Can LVP be installed over existing tile?

The decision is not whether luxury vinyl plank can sit on top of tile. It usually can. The real decision is whether your tile is worth building on top of, or worth taking out first.

The decision you are actually making

Tile is a hard, dimensionally stable surface, which is exactly what a floating floor wants underneath it. That is the case for leaving it in place. Against it: tile adds real height, and a tile floor that has failed in one spot is telling you something about what is underneath it. Two checks answer both halves of that, and neither one shows up in a photo.

The three routes, and what separates them

Rigid core planks bridge grout lines and minor variation but telegraph anything out of tolerance, and the pillar page settles that as the general subfloor rule. Applied to tile it leaves three routes. Float straight over tile that is fully bonded, uncracked and sitting close to flush at the joints. Skim coat or feather the low spots and the worst joints first where the floor is sound everywhere but uneven in a few places, which is the middle route and the one that turns a borderline tile floor into a fine one without a demolition. Take the tile out where the problem is bonding rather than flatness, or where tile at the wet edges of a full bathroom is doing a job the new floor should not simply trap underneath itself. The bathroom page covers why the edges are where a wet-room floor lives or dies.

The tap test is what settles soundness

A tile floor that looks perfect from standing height can already be half off the substrate underneath it. Tap across the field with something hard, the back of a screwdriver handle is fine, and listen instead of looking. A bonded tile answers with a sharp, tight sound. A debonded one answers dull and hollow, and the difference is obvious once you have heard both in the same room.

Work in a grid rather than at random, spread outward from any tile that sounds different, and put a piece of tape on the hollow ones so you can see the pattern when you stand back up. A spot or two is a patch and a leveling pass. A scatter of them across the room is the honest case for removal, because a new floor laid over tile that is already letting go just puts something newer on top of the same problem.

Why height at the doorway is the quiet deciding factor

People weigh soundness and flatness and then forget that tile itself already added real height to the room before anything new goes down. Stack a floating floor on top of that and a doorway that used to clear fine can start dragging, a dishwasher that used to roll out from under the counter can start catching on the new reveal, and a threshold to the next room goes from a small step to a real one. None of that shows up by looking at the tile. It shows up by measuring at the specific spots where the new floor is going to meet something else, which is exactly why this gets checked at the house rather than guessed from a photo. Plank thickness feeds straight into it, and the thickness page covers what that number does and does not buy you.

What actually picks between them

• Soundness, from the tap test. It is the one check that can override everything else, because nothing you build on top of a debonded floor makes that floor bonded again.
• Lippage between adjacent tiles. Run a straightedge across a few joints. A slight step is nothing to a rigid core. A pronounced one telegraphs as a visible line the whole length of the row.
• Height at every doorway and appliance. Tile plus a new floating floor on top of it can be enough to bind a door, change the reveal under a cabinet, or stop a dishwasher from clearing the counter on its way out.
• How the new floor meets the next room. Carpet and hardwood in adjoining rooms will already sit at a different height than tile does, and stacking a floor on top changes that difference again.
• What is going between the plank and the tile, if anything. The underlayment page covers when a pad belongs there and when the plank already has one.

Bring the actual measurement, not just a photo

A photo tells us the tile is there. It does not tell us whether it rocks under a heel, how much the grout lines are stepped, or how much clearance is left under the door once a new floor sits on top of the old one. Measure the gap under the door with the door closed, note any tile that sounded different when you tapped it, and bring both to the in-home measure along with a sample of the grout color if the new floor is running near an area that will stay tiled. That combination settles which of the three routes fits your room faster than a description ever could.