75,000, a gain of $16,120 without changing license. Most of that movement comes in the first several years as you build speed, take on charge-shift or wound-care responsibilities, and qualify for night and weekend differentials.

From median to senior, the climb is real but slower. Moving from $75,000 at the 50th percentile to $89,810 at the 90th adds $14,810. That top band, the $79,560 to $89,810 range between the 75th and 90th percentiles, usually belongs to LPNs with a specialty, a hard-to-staff shift, or a long tenure at a single employer who rewards retention. The full spread from entry to senior is $58,880 to $89,810, a swing of $30,930 across the license.

Hourly figures above are derived from the annual numbers at a standard full-time schedule and are shown for orientation; the median hourly wage BLS reports directly for Illinois is $36.06. If you pick up overtime or per-diem shifts, your effective hourly can run higher than any single percentile suggests.

It helps to read the percentiles as a competitive ladder rather than a fixed schedule. The 25th percentile of $63,580 is the line above which three-quarters of Illinois LPNs sit, so if you’re earning below it after a few years, you’re being underpaid relative to your peers and have a concrete number to bring to a review. The median of $75,000 is the middle of the field. Clear the 75th percentile of $79,560 and you’re in the top quarter of LPNs statewide; clear $89,810 and you’re in the top tenth. Knowing exactly where your offer or current pay lands on this ladder is the most useful thing the data gives you, because it turns a vague sense of “am I paid fairly” into a precise gap you can name.

The shape of the curve also tells you when to make moves. Because the entry-to-median gain of $16,120 outpaces the median-to-senior gain of $14,810, the highest-return years are early. That’s the window to chase a high-pay metro, lock in differentials, and pick up a specialty, while the percentage gains on each step are largest.

Illinois LPN salary by metro area

Where you work inside Illinois matters as much as how long you’ve worked. The gap between the top-paying metro and the lowest in this dataset is nearly $18,000 at the median. Chicago anchors the high end and also holds the overwhelming majority of the state’s LPN jobs.

Chicago-Naperville-Elgin pays a median of $78,070, the highest in the state and $3,070 above the Illinois median. It also employs 11,420 LPNs, which is roughly two-thirds of every LPN job in Illinois. If you want maximum openings and the best median together, the Chicago metro is the obvious base.

Peoria comes next at $72,270, then Rockford at $70,090. Both pay close to the state median while costing far less to live in than Chicago, which is a quiet advantage we’ll return to in the take-home section. Champaign-Urbana sits at $64,130, almost exactly the national median, and Springfield anchors the bottom of this list at $60,110.

The headline is that the same Illinois LPN license is worth about $17,960 more at the median in Chicago than in Springfield. That’s a large enough gap to reshape a relocation decision, though the housing math in the next section is what tells you whether the higher Chicago number actually leaves more in your pocket.

Look closer at the employment column, because it changes how you should read the medians. The five metros above hold 13,290 LPN jobs combined, and Chicago alone accounts for 11,420 of them. The smaller markets carry real but thin job counts: Peoria 630, Springfield 500, Rockford 440, and Champaign-Urbana 300. A thin market is not a reason to avoid a city, but it does mean fewer simultaneous openings, so a wider job search and more patience between roles. In Chicago, by contrast, the sheer volume of positions means you can change employer or setting without leaving the metro, which is itself a pay lever, since switching jobs is often how nurses reset their base above an internal raise ceiling.

There’s also a pattern worth naming for anyone choosing between mid-size metros. Peoria at $72,270 and Rockford at $70,090 both pay within about $5,000 of the state median while sitting well below Chicago’s cost of living. Champaign-Urbana at $64,130 lands almost exactly on the national median, and Springfield at $60,110 is the only metro in this set paying below it. If your priority is the strongest ratio of pay to living cost rather than the biggest gross number, Peoria and Rockford are the two metros to model first.

Illinois LPN take-home pay after taxes

Gross salary is the headline; take-home is the number you live on. Illinois levies a flat state income tax, so an LPN here loses a slice to the state that an LPN in a no-tax state keeps. The table below runs four points along the pay curve, the entry 10th, the median, the experienced 75th, and the senior 90th, through federal income tax, FICA, and Illinois state tax for the 2026 tax year.

