Physician Assistant Salary in New York: Pay by Experience, City & Take-Home

A physician assistant in New York earns a median of $160,880 a year, which works out to about $77.35 an hour, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (2025). Most PAs in the state land between $106,440 at the 10th percentile and $201,410 at the 90th. That median sits well above the national PA median of $135,880, so New York is one of the strongest-paying states in the country for this role.

How New York compares to the national average

New York pays physician assistants more than most of the country. The state median of $160,880 runs $25,000 ahead of the national PA median of $135,880, a gap of roughly 18 percent. That’s not a small edge. It reflects the density of large hospital systems, academic medical centers, and specialty practices across the state, plus a higher cost base that employers price into wages.

The spread within New York is wide, though. The 10th percentile sits at $106,440 and the 90th reaches $201,410, so the top earners in the state make nearly double what the bottom tenth do. The mean annual wage, $155,150, lands a little below the median, which tells you a cluster of lower-paying upstate roles pulls the average down while a strong band of downstate jobs holds the median up. New York employs about 19,140 physician assistants, one of the larger PA workforces among the states.

It helps to see the full percentile spread in one place, because the distance between each step tells you how much room there is to grow. The 25th percentile sits at $134,480, the median at $160,880, and the 75th at $174,710. The move from the 25th to the median is $26,400. The move from the median to the 75th is $13,830. After that, the jump from the 75th to the 90th opens back up to $26,700, from $174,710 to $201,410. In plain terms, the middle of the New York PA market is tightly packed, and the real money is at the top end where specialty and seniority pull clinicians clear of the pack.

If you’re weighing an offer, the headline takeaway is simple. A New York PA salary at the median beats the typical PA in almost every other state on gross pay. What that money actually buys depends on where in the state you work and what you keep after tax, which is where the next sections matter.

Physician assistant pay in New York by experience

BLS reports pay by percentile rather than by years on the job, but the percentile ladder maps cleanly onto a career arc. New entrants and PAs in lower-cost upstate markets sit near the 10th and 25th percentiles. Mid-career clinicians cluster around the median. Experienced PAs in busy specialties and senior or lead roles push toward the 75th and 90th. Here’s the full ladder for New York.

The jump from entry to median is the steepest part of the climb. Moving from $106,440 to $160,880 is a gain of $54,440, and most PAs make that move within their first several years as they shed new-grad supervision requirements and pick up procedural volume. The climb from median to senior is more gradual. Going from $160,880 to $201,410 adds $40,530, and that last stretch usually depends on specialty choice, call coverage, and taking on lead-PA or supervisory duties rather than just time served.

Specialty is the biggest lever inside any one experience band. Surgical, emergency, and procedural roles tend to sit in the upper percentiles because they carry call, nights, and billable procedures. Primary care and outpatient roles often land closer to the median or below it, even for clinicians with the same number of years in the field. If you’re early in your career and chasing the top of this table, the specialty you train into matters more than the years you wait.

One useful way to read the table is in hourly terms, since many PA contracts in New York are quoted as an hourly rate plus call pay rather than a flat salary. The entry figure of $51.17 an hour climbs to the median of $77.35, then to $83.99 at the experienced level and $96.83 at the senior level. A swing of roughly $45 an hour separates the bottom of the New York market from the top. On a standard full-time schedule, every extra dollar an hour is worth a little over $2,000 a year, which is why nailing the hourly rate in a contract negotiation matters as much as the headline salary. If your role includes regular overtime or extra shifts, those upper hourly figures compound quickly and can lift your effective annual pay above the percentile band your base rate would suggest.

Physician assistant salary by New York metro

Where you work inside New York changes the number more than almost anything else. The downstate New York City metro pays far above the upstate cities, and the gap is large enough to reshape an entire career decision. Here are the five largest PA job markets in the state by employment.

The New York City metro dominates. At $167,650, its median runs $41,290 above Buffalo, the lowest-paying metro on the list, and it employs 16,800 of the state’s roughly 19,140 PAs. That single market is where most of the high-end New York money is, and it’s why the statewide median sits so far above the national figure.

Upstate tells a different story. Albany leads the upstate group at $137,850, followed by Syracuse at $133,000, Rochester at $130,430, and Buffalo at $126,360. Every upstate metro here pays below the New York City number, and Buffalo and Rochester actually sit under the national PA median of $135,880. That doesn’t make them bad markets. Housing and daily costs upstate are dramatically lower than in the city, so a $130,430 Rochester salary can stretch further than a $167,650 New York City salary once rent enters the math.

Look closer at the upstate spread and you’ll see it’s narrower than people assume. Albany at $137,850 and Buffalo at $126,360 are only $11,490 apart, so a PA willing to work anywhere upstate has a fairly consistent pay expectation regardless of which city they choose. The bigger decision is downstate versus upstate, where the gap is $41,290 at the extremes. Employment volume reinforces this. The New York City metro alone holds 16,800 of the state’s PA jobs, while the four upstate metros combined account for just 3,630. Rochester is the largest upstate market at 1,230, then Buffalo at 1,040, Albany at 770, and Syracuse at 590. If you want maximum job availability, downstate wins on both pay and openings. If you want a lower cost base and a shorter commute, the upstate markets offer solid, if more modest, pay with far less competition for housing. The next section puts real take-home numbers behind that trade-off.

