Registered Nurse Take-Home Pay: What the $97,550 Median Really Leaves You in 2027
Updated for 2027: federal income tax, the standard deduction and the Social Security wage base are updated to IRS Rev. Proc. 2026-35. State tax figures are unchanged.
A nursing salary and a nurse paycheck are two different numbers. The Bureau of Labor Statistics puts the median registered nurse salary at $97,550 a year, but that figure is base pay only — no overtime, no night differential, no state tax. Work through the median step by step, and you will know exactly what it leaves per paycheck, and why your own stub may look different.
Registered nurse take-home pay starts from the BLS median salary of $97,550 a year in May 2025. A single filer with no benefit deductions takes home $77,736.92 a year before state tax in 2027, or $2,989.88 every two weeks, after $12,350.50 in federal tax and $7,462.58 in FICA. State tax, shift differentials, and overtime change the final figure.
⚡ Key Takeaways
- The BLS median registered nurse salary is $97,550 a year ($46.90 an hour) in May 2025, and the lowest 10 percent earned less than $68,940 while the highest 10 percent earned more than $137,470.
- A single filer on the median with no benefit deductions takes home $77,736.92 a year before state tax, or $2,989.88 every two weeks.
- The BLS median is straight-time base pay only: overtime, shift differentials, and on-call pay are excluded, so working nurses often earn more than the median.
- State pay and state tax both move the number: California's median is $140,270, while Texas and Florida charge no state income tax.
- Withholding is an estimate. Your final tax bill is settled when you file, and benefit deductions come out on top of the taxes shown here.
How Much Does a Registered Nurse Make?
Start with the official number. The median annual wage for registered nurses was $97,550 in May 2025, or $46.90 an hour, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. That figure appears in both the Occupational Outlook Handbook and the Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics for May 2025, so the two BLS sources agree. Half of all registered nurses earned more than $97,550 and half earned less.
The spread around the median is wide. The lowest 10 percent earned less than $68,940 a year, and the highest 10 percent earned more than $137,470. The table below works each point of the range through federal tax and FICA, so you can see what the spread means per paycheck, before state tax. The 25th and 75th percentile wages come from the same BLS OEWS May 2025 data.
| Percentile | Annual salary | Take-home before state tax | Per biweekly check |
|---|---|---|---|
| 10th | $68,940 | $57,609.79 | $2,215.76 |
| 25th | $80,330 | $65,622.65 | $2,523.95 |
| 50th (median) | $97,550 | $77,736.92 | $2,989.88 |
| 75th | $112,350 | $88,148.72 | $3,390.34 |
| 90th | $137,470 | $105,585.74 | $4,060.99 |
One figure you may see online is wrong: $94,000. That is a rounding of $93,600, the median from May 2024, which the May 2025 data has superseded. Do not use it. Nursing is also a large and growing field: BLS counted 3,465,400 registered nurse jobs in 2025 and projects employment to grow 6 percent from 2025 to 2035, adding about 194,700 jobs, with about 180,800 openings a year on average, mostly to replace nurses who retire or leave the occupation.
What Taxes Come Out of a Nurse's Paycheck?
Three tax lines come out of a nurse's paycheck. Nothing else in this guide is a tax, and keeping the three lines separate is what makes the rest of the math easy to follow.
1. Federal income tax. This is the progressive federal tax every US employee pays. For 2027, a single filer subtracts a $16,600 standard deduction, then pays 10% on taxable income to $12,800, 12% to $52,025, 22% to $109,125, and 24% above that. The median nurse's taxable income reaches the 22% bracket, which is why the federal line is the largest deduction in the worked example below.
2. FICA. Social Security takes 6.2% of wages up to the 2027 wage base of $192,300, and Medicare takes 1.45% of all wages, with no cap. Together that is 7.65% on most paychecks. An extra 0.9% Medicare tax applies only to wages above $200,000 for a single filer, so it does not touch the median example, though it can touch a high-earning nurse with heavy overtime.
