LPN Salary 2026
LPNs earn a median of $64,400 (BLS, May 2025), from $49,740 to $83,440. Nursing homes pay more than home health, and the RN gap is $33,150.
LPN Salary: What Licensed Practical Nurses Earn
The LPN salary midpoint is $64,400 a year, or $30.96 an hour, on May 2025 BLS data. Every US occupation taken together sits at $50,980, so practical nursing runs 26 percent ahead of that, for a credential taking about a year.
If you have seen a different number elsewhere, that is covered below. Several widely linked guides are still quoting last year's figure.
The Full Range
- Bottom 10 percent
- Under $49,740
- First year, rural, some clinic work
- 25th percentile
- $59,000
- Two to three years in
- Median
- $64,400
- The licensed practical nurse salary most quoted
- 75th percentile
- $76,030
- Experienced, charge roles, expensive states
- Top 10 percent
- Over $83,440
- Specialist settings, agency work, high cost metros
LPN pay and LPN wages describe the same figure, and so does LVN salary. California and Texas use licensed vocational nurse, every other state uses licensed practical nurse, and BLS counts them as one occupation. As LPN hourly pay the median is $30.96.
Notice how narrow the range is. The gap from bottom tenth to top tenth is $33,700, which is tight compared with most clinical professions. There is less room to climb here, and knowing that early is more useful than discovering it at year eight.
State by state the spread widens a little. LPN jobs in New York carry a $67,180 state median, a reminder that the national figure is a midpoint rather than a ceiling.
Setting
Nursing Homes Pay More Than Home Health
- Nursing and residential care
- $68,020
- Above the national median, and the largest employer of LPNs
- Home healthcare services
- $63,580
- Below the national median, despite the autonomy
Most people assume home health pays better. It is more independent, it is priced per visit, and the visit rate often sounds generous. The BLS medians say otherwise by $4,440.
The explanation is in how the work is counted. A per visit rate looks high until unpaid driving time, documentation and cancelled visits come out of it. Facility work pays by the hour and the hours are reliable.
None of that means home health is a bad choice. It means choose it for the work rather than for the money, and ask what a realistic weekly visit count actually is before you sign anything.
LPN Starting Pay
Expect LPN starting pay somewhere in the $49,740 to $59,000 band, which spans the bottom tenth to the 25th percentile. Long term care usually sits at the top of that band and clinic work at the bottom, which reverses what most new LPNs assume.
The practical point is that the first move matters more here than in professions with a wider range. Starting in a setting that pays above the median puts you ahead of a colleague who spends two years catching up.
How the RN Gap Actually Looks
$97,550 is the RN median. $64,400 is the LPN one. The distance between them is $33,150 a year, which works out at 51 percent, and both figures sit in the same May 2025 BLS release.
It is a large gap and it is worth stating plainly rather than burying. Most LPN to RN bridge programs take one to two years for someone already licensed and working, and the arithmetic usually favors doing it if you are early in your career.
What that comparison leaves out is time and cost. A bridge means study alongside shifts, and the gap closes slowly if you are fifteen years in and content where you are. The number is the number. What you do with it depends on where you are standing.
The same arithmetic runs one step down. CNA pay sits at a $42,260 median, $22,140 below the LPN figure, and the bridge into practical nursing takes about a year.
How Agency Pay Is Built
Travel LPN pay arrives as a weekly figure rather than an hourly one, and that figure is two separate things. A taxable hourly rate, and untaxed housing and meal money that only applies if you genuinely maintain a home elsewhere.
For LPN work there is a third thing to check that does not come up in other professions. Whether the contract guarantees hours. Facility demand moves with census, and an agency contract without guaranteed hours is a different proposition from one with them, regardless of what the rate says.
Get the hourly rate separately, establish the guarantee, and only then compare it with a salary.
Find out what an agency contract pays
Give us your state license, the settings you have worked and the hours you want. We come back with a real figure.
Frequently Asked Questions
How much do LPNs make?
BLS recorded $64,400 for May 2025, which is $30.96 hourly. A tenth of LPNs come in below $49,740 and a tenth above $83,440. The all occupations figure is $50,980, so practical nursing pays 26 percent more.
Why do some sites say LPNs earn $62,340?
$62,340 is the May 2024 figure and several guides have not updated it. Others quote $67,050, which is a mean rather than a median, and at least one converts hourly data incorrectly. The current BLS median is $64,400 for May 2025. Check the survey year and whether a figure is a mean or a median before comparing any two.
Do LPNs earn more in nursing homes or home health?
Facilities pay better. BLS puts nursing and residential care at a $68,020 median for May 2025 against $63,580 in home healthcare, a difference of $4,440. The per visit model used in home health converts to less than it appears to once the unpaid parts of the day are counted.
How much more do RNs earn than LPNs?
About 51 percent more. The RN median is $97,550 against $64,400 for an LPN in the May 2025 BLS release, a difference of $33,150 a year. Bridge routes exist for working LPNs and the arithmetic generally favors them earlier in a career rather than later.
All data here is BLS: the OEWS May 2025 release for code 29-2061, plus the Occupational Outlook Handbook. Links above. Last reviewed October 2026.