Physical Therapist Salary: BLS Wage Data by Percentile (2026)

What a DPT degree translates to in pay

Physical therapy became a doctoral-entry profession in the United States over the 2000s and 2010s; nearly all practicing PTs today hold a Doctor of Physical Therapy (DPT) degree, typically a three-year program after a bachelor's degree, followed by a national licensing exam. BLS data from May 2024 puts the median annual salary at $101,020, or $48.57 an hour, for that credential.

The percentile range is moderate compared to some other occupations on this site: the bottom 10% of PTs earned less than $74,420, and the top 10% earned more than $132,500 in May 2024, roughly a $58,000 gap. That is consistent with a single-credential profession where pay differences come mainly from setting, geography, and years of experience rather than large differences in required qualifications. For another clinical field's BLS wage data by percentile, see this site's respiratory therapist salary guide.

Setting matters more than most people expect

BLS breaks out May 2024 wages by industry, and the pattern is somewhat counterintuitive: home healthcare services paid the highest median at $108,110, ahead of nursing and residential care facilities ($105,330) and hospitals ($105,140). Private outpatient physical therapy offices, the setting many people associate with PT work and where a large share of PTs are employed, paid the lowest of these four categories, at $94,860.

The gap likely reflects staffing economics: home health and skilled nursing settings often pay a premium to attract PTs willing to travel between patient locations or work in facility settings with higher patient acuity, while private outpatient practices compete more on schedule flexibility and caseload variety than on base pay. A similarly lopsided pattern turns up in this site's orthotist and prosthetist salary guide: the two industry categories with the smallest employer share there, federal government and hospitals, land at opposite ends of the pay scale rather than near the middle.

Job outlook

BLS projects 11% employment growth for physical therapists from 2024 to 2034, classified as much faster than average, adding about 29,300 jobs over the decade, one of the stronger growth projections among the healthcare occupations tracked on this site. An aging population with rising rates of chronic conditions that benefit from physical therapy (orthopedic injuries, stroke recovery, mobility-related conditions) is the primary driver BLS cites for continued demand. That 11% pace trails the 13% BLS projects through 2035 for forensic scientists, a separately tracked field where BLS typically requires only a bachelor's degree for entry.