Pediatric Nurse Salary in Texas 2026,
$95,970 Median | BLS Data by City

The published Texas figure is $95,970 a year, or $46.14 an hour, per BLS OEWS May 2025 — 1.6% below the national median of $97,550, with no state income tax taken from it. That is the all-Registered-Nurses estimate rather than a paediatric one; BLS publishes no paediatric series. The band runs $67,120 at the 10th percentile to $127,950 at the 90th.

Yes. Texas participates in the Nurse Licensure Compact, so a registered nurse holding a multistate licence issued by another compact state may practise here without applying to the Texas Board of Nursing separately. Nurses whose primary state of residence is Texas apply to the Board for a multistate licence. That makes moving into Texas straightforward — and it also means Texas hospitals can recruit from a national pool without licensing delay, which holds wages closer to the national market than they would otherwise be.

Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington at $101,420, then Houston-Pasadena-The Woodlands $99,830, Austin-Round Rock-San Marcos $97,890, San Antonio-New Braunfels $94,370 and Killeen-Temple $93,440. For paediatric nurses these rankings matter more than usual, because the state's dedicated children's hospitals are concentrated in exactly the top markets.

In the children's hospital systems of Houston, Dallas, Fort Worth, Austin and San Antonio, which hold most of the state's specialist paediatric inpatient and intensive care capacity. General hospitals across Texas carry paediatric beds, but dedicated paediatric intensive care, oncology, cardiology and surgical units cluster in those metros. A nurse planning a paediatric career in Texas is realistically planning to live in one of them, which narrows the geography considerably compared with general registered nursing.

Everything specialty-specific. The estimate pools about 271,380 Texas registered nurses across every setting, so it does not isolate paediatric practice or separate out CPN certification differentials, night and weekend premiums or charge-nurse pay. It also cannot show the geographic concentration of paediatric posts in the children's hospital systems. Use the $105,100 seventy-fifth percentile as the more realistic reference for experienced certified paediatric practice — and remember none of it is taxed by Texas.

Because it works in both directions and the second one is easy to miss. For a nurse moving to Texas, a multistate licence from another compact state means no application, no waiting and no barrier to accepting a post — genuinely valuable when relocating for a children's hospital residency place. For Texas employers, it means a vacancy can be filled from anywhere in the compact without licensing delay, which shortens vacancy duration and reduces the premium a hospital must pay to fill a post quickly. That is a large part of why Texas nursing pay tracks the national median closely rather than sitting above it, and why the state's real advantage is the tax position rather than the gross wage.

SOC 29-1141 is Registered Nurses in full — about 271,380 people in Texas across every setting from school nursing to intensive care. Paediatric nursing is a subset employed largely in a handful of children's hospital systems with their own pay structures and differentials. The base estimate does not separate them. It also reports annual wages without adjusting for the substantial part-time working common in nursing, and it excludes agency and contract arrangements entirely.

Acuity first — paediatric intensive care, cardiac and oncology units pay above general paediatric wards, and that is much of the distance from the $95,970 median to the $105,100 seventy-fifth percentile. Certification second, with CPN and paediatric critical care credentials carrying differential pay at Texas children's hospital systems. Metro third, since Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington at $101,420 and Houston-Pasadena-The Woodlands at $99,830 lead and also hold the specialist units. Shift pattern fourth, and it is worth proportionally more here than in taxing states because every differential dollar arrives untaxed.