LPN or RN: Comparing Pay and Career Earnings

Pay Side by Side

All figures below are annual or hourly wages for the whole United States. "Entry level" uses the bottom tenth of earners and "experienced" uses the top tenth, since those brackets are the closest published proxy for the start and the top of a career.

Two things to notice. The bottom of the RN range, $68,940 (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, May 2025), sits above the LPN and LVN median of $64,400 (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2025), so a new RN typically starts above a mid-career LPN. And the two ranges pull further apart at the top, where the figures are $83,440 for LPNs and LVNs and $137,470 for registered nurses (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, May 2025).

These are wage figures, not take-home pay, and not a quote for any one job. When you compare offers, ask each employer to separate the base hourly rate from overtime, night and weekend shift differentials, holiday pay, call pay and any sign-on or retention bonus, because a single advertised annual number can contain all of them.

The figures above are national. For your own area, the BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics tables publish medians for both occupations by state and metro area, and many state labor departments publish their own wage reports. Your state board of nursing sets the scope of practice and licensing rules that go with each license, which is worth reading before you choose a program. What your own number comes down to is specific: your state, your industry, whether the employer is unionized, how many night and weekend hours you take, your certifications, and whether you work staff, per diem or travel.

Why the Pay Differs

1. The license costs a different amount of time. Typical entry-level education for LPNs and LVNs is a postsecondary nondegree award, and certificate or diploma programs at community colleges and technical schools usually take about 1 year (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2025). For registered nurses the typical entry-level education is a bachelor's degree, with BSN programs usually taking 4 years and hospital diploma programs 2 to 3 years (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2025). Both licenses require passing a qualifying exam after an approved program (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2025). The step from a median of $64,400 to a median of $97,550 (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2025) is the return on those extra years of schooling, plus tuition and the earnings you give up while studying.

2. The two licenses work for different employers. The largest employers of LPNs and LVNs were nursing and residential care facilities (37 percent), hospitals (16 percent), home healthcare services (12 percent) and offices of physicians (11 percent). For registered nurses, hospitals alone accounted for 59 percent, with ambulatory healthcare services at 19 percent (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2025). Industry medians differ sharply. In May 2025, LPNs and LVNs in government excluding state and local education and hospitals had a median of $68,970, the highest of the listed industries, against $59,520 in offices of physicians, the lowest listed (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, May 2025). For registered nurses the listed range ran from $110,780 in government to $78,620 in educational services (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, May 2025).

3. Each extra hour is worth more. The median hourly figure is $30.96 for LPNs and LVNs and $46.90 for registered nurses (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2025). Overtime, call-back and shift differentials are usually calculated off the base rate, so the same extra shift pays the RN more before any differential is added. RNs are also concentrated in hospitals, 59 percent of the workforce (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2025), and hospitals run nights, weekends and holidays, so they pay differentials more routinely than a physician's office does.

4. The market is larger and more specialized for RNs. LPNs and LVNs held about 666,900 jobs in 2025; registered nurses held about 3,465,400 (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2025). More positions across more settings means more roles to move into, and some require credentials: nurses can certify through professional associations in areas such as ambulatory care, gerontology or pediatrics, and RN postings may also require CPR, BLS or ACLS certification (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2025).

Earnings Over a Career

The distance between the two occupations is smallest at the start and widest at the end. At the bottom tenth, the figures are $49,740 for LPNs and LVNs and $68,940 for registered nurses; at the top tenth they are $83,440 and $137,470 (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, May 2025). Experience lifts both, but it lifts RN pay further, largely because the ceiling in hospital and specialty work sits above the ceiling in long-term care and clinic work.

The practical consequence is that an LPN near the top of the scale, earning more than $83,440, still earns less than the typical registered nurse at $97,550 (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2025). That comparison is the clearest argument for the bridge route: with experience, an LPN or LVN may complete an LPN-to-RN education program to become a registered nurse (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2025). Crossing that line is the one milestone that reliably changes which pay table you sit in.

If you stay an LPN or LVN, the milestones that move money are narrower but real. Changing industry is one: the May 2025 median was $59,520 in offices of physicians and $68,970 in government excluding state and local education and hospitals (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, May 2025). Certification is another, since some employers require certification in areas such as gerontology or pediatrics (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2025). Charge-nurse and scheduling duties in long-term care, where 37 percent of LPNs and LVNs work (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2025), are a third.

For registered nurses, the same logic runs further. The listed industry medians for RNs in May 2025 ran from $78,620 in educational services to $110,780 in government (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, May 2025), so the setting you pick moves your pay before any promotion. Specialty certification, plus the CPR, BLS or ACLS credentials many RN postings require (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2025), opens the units that sit nearer the $137,470 top-decile figure.

One caution for both paths: top-decile earnings usually belong to nurses working substantial overtime or heavy night and weekend rotations. Before you treat $137,470 or $83,440 as a target, ask what share is base rate and what share depends on hours you would have to keep working.