Take-home pay after taxes in New York

Gross pay is the headline. Take-home is what hits your account. New York taxes wage income at the state level, and once you stack federal tax, FICA, and state tax on top of each other, the effective rate climbs as you earn more. The table below runs the four key percentile points through 2026 tax assumptions for a single filer.

At the median, a New York PA earning $160,880 keeps $112,110 after tax, about $9,342 a month, at an effective rate of 30.3 percent. The entry-level PA at $106,440 keeps $77,928 and pays an effective 26.8 percent. By the senior level, $201,410 nets $138,937, with the effective rate creeping to 31.0 percent as more income falls into higher brackets. State tax alone moves from $5,338 at entry to $11,036 at the top.

It’s worth watching how the effective rate climbs across the ladder, because it explains why each raise feels a little smaller than the gross number suggests. From entry to median, your gross rises by $54,440 but your effective rate moves from 26.8 to 30.3 percent, so a meaningful slice of that raise goes to tax. From the median to the senior level, gross rises by $40,530 while the effective rate only inches from 30.3 to 31.0 percent, so the top of the ladder is more tax-efficient on a marginal basis than the climb into it. In monthly terms, the difference is concrete. The entry PA takes home $6,494 a month, the median PA $9,342, the experienced PA $10,061, and the senior PA $11,578. The gap between an entry paycheck and a senior paycheck is $5,084 a month, or just over $61,000 a year in net spending power.

Here’s the comparison that gross-pay listings never show you. Take that same $160,880 median salary and drop it into Texas, a state with no income tax. The Texas PA on identical gross pay would net $120,714, while the New York PA nets $112,110. That’s a take-home gap of $8,604 a year that disappears straight into New York state income tax. Over a decade, that’s more than $86,000 in keep-it-or-not money, before you even account for the cost of living difference between the two states.

So the number that actually matters isn’t gross, and it isn’t even net. It’s net pay minus your local housing cost. A $167,650 New York City salary that nets well but funds a $4,000 studio leaves you with less spendable income than a $130,430 Rochester salary against a $1,400 apartment. Before you sign anything, run your exact figure through the New York paycheck calculator, then subtract realistic rent for the metro you’re targeting. If you want help estimating your full filing, tools like TurboTax can model your state and federal liability before tax season.

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How to earn more as a PA in New York

The percentile table shows the ceiling is high. The path from the median to the 90th percentile, a difference of $40,530, is real and reachable. Here’s what actually moves a New York PA up the ladder.

• Work the New York City metro. At a $167,650 median, the city pays $41,290 more than Buffalo and $37,220 more than Rochester. If your goal is top-of-range gross pay, downstate is where it lives.
• Pick a high-acuity specialty. Surgical, emergency, cardiology, and critical-care PAs sit in the upper percentiles because they carry call, procedures, and nights. Moving from outpatient primary care into a procedural specialty is often the single biggest raise available.
• Take call and supervisory duties. The climb toward the 75th ($174,710) and 90th ($201,410) percentiles usually runs through lead-PA roles, call coverage, and shift differentials, not just longevity.
• Add a certificate of added qualifications. CAQs in fields like emergency medicine or surgery signal depth and support a higher-band negotiation. Structured coursework through providers like Coursera can shore up adjacent skills such as health informatics or coding that practices value.
• Negotiate against the data, not a guess. Walk into the conversation knowing the state median is $160,880 and your metro’s median specifically. Asking for $170,000 in the New York City metro is grounded; asking for the same in Buffalo, where the median is $126,360, is not.
• Consider the upstate cost arbitrage. A slightly lower upstate gross can leave you with more spendable income than a higher city salary once housing is subtracted. Earning more in real terms sometimes means moving to a cheaper market, not a higher-paying one.

Job outlook for physician assistants in New York

New York already employs about 19,140 physician assistants, making it one of the deepest PA labor markets in the country. The bulk of that demand, 16,800 jobs, concentrates in the New York City metro, with steady secondary markets in Rochester (1,230), Buffalo (1,040), Albany (770), and Syracuse (590). That geographic spread means a PA can find work across the state, not just downstate, though pay tracks the metro you choose.

Physician assistant has been one of the faster-growing healthcare occupations nationally, driven by an aging population, expanded scope of practice, and demand for clinicians who can extend physician capacity. New York’s dense network of hospital systems and academic medical centers keeps hiring active across specialties. If you’re searching for a role, job boards like ZipRecruiter let you filter by metro so you can line up openings against the pay bands in the metro table above.

Related and higher-paying roles in New York

If you’re comparing clinical careers in New York, it’s worth seeing where the PA salary sits against neighboring roles. Nurse practitioners in New York earn a median of $153,510, which is $7,370 less than the PA median of $160,880, so PAs hold a modest edge here. Registered nurses earn a median of $109,440, a full $51,440 below the PA median, which reflects the difference in training and clinical scope. A PA in New York out-earns the typical RN by a wide margin and edges out the typical nurse practitioner.

Frequently asked questions

Sources: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (OEWS) 2025; 2026 tax assumptions for a single filer. Last updated 2026. See our methodology.