Respiratory Therapist Salary in New York: Pay by Experience, City & Take-Home

A respiratory therapist in New York earns a median of $107,810 a year, which works out to about $51.83 an hour, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (2025). Most of the field sits between $81,270 at the 10th percentile and $131,500 at the 90th. That median runs well above the national figure, and it is one of the higher state numbers for this role in the country.

How New York pay compares to the national number

The national median for respiratory therapists is $82,280, per the BLS (2025). New York’s median of $107,810 sits $25,530 above that. In percentage terms, the typical New York respiratory therapist earns roughly 31% more than the typical respiratory therapist nationwide. That is a real premium, and it holds up at the top of the scale too: the 90th percentile here is $131,500, while the 75th percentile is $126,880.

The state mean, which gets pulled up by the highest earners, is $110,200. The fact that the mean sits above the median tells you the upper tail is dense, with a solid cluster of therapists earning six figures rather than a handful of outliers dragging the average up. New York also employs about 7,010 respiratory therapists statewide, almost all of them concentrated in the downstate metro area.

Respiratory therapist pay in New York by experience

Experience moves this number a lot. A new graduate stepping into a first hospital job lands near the bottom of the range, while a senior therapist with a decade in critical care, a leadership track, or a specialty credential lands near the top. The BLS percentiles give you a clean map of that climb. Here is how the New York distribution breaks down from entry to senior.

The jump from entry to median is the steepest part of the curve. Moving from the 10th percentile at $81,270 to the median at $107,810 is a gain of $26,540, and most therapists cover that ground in the first several years as they pick up shift differentials, charge-therapist duties, and confidence in the ICU. From the median up to the 90th percentile at $131,500 is another $23,690, but that stretch takes longer and usually leans on a specialty.

One detail worth sitting with: even the 10th percentile in New York, $81,270, is roughly level with the national median of $82,280. A bottom-decile respiratory therapist in New York earns close to what a typical therapist earns across the country. That is the clearest sign of how far the local pay floor sits above the rest of the map.

It helps to translate those percentiles into the years that usually sit behind them. A therapist in the first year or two out of an accredited program, fresh off the NBRC exam and holding the RRT credential, typically clusters between the 10th percentile at $81,270 and the 25th at $95,690. That early-career band alone spans $14,420, and where you land inside it depends heavily on the employer and the shift. By the time a therapist has three to five years of floor and ICU time logged, the median of $107,810 is the realistic target, and many cross it sooner downstate.

The 25th-to-75th percentile range, from $95,690 to $126,880, is the heart of the profession in New York. That is a $31,190 spread, and it captures the bulk of working therapists between early career and seasoned. The difference between sitting at the bottom of that band and the top is almost entirely about three things: metro, specialty, and whether you carry a leadership or charge role. None of those require leaving clinical practice, which is part of why respiratory therapy holds its earning power across a long career rather than plateauing early.

Respiratory therapist salary by New York metro

Where you work inside the state matters more than almost any other single factor. The downstate market pays far above the upstate cities, and the employment counts make clear that the New York-Newark-Jersey City area is where nearly the entire workforce sits. Here are the five largest New York metros for this role, ranked by median pay.

The spread is wide. The New York-Newark-Jersey City metro median of $110,490 beats the Rochester median of $82,990 by $27,500. That is a larger gap than the one between the New York state median and the national median. Before you treat the downstate number as a windfall, remember that New York City housing eats much of that premium, which is exactly why the take-home and cost-of-living math below matters more than the gross.

Upstate, the four metros cluster tightly. Buffalo leads at $86,720, with Syracuse at $85,860, Albany at $85,250, and Rochester at $82,990. Those four are within about $3,730 of each other, and all four land near or just above the national median. If you want New York pay without New York City rent, the upstate markets are the practical compromise, and the employment counts show steady demand in each.

The employment numbers tell their own story. The New York-Newark-Jersey City metro carries the full 7,010 respiratory therapist count that the state reports, which means the deepest job market by far sits downstate. Upstate, the rosters are smaller but real: Buffalo supports 510 positions, Rochester 410, Albany 300, and Syracuse 280. Smaller markets can mean fewer openings at any given moment, but they also tend to mean less competition for the openings that do appear, and the cost of living gap usually more than offsets the lower median.

Put the two ends side by side and the trade-off is stark. A therapist earning the downstate median of $110,490 grosses $23,770 more than one earning the Buffalo median of $86,720. On paper that is a large raise. In practice, New York City rent can consume the entire difference and then some, which is why the smartest move is to compare metros on net pay after housing rather than on the gross median alone. The metro table tells you where the dollars are; the take-home section tells you where the dollars actually go.

Take-home pay after tax in New York

Gross pay is the headline; take-home is what hits your account. New York taxes income at the state level, so a chunk of the gross goes to federal tax, FICA, and state tax before you see a dollar. The table below runs the four key percentile points through 2026 tax assumptions for a single filer and shows what is left.

