RN Salary in Texas: What Registered Nurses Really Earn in 2026

The median rn salary in Texas is $95,970 a year, working out to $46.14 an hour for a full-time registered nurse. The mean is close behind at $95,380, which tells you the distribution is not badly skewed by a small number of very high earners. Half the RNs in Texas make more than $95,970, half make less. That is the number to anchor everything else against.

The real story is the spread. The 10th percentile rn salary in Texas is $67,120, and the 90th percentile is $127,950. That is nearly a $61,000 gap between the bottom and top of the profession in the same state, doing work that shares the same license. The nurses sitting near $67,120 are almost always new graduates in their first year, RNs working in long-term care or skilled nursing facilities, or nurses in rural counties where reimbursement rates and hospital budgets are simply smaller. None of that is a knock on the work. It is lower-acuity, lower-differential work, and the pay reflects it.

The nurses at $127,950 and above are usually the opposite profile: years of acute-care experience, a specialty certification, heavy night or weekend shift differentials stacked on top of base pay, or a job in a large metro hospital system with union-negotiated wage scales. A new grad reading this page should expect to start closer to the 25th percentile, $79,170, than the median, and should treat the climb to $95,970 and beyond as something that happens over years, not months.

The national median rn salary is $97,550 a year, or $46.90 an hour. Texas comes in at $95,970, which is $1,580 below the national median. That is a small gap in percentage terms, but it is real money, and it is why Texas lands at 22nd of 51 states rather than in the top half by a wide margin. Nationally, the 10th percentile is $68,940 and the 90th is $137,470, both higher than the equivalent Texas figures, which suggests the very top of the RN pay scale stretches further in high-cost coastal states than it does in Texas.

Zoom out to the states that actually border Texas and the picture flips. Arkansas pays a median of $78,940, which is $17,030 less than Texas. Louisiana sits at $80,230, a $15,740 gap. Oklahoma pays $82,920, $13,050 below Texas. New Mexico is the closest competitor at $94,340, only $1,630 under the Texas median. Every single neighboring state pays its RNs less than Texas does, and three of the four pay meaningfully less, five figures less per year.

The honest verdict: if you are an RN in Arkansas, Louisiana, or Oklahoma weighing a move to Texas, the math works in your favor before you even factor in the tax situation. Texas has no state income tax, so that $13,000 to $17,000 raise is not eaten by a new state tax bill the way it would be moving into a high-tax state. New Mexico is a closer call. A $1,630 gap can vanish entirely once you account for a higher cost of living in a specific Texas metro versus a specific New Mexico city, so that move should be decided city by city, not state median by state median.

Nurses considering a move purely to chase a bigger number should also weigh Texas against nationwide RN pay before assuming any interstate move is worth it. Texas beats its neighbors clearly. It trails the national median by a smaller, more debatable margin.

The percentile ladder is the clearest map of a Texas nursing career. Entry-level and early-career RNs cluster around the 25th percentile, $79,170. Mid-career, experienced RNs in acute-care or specialty roles land closer to the 75th percentile, $105,100. The jump from $79,170 to $105,100 is close to $26,000, and almost none of it comes from a single raise. It comes from stacking several things over several years.

• Years on the unit. Base pay scales at most Texas hospital systems step up on a schedule tied to tenure, especially in unionized or large nonprofit systems that negotiate wage scales rather than setting pay unilaterally.
• Shift differentials. Nights, weekends, and holiday shifts carry extra pay on top of base hourly rate. A nurse who works nights for years is not earning the same rn salary in Texas as a colleague working the same job title on day shift.
• Certifications. Credentials like CCRN for critical care, or specialty certifications in oncology, emergency, or perioperative nursing, signal expertise that hospitals pay a premium for, particularly in high-acuity units.
• Setting changes. Moving from a skilled nursing facility to a large acute-care hospital, or from a rural facility to an urban medical center, is one of the single biggest one-time jumps an RN can make in Texas.
• Union and large-system employment. Hospital systems that bargain wage scales collectively tend to have more predictable, and often higher, pay ladders than smaller independent facilities.

Getting from the median to the 90th percentile, $127,950, usually means combining several of these: a specialty certification, a night or weekend-heavy schedule, and a job at a large metro hospital system, sustained over a decade or more. There is no shortcut that skips the years entirely, but a nurse who stacks certifications and differentials early moves up the ladder faster than one who waits for tenure alone to do the work.

If the goal is the biggest single increase to your rn salary in Texas, the hierarchy is clear, and it is not close. The nurse practitioner salary is where the real money is. The median NP salary in Texas is $131,670, which is $35,700 more per year than the Texas RN median of $95,970. No certification, no shift differential, and no setting change gets an RN anywhere near that jump. Becoming a nurse practitioner does. Texas has strong nurse practitioner programs in Texas for RNs ready to make that leap, and the full breakdown of NP pay by specialty and setting is on the dedicated nurse practitioner salary page.

The NP route is not for everyone, though. It means another two to four years of graduate school, a different scope of practice with prescriptive authority and diagnostic responsibility, and a career shift away from bedside nursing toward primary or specialty care. An RN who loves floor nursing, who is within a few years of retirement, or who cannot take on graduate school debt or the time commitment right now should not chase the NP jump just because the number is bigger. It is a different job, not just a raise.

Below the NP jump, the next-biggest lever for most RNs is finishing a BSN. Many Texas hospital systems, especially Magnet-designated and large urban systems, use BSN completion to unlock higher pay ladders and charge nurse or leadership tracks that an ADN alone cannot access. RN-to-BSN programs let a working ADN nurse finish that degree without leaving the workforce, and it is a smaller, faster commitment than a graduate degree.

After that: specialty and setting switches (moving into critical care, the operating room, or a larger metro hospital system), and travel nursing contracts, which can pay significantly above standard staff rates for short-term assignments but come with no benefits, no long-term stability, and constant relocation. Travel pay varies too much by contract, specialty, and location to put a reliable number on it here, but it is a real lever for an RN with the flexibility to use it. For most Texas RNs building a career rather than chasing a single high-paying contract, the order is: NP if the scope change fits your goals, BSN completion if it doesn't, then certifications and setting changes either way. Anyone weighing the graduate route should also look at the best RN programs in Texas for the undergraduate foundation that everything else builds on.

Texas employs 271,380 registered nurses, the second-highest total of any state in the country, behind only California, out of 3,379,720 RNs employed nationwide. That scale matters for anyone reading these Texas RN pay numbers and wondering how easy it is to actually find work. A job market this large means more open positions across more hospital systems, more specialties, and more cities, which gives an RN real leverage to be selective about setting, shift, and specialty rather than taking whatever opens up first.

It also means Texas has room for nurses moving up from LPN or LVN licensure. The median LPN and LVN salary in Texas is $62,240, which is $33,730 less than the RN median of $95,970. That gap is the clearest financial argument for an LPN or LVN to bridge into an RN license: it is not a marginal raise, it is close to a 54% increase in median pay for taking on a broader scope of practice.

Nationally, RN employment is projected to grow 6% from 2022 to 2032, and a state with this much existing demand and this large a current workforce is well positioned to absorb that growth. For a nurse deciding whether Texas is worth entering or staying in: the job market size is a genuine advantage, the pay is solidly mid-pack nationally but ahead of every bordering state, and the clearest paths to a meaningfully higher rn salary in Texas are bridging up from LPN, finishing a BSN, or going on to become a nurse practitioner. Start by looking at the best RN programs in Texas if you are early in that path, or the graduate options above if you already hold your RN license and are ready to move up.