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

A firefighter in New York earns a median salary of $100,960 a year, which works out to about $48.54 an hour, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (2025). Pay runs from roughly $56,390 at the 10th percentile to $106,440 at the top, so where you stand depends heavily on your department, rank, and metro. New York pays its firefighters far above the national median of $59,280.

How New York firefighter pay compares nationally

New York is one of the strongest-paying states in the country for this job. The state median of $100,960 sits $41,680 above the national firefighter median of $59,280, per BLS (2025). In plain terms, the typical New York firefighter earns about 70% more than the typical firefighter across the U.S.

That gap is driven by big, well-funded municipal departments downstate, strong union contracts, and a high cost of living that pushes base pay up. Note that the state mean of $87,150 is lower than the median of $100,960. That happens when a large block of firefighters cluster near the top of the scale while a long tail of lower-paid and rural positions pulls the average down. For a sense of the spread, the 10th percentile sits at $56,390 and both the 75th and 90th percentiles land near $106,430 to $106,440, which signals a tight ceiling once you reach senior tenure in a top-paying department.

Put the two markers side by side and the picture sharpens. The distance from the national median of $59,280 to the New York median of $100,960 is $41,680, which is more than two-thirds of the entire national median again. Very few states clear that bar. Most of the country’s firefighters sit closer to the U.S. figure, so a New York firefighter at the median is already earning what would be a top-percentile wage in many other states. The flip side is that New York’s range is wide at the bottom. An entry-level New York firefighter at $56,390 earns slightly below the U.S. median, which tells you the premium is something you grow into as you accrue tenure rather than something you receive on day one.

Firefighter salary in New York by experience

Firefighter pay in New York climbs along a predictable ladder. New recruits start near the bottom percentile, and pay rises with academy completion, time in service, and promotion through rank. The figures below are BLS (2025) percentiles for New York, which track closely to a career arc from probationary firefighter to senior or officer-level positions.

The jump from the 25th percentile ($65,420) to the median ($100,960) is the steepest part of the curve, a $35,540 climb. That reflects the difference between a probationary or rural firefighter and a tenured member of a large city department working a full schedule with longevity steps. After the median, gains flatten fast. Moving from the 75th to the 90th percentile is worth just $10, which tells you the top of the salary scale is effectively capped near $106,440. Beyond that point, real income growth comes from overtime, specialty assignments, and promotion into officer ranks rather than from the base figure BLS reports here. The practical takeaway: getting hired into a high-paying department and accruing tenure matters far more than chasing the last few thousand dollars at the senior end.

Look at the bottom of the ladder too. The step from the 10th percentile ($56,390) to the 25th ($65,420) is $9,030, a meaningful early raise that usually lines up with finishing the probationary period and clearing the academy. From there the curve accelerates into the median before it slams into the ceiling. In dollar terms, more than three-quarters of the lifetime base-pay growth in this distribution happens between the 25th and 50th percentiles. That is unusual. In many occupations the pay curve keeps rising steadily into the senior percentiles, but for New York firefighters the base scale is front-loaded. The lesson for anyone planning a career here is blunt: your first five to ten years of tenure carry almost all the raise, and after you reach the median you should stop expecting base salary to do the work and start looking at rank, overtime, and specialty pay instead.

One more practical note on reading these percentiles. They are statewide, so a senior firefighter in a low-paying upstate department can sit near the bottom of the range while an early-career firefighter in a downstate department sits near the top. Tenure sets your position on your own department’s scale, but the metro you work in resets the whole scale. That interaction between rank and location is what the metro table below makes concrete.

Firefighter salary by New York metro

Where you work inside New York changes the number more than almost anything else. Downstate departments around New York City pay dramatically more than upstate metros. Here are the five largest New York firefighter markets by employment, with their median pay, per BLS (2025).

The spread is large. A firefighter in the New York-Newark-Jersey City area has a median of $106,420, while one in Albany-Schenectady-Troy sits at $70,840. That’s a $35,580 difference for the same job title, driven by department budgets, union strength, and the cost of living in the city versus the Capital Region. Rochester is the strongest upstate market at $89,120, followed by the Kiryas Joel-Poughkeepsie-Newburgh area at $76,120 and Buffalo-Cheektowaga at $74,470. The downstate metro also dwarfs the rest on headcount, with 14,960 firefighters employed versus a few hundred to a thousand in each upstate metro. If raw pay is your priority, the New York City region is where the dollars are. If cost of living matters more, an upstate metro can leave more in your pocket even at a lower headline salary, which is the point of the take-home math below.

