New grad RN jobs and nurse residency programs in Illinois

A quarter of Illinois RNs earn less than $38.47 an hour ($80,020 a year) and half earn more than $46.15. First-year offers tend to sit near the lower figure, since hospital pay scales usually rise with experience.

That puts Illinois 21st of the 50 states and DC for median RN pay.

Pay is spread out in Illinois: $7.68 an hour separates the 25th percentile from the median, a wider gap than in most states.

The largest RN job market touching Illinois is the Chicago-Naperville-Elgin area, with 100,240 RNs; that count includes nurses in Indiana.

When people search for new grad RN jobs in Illinois, the places they name most often are Chicago and Naperville.

The Illinois Board of Nursing licenses RNs in Illinois.

Illinois is not in the Nurse Licensure Compact, so you need an Illinois license to work here whatever license you hold elsewhere. If you studied in another state, you can apply to the Illinois Board of Nursing for licensure by examination and take the NCLEX for Illinois directly, or pass in your school's state and apply here by endorsement afterward.

Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Missouri and Wisconsin, next door, are compact states, which matters if you might live on one side of the line and work on the other.

No. Illinois law exempts nursing students in their program of study, not graduates, and its RN temporary permit is only for nurses already licensed in another jurisdiction, so you wait for your Illinois license.

Source: Illinois Nurse Practice Act, 225 ILCS 65/50-15 and 65/60-11, read October 2026.

Of its neighboring states, Indiana, Kentucky, Missouri and Wisconsin do let new graduates work on a permit before passing. See every state's rule.

In 2025, 6,351 first-time, U.S.-educated candidates took the NCLEX-RN for an Illinois license and 84.8% passed, 1.9 points below the national rate of 86.7%. That ranks Illinois 44th of the 50 states and DC.

Set against the 84 new-grad programs we track here, that is about 76 new test takers per program, fewer than the national figure of about 114.

The exam is the same everywhere; the rate tells you about the graduates who tested here, not about your own chances. See pass rates in every state.

Illinois pays RNs more than any of its neighboring states.