At the median salary of $75,000, an Illinois LPN nets $57,436 a year, or $4,786 a month, after federal income tax, FICA, and state tax. The effective tax rate at that level is about 23.4%. Push to the senior 90th percentile of $89,810 and net pay climbs to $67,122 a year, $5,593 a month, with an effective rate near 25.3%. At the entry 10th percentile of $58,880, take-home is $46,434, or $3,870 a month.

Here’s the cross-state comparison that matters most. Take the same $75,000 median and move it to Texas, a state with no income tax. The Illinois LPN nets $57,436. The Texas LPN on identical gross pay nets $61,148. That’s a gap of $3,712 a year, the exact amount Illinois charges in state income tax at this salary. Over a decade, that’s more than $37,000 in state tax that a no-tax state would let you keep. It’s a real cost of working in Illinois, and you should weigh it honestly.

It’s worth seeing how the tax bite scales across the curve, because it isn’t flat. At the entry 10th percentile of $58,880, the effective rate is about 21.1% and you keep $46,434. By the senior 90th percentile of $89,810, the effective rate has risen to roughly 25.3% and you keep $67,122. So a senior LPN earns $30,930 more gross than an entry-level one ($89,810 versus $58,880) but takes home $20,688 more net ($67,122 versus $46,434). Taxes claim a larger share as you climb, which is normal, but the after-tax gain is still substantial and worth chasing.

But the state-tax line is only half the story, and chasing a no-tax state on the tax number alone can backfire. The figure that actually decides your standard of living is net pay minus local housing. An LPN netting $57,436 in Peoria or Rockford, where housing is cheap, can end up with more genuinely spendable income than one netting $61,148 in an expensive metro. Run your own number, then subtract your real rent or mortgage. That remainder, not the gross and not even the net, is what you live on. A natural next step is to model your full paycheck with a tool like TurboTax or the Illinois paycheck calculator before you commit to a city.

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How to earn more as an LPN in Illinois

The data shows clear, concrete levers. The difference between the entry and senior percentiles is $30,930, and almost none of it is luck. Here’s where Illinois LPNs actually find the raises.

• Target the Chicago metro. At a $78,070 median, Chicago-Naperville-Elgin pays $3,070 above the state median and $17,960 above Springfield. It also holds 11,420 of the state’s LPN jobs, so the openings are there.
• Bridge to RN. This is the single biggest jump available. A Registered Nurse in Illinois earns a median of $95,990, which is $20,990 more than the LPN median of $75,000. LPN-to-RN bridge programs are built for working nurses, and the pay math pays the tuition back fast.
• Stack a specialty. Wound care, IV therapy, geriatrics, dialysis, and corrections nursing all command premiums. These are how LPNs move from the median into the $79,560 to $89,810 band between the 75th and 90th percentiles.
• Work the differentials. Nights, weekends, and holidays add to base pay. Pairing a high-pay metro with hard-to-staff shifts is the fastest way to lift effective hourly above the $36.06 median.
• Move toward acute care. Hospitals and specialty facilities typically pay above long-term-care settings for the same license, which helps push you past the $75,000 median.

If a bridge program or certification is on your list, you can start the coursework online through a provider like Coursera and keep working while you study. The fastest path to the next pay band is usually more credential, not just more years.

Job outlook for LPNs in Illinois

Illinois employs 17,440 LPNs across hospitals, nursing and residential care facilities, physician offices, and home health, per BLS (2025). That’s a large, established base, and demand for licensed bedside staff stays steady as the state’s population ages and long-term-care needs grow. A deep employment base also means bargaining power: when employers compete for licensed nurses, pay and scheduling flexibility tend to improve for the people who hold the license.

Chicago-Naperville-Elgin alone accounts for 11,420 of those jobs, so the bulk of openings concentrate in and around the metro. Smaller markets like Peoria, Springfield, Rockford, and Champaign-Urbana carry hundreds of jobs each, which is enough to support a stable local career without relocating to Chicago. When you’re ready to compare live openings and posted pay, a board like ZipRecruiter lets you filter by metro and setting.

Related and higher-paying roles in Illinois

If you’re weighing your next move, two roles bracket the LPN on either side in Illinois, and the pay gaps are precise. A Registered Nurse earns a median of $95,990 here, which is $20,990 more than an LPN. That’s the clearest step up, and the LPN-to-RN bridge is the well-worn path to capture it. Going the other direction, a Medical Assistant earns a median of $46,090, which is $28,910 less than an LPN. In other words, the LPN license already puts you $28,910 a year ahead of the medical assistant role at the median.

FAQ: LPN salary in Illinois

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