3. State income tax. This depends on where the nurse works. Texas and Florida charge no state income tax, so the worked example's before-state-tax figure is the final figure there. Illinois charges a flat 4.95%, California charges progressive rates plus a 1.3% disability insurance charge, and New York charges progressive rates. The state-by-state section below works through five states.
Benefit deductions are not taxes, but they still reduce take-home pay. Retirement contributions to a 403(b), health insurance premiums, and health savings account deposits come out of the same paycheck, on separate lines on your pay stub. The worked example below leaves them at zero so the three tax lines stand alone. To run your own salary with your own benefits included, use the paycheck calculator or the take-home pay calculator.
How Much Does a Nurse Take Home on $97,550?
Here is the full calculation for the BLS median salary, with every step shown. The assumptions are fixed so the arithmetic can be checked: single filer, $97,550 salary, paid biweekly (26 pay periods), no pre-tax or benefit deductions, no tax credits, 2027 rules, before state income tax. The annual tax liability is spread evenly across the 26 paychecks; real withholding on a single check can differ by a few dollars, settled when you file.
Step 1: Gross pay per check. $97,550 divided by 26 pay periods is $3,751.92 per check. That is the starting point for every deduction below.
Step 2: Federal income tax. Subtract the 2027 single standard deduction first: $97,550 minus $16,600 is $80,950 of taxable income. Apply the 2027 single brackets: 10% on the first $12,800 is $1,280.00, 12% on the next $39,225 (from $12,800 to $52,025) is $4,707.00, and 22% on the remaining $28,925 ($80,950 minus $52,025) is $6,363.50. Add them: $1,280.00 plus $4,707.00 plus $6,363.50 is $12,350.50 a year, or $12,350.50 divided by 26, which is $475.02 per check.
Step 3: FICA. Social Security is 6.2% of $97,550, which is $6,048.10. Medicare is 1.45% of $97,550, which is $1,414.48. Together, FICA is $7,462.58 a year, or $287.02 per check ($232.62 Social Security plus $54.40 Medicare).
Step 4: Net pay before state tax. Add the two annual taxes: $12,350.50 plus $7,462.58 is $19,813.08. Subtract from gross pay: $97,550.00 minus $19,813.08 is $77,736.92 a year. Per check, $77,736.92 divided by 26 is $2,989.88, and as a monthly average it is $6,478.08. About 79 cents of every dollar stays with you before state tax; the overall effective rate is 20.31%. The per-check lines, each rounded separately, add to the same $2,989.88; the annual figures govern.
Put together, one biweekly paycheck reads: gross $3,751.92, federal tax $475.02, Social Security $232.62, Medicare $54.40, net $2,989.88. For the federal brackets behind Step 2, see the 2027 federal income tax brackets, and for the general method, see how to calculate take-home pay.
State tax changes the figure. In Illinois, which charges a flat 4.95% after a $2,925 exemption, the state tax on $97,550 is $4,683.94, leaving $73,052.98 a year, or $2,809.73 per check and $6,087.75 a month. Our Illinois take-home pay guide works through that state's rules in full. In Texas or Florida, where there is no state income tax, the $77,736.92 figure stands as the final take-home pay.
How Does Nurse Take-Home Pay Differ by State?
Both the salary and the tax change when a nurse crosses a state line, and the two do not always move together. The table below uses each state's BLS median registered nurse salary for May 2025, worked through the same federal tax and FICA steps as the main example. State tax is shown where it can be stated exactly; for California and New York, use the linked calculators, because their progressive rates need the full bracket calculation.