At the median, a New York respiratory therapist keeps $78,810 of a $107,810 gross, an effective rate of about 26.9%. That is roughly $6,567 a month after federal, FICA, and state tax. At the senior 90th-percentile level, the effective rate edges up to 28.7%, leaving $93,792 net, or about $7,816 a month.

Notice how the effective rate climbs as you move up the ladder. At the entry 10th-percentile gross of $81,270, the combined federal, FICA, and state bite is about 24.1%, leaving $61,695 net, or roughly $5,141 a month. At the experienced 75th-percentile gross of $126,880, the rate reaches 28.3%, leaving $90,911 net, or about $7,576 a month. So a senior therapist grossing $131,500 takes home $93,792, which is $32,097 more in net dollars than an entry-level therapist nets, even though the higher earner gives up a larger share to tax.

Watch the state line in particular. New York state tax alone runs from $3,865 at the entry level to $6,842 at the senior level. That single column is the lever a no-tax state removes entirely, and it is the whole reason the cross-state comparison below lands the way it does.

Here is the comparison most pages skip. Take that same median gross of $107,810 and the New York net of $78,810, then put it next to Texas, a state with no income tax. The same earner in Texas keeps $84,230. That is a gap of $5,420: a New York respiratory therapist nets $5,420 less than a Texas one at the identical gross salary, purely because New York taxes income and Texas does not. Over a decade that single line of tax code is worth more than $54,000 in lost take-home.

Net pay minus local housing is the number that actually matters. A downstate therapist nets more in dollars but hands much of it back to a New York City landlord, while an upstate or Texas therapist keeps more of a smaller gross and pays far less rent. Run your own figures through the New York paycheck calculator before you compare offers, and if you want your withholding dialed in precisely at tax time, TurboTax will walk the state and federal pieces line by line.

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How to earn more as a respiratory therapist in New York

The data points to a clear path. The distance between the median and the 90th percentile is $23,690, and the people who cover it tend to do specific, repeatable things. Here is where the bargaining power is.

• Work the downstate market. The New York-Newark-Jersey City metro median of $110,490 is the highest in the state. Moving from an upstate hospital to a downstate one can lift gross pay by more than $23,000 before any promotion, though you have to weigh that against housing cost.
• Specialize in critical care or neonatal. ICU, NICU, and ECMO roles sit at the top of the distribution. These are the jobs that push a therapist from the median toward the 75th percentile at $126,880 and the 90th at $131,500.
• Stack credentials. Adult Critical Care Specialist (ACCS), Neonatal/Pediatric Specialist (NPS), and Sleep Disorders Specialist (SDS) credentials from the NBRC each open higher-paying assignments. Brush up the underlying clinical and data skills through structured courses on Coursera while you log the clinical hours.
• Move into leadership. Charge therapist, clinical educator, and respiratory care manager roles carry the upper-end pay. They are the most reliable way to hold a 90th-percentile salary year after year rather than relying on overtime.
• Pick up shift differentials and per diem work. Nights, weekends, and holiday coverage carry premiums in most New York hospital systems, and per diem rates downstate are among the highest in the country.

The order matters. The single fastest lever is usually metro, because moving from an upstate median near $85,000 to the downstate median of $110,490 happens the moment you change employers, with no waiting period. Specialty and leadership take longer to build but they compound, because once you hold an ICU specialty or a charge role you tend to keep that pay band for the rest of your career. Credentials sit underneath all of it, since they are what make the specialty and leadership moves possible in the first place. Stack two or three of these and the climb from the median at $107,810 to the 90th percentile at $131,500 stops looking like an outlier and starts looking like a plan.

Job outlook for respiratory therapists in New York

New York employs about 7,010 respiratory therapists, with nearly the entire workforce concentrated in the downstate New York-Newark-Jersey City metro, which alone accounts for the full 7,010 count in the BLS metro data. Upstate demand is steadier than spectacular: Buffalo (510), Rochester (410), Albany (300), and Syracuse (280) each support small but consistent rosters tied to their regional hospital systems.

The structural drivers favor the role. An aging population, chronic respiratory disease, and the lasting staffing lessons of the pandemic keep hospitals competing for licensed therapists. If you want to see what New York employers are paying right now and where the openings sit, ZipRecruiter lists current respiratory therapist roles across the state.

Related and higher-paying roles in New York

If you are weighing this career against adjacent ones, the New York medians tell a sharp story. A registered nurse in New York earns a median of $109,440, which is $1,630 more than a respiratory therapist’s $107,810 median here. An EMT or paramedic earns a median of $48,400, which is $59,410 less than a respiratory therapist in New York. So respiratory therapy sits almost level with nursing on pay and well above the EMS field.

Frequently asked questions

Sources: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, OEWS 2025 (occupation 29-1126); 2026 tax assumptions for a single filer. Last updated 2026. See our methodology.