| State | Median salary | Federal tax | FICA | State tax | Take-home pay |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| California | $140,270 | $22,039.80 | $10,730.66 | Progressive + SDI — use calculator | $107,499.54 before state tax ($4,134.60 per check) |
| New York | $109,440 | $14,966.30 | $8,372.16 | Progressive — use calculator | $86,101.54 before state tax ($3,311.60 per check) |
| Illinois | $95,990 | $12,007.30 | $7,343.24 | $4,606.72 (flat 4.95%) | $72,032.74 ($2,770.49 per check) |
| Texas | $95,970 | $12,002.90 | $7,341.71 | $0 — no state income tax | $76,625.39 ($2,947.13 per check) |
| Florida | $84,190 | $9,411.30 | $6,440.54 | $0 — no state income tax | $68,338.16 ($2,628.39 per check) |
The ranking point is easy to miss. California pays the most by far, a median of $140,270, but California also charges the most state tax, so the gap narrows after tax. Texas and Illinois pay almost the same median, $95,970 against $95,990, yet a Texas nurse keeps $76,625.39 while an Illinois nurse keeps $72,032.74, a difference of $4,592.65 a year, because Illinois charges $4,606.72 in state tax and Texas charges none. Florida's median is the lowest of the five at $84,190, but with no state tax its take-home pay of $68,338.16 is closer to Illinois than the salary gap suggests. For the full state calculations, use the California paycheck calculator, the New York paycheck calculator, the Texas paycheck calculator, and the Florida paycheck calculator.
How Do Shift Differentials and Overtime Change the Picture?
This is the most important thing to understand about the $97,550 median: it is base pay only. The BLS wage survey excludes overtime pay, shift differentials, holiday and weekend premium pay, and on-call pay when it reports wages. So the median describes straight-time pay for a standard schedule, and a nurse who works nights, weekends, holidays, or extra shifts usually earns more than the median.
The tax treatment is simple: overtime and differentials are wages, taxed the same way as regular pay. There is no special nurse rate and no separate overtime tax. At the median hourly rate of $46.90, one overtime hour at time and a half is $70.35 in gross pay, and one extra 12-hour shift at that overtime rate is $844.20 in gross pay, before the same federal, FICA, and state tax lines take their share. Night and weekend differentials vary by employer and by contract, and BLS publishes no dollar figure for them, so check your own contract or pay stub rather than trusting a national average.
That distinction matters when a paycheck looks surprising. A month with several overtime shifts produces a bigger check, and every percentage deduction takes more dollars, which can make the total withheld look steep. The rate has not changed; the base has. It also means the median understates what many hospital nurses actually earn in a year: three 12-hour shifts a week is 36 hours of base pay, and any overtime, differential, or on-call pay sits on top of it. If you want to price extra shifts before you work them, run the hours through the overtime pay calculator first, then apply the tax steps from the worked example to the resulting gross pay. For how overtime pay works in general, see how overtime pay works.
How Does Your Pay Frequency Change the Per-Check Amount?
Pay frequency changes the size of each check, not the annual total. The same $97,550 salary and $77,736.92 take-home pay divide differently depending on how often you are paid.
Paid weekly, there are 52 checks: $1,875.96 gross and $1,494.94 net per check. Paid biweekly, there are 26 checks: $3,751.92 gross and $2,989.88 net, as in the worked example. Paid semimonthly, twice a month, there are 24 checks: $4,064.58 gross and $3,239.04 net. Paid monthly, there are 12 checks: $8,129.17 gross and $6,478.08 net. Each figure is the annual amount divided by the number of pay periods, rounded to the nearest cent.
Two points catch people out. First, biweekly pay produces two months a year with three paychecks, but that is not extra money: 26 checks still add to the same annual total as 12 monthly checks. Second, hospital pay schedules vary: some hospitals pay biweekly, some semimonthly, and per diem or agency work may pay weekly, so compare the per-check amount on your own schedule, not someone else's.
How Can a Nurse Increase Take-Home Pay?
The honest levers are few, and they work by lowering taxable wages or by earning more, not by changing the rates. Pre-tax retirement contributions are the main one. A 403(b) plan, the hospital and nonprofit counterpart to a 401(k), lets a nurse save an extra amount from each paycheck, usually pre-tax.
As an illustration with stated assumptions only, suppose the same $97,550 nurse contributes 5%, or $4,877.50 a year, to a pre-tax 403(b), with every other assumption unchanged. Taxable income becomes $76,072.50, and federal tax falls from $12,350.50 to $11,277.45, a saving of $1,073.05. FICA stays $7,462.58, because retirement contributions do not reduce FICA wages. Take-home pay before state tax becomes $73,932.47 a year, a fall of $3,804.45, not the full $4,877.50, because federal tax falls by $1,073.05. The $4,877.50 is not lost: it is in the retirement account.
The other lever is earning more, and for nurses that usually means shifts, not a raise alone. Night and weekend differentials, overtime shifts, and per diem work all add gross pay, and each extra dollar is taxed at the nurse's marginal rates, so the take-home gain is smaller than the gross gain but still positive. A raise works the same way: more gross pay, more tax, more take-home pay. The remaining lever is withholding, and it only changes timing. A large refund every year means you lent the government money interest-free; adjusting your federal Form W-4 can raise each paycheck and shrink the refund, without changing your total tax. For the federal form, see how to fill out a W-4.
Why Might Your Real Paycheck Differ From This Example?
Most real paychecks differ from a worked example, and most reasons are ordinary. The example spreads annual tax evenly across 26 checks and assumes no benefits, no state tax, and no overtime or differentials. Your employer withholds period by period, using your federal W-4, which can leave a single check a few dollars above or below the evenly spread figure here; the return you file settles the difference.
Benefit deductions are the biggest everyday cause of a gap. Health premiums, dental and vision coverage, retirement contributions, and flexible spending account deposits all come out before net pay, and two nurses on the same $97,550 salary can take home very different amounts because their benefit choices differ. Some hospital systems also run a pension plan alongside or instead of a 403(b), and the contribution rate varies by employer, so this guide states no pension figure. Union dues, where they apply, are another line that varies by contract.
Schedule and setting move the number too. A nurse on nights or weekends earns differentials the median excludes; a nurse who picks up overtime or per diem shifts earns more gross pay and pays more tax; a nurse in a clinic, school, or office setting may earn a different base salary from a hospital nurse on the same experience. Filing status matters as well: the example is a single filer, and a married couple filing jointly gets a larger federal standard deduction, so the same household salary keeps more. When your situation changes, rerun the figures in the take-home pay calculator rather than trusting a figure worked out for a different household.
Frequently Asked Questions
How much does a registered nurse make a year?
The median annual wage for registered nurses was $97,550 in May 2025, or $46.90 an hour, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. The lowest 10 percent earned less than $68,940 and the highest 10 percent earned more than $137,470. The median is base pay only and excludes overtime and shift differentials.
How much does a nurse take home on $97,550?
A single filer with no benefit deductions takes home $77,736.92 a year before state tax in 2027, or $2,989.88 every two weeks. The deductions are $12,350.50 in federal income tax and $7,462.58 in FICA. State tax and benefit deductions reduce it further.
Do nurses pay tax on overtime and shift differentials?
Yes. Overtime pay and shift differentials are wages, so they are taxed the same way as regular pay, at federal income tax, FICA, and state income tax rates. The BLS median salary excludes them, so a nurse who works nights, weekends, or overtime usually earns more than the median.
Which state pays registered nurses the most?
California, with a median of $140,270 a year in May 2025, according to BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics. New York follows at $109,440, then Illinois at $95,990, Texas at $95,970, and Florida at $84,190. State income tax changes the take-home ranking, and Texas and Florida charge none.
Is nursing a growing profession?
Yes. The Bureau of Labor Statistics projects registered nurse employment to grow 6 percent from 2025 to 2035, adding about 194,700 jobs, with about 180,800 openings a year on average, mostly to replace nurses who retire or leave the occupation.
Try It Yourself
Want your own number instead of the example? Use our free Take-Home Pay Calculator — enter your salary, filing status, and state to see your estimated per-paycheck amount. To check the same salary with different deductions, try the Paycheck Calculator.