It helps to rank the upstate markets against each other, because they are not interchangeable. Rochester at $89,120 leads the upstate group by a clear margin, sitting $14,650 above Buffalo-Cheektowaga at $74,470 and $18,280 above Albany-Schenectady-Troy at $70,840. The Kiryas Joel-Poughkeepsie-Newburgh area at $76,120 lands in the middle of that pack, helped by its position in the lower Hudson Valley closer to the downstate pay zone. So even if you rule out New York City, the choice of upstate metro still swings your median by nearly $18,000. Rochester is the standout, and Albany is the upstate floor among these five.

Headcount tells its own story about where the jobs are. With 14,960 firefighters, the downstate metro employs more than ten times the combined total of the four upstate metros listed here, which together account for roughly 2,260 positions. That concentration matters for job seekers: the deepest pool of openings, the most frequent civil-service exams, and the largest promotional pipelines all sit downstate. Upstate departments hire less often and in smaller numbers, so an open eligibility list there can be worth jumping on quickly. The statewide total of 12,950 firefighters reported by BLS gives you the denominator for how competitive any single opening is likely to be.

Firefighter take-home pay in New York after taxes

Gross salary is not what lands in your bank account. New York taxes income, and federal tax plus FICA come off every paycheck before you see a cent. The table below breaks down take-home at four points on the New York scale for tax year 2026, using BLS percentile salaries and the figures in our paycheck model.

At the New York median of $100,960, a firefighter keeps about $74,402 a year, or roughly $6,200 a month, after federal tax, FICA, and state tax. That’s an effective tax rate near 26.3%. Entry-level pay at $56,390 nets $44,851, about $3,738 a month, at a lower effective rate of about 20.5%.

Watch what happens at the top of the scale. The experienced 75th-percentile salary of $106,430 nets $77,922 a year ($6,493 a month), and the senior 90th-percentile salary of $106,440 nets $77,928 ($6,494 a month). Both carry an effective rate of about 26.8%. The takeaway is that the difference in monthly take-home between an experienced and a senior firefighter is about a dollar, because their gross pay is nearly identical. Meanwhile the difference between entry and median take-home is roughly $2,462 a month, the single largest jump on the page. As gross income rises from $56,390 to the median, the effective tax rate climbs from 20.5% to 26.3%, so each extra dollar of raise is taxed harder than the last. That is normal in a progressive system, and it’s why a five-figure raise on paper never quite feels like five figures in the bank.

Here’s the comparison an AI overview won’t run for you. Take that same $100,960 median salary and earn it in Texas, a state with no income tax, and the take-home rises to about $79,411. A New York firefighter on the median nets $74,402, which is $5,009 less per year than the Texas equivalent. That entire gap is New York state income tax. The trade is real: New York’s headline pay is higher to begin with, but the state takes a meaningful slice back.

The number that actually matters is net pay minus your local housing cost. A $74,402 net in a downstate market with steep rents can stretch less than a smaller net in an upstate metro where housing is cheaper. Consider the two ends of the New York metro table through this lens. The downstate median of $106,420 nets the most before housing, but downstate rents and home prices are among the highest in the country. The Albany median of $70,840 produces a smaller net, yet Capital Region housing costs a fraction of New York City’s. Once you subtract what you actually pay for a roof, the gap between the two can shrink far more than the $35,580 difference in headline pay suggests, and in some household situations it flips entirely. The same logic applies to the Texas comparison above: that $5,009 tax advantage means little if you spend it back on housing or lose it elsewhere, and it means a lot if your housing cost holds steady. Always run net pay against your real local cost before you decide an offer is better. Run your own figure before you compare offers. You can model it with the New York paycheck calculator, and if you want help squeezing every deduction at filing time, tools like TurboTax walk you through state and federal credits firefighters often miss.

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How to earn more as a firefighter in New York

The base scale tops out near $106,440, so the path to higher earnings runs through where you work, what you specialize in, and how far you climb in rank. Concrete moves that pay off in New York:

• Target a downstate department. The New York-Newark-Jersey City metro median of $106,420 is roughly $35,580 above the Albany area at $70,840. The single biggest lever on your pay is which department hires you.
• Complete the academy and stack longevity steps. The climb from the 25th percentile ($65,420) to the median ($100,960) is a $35,540 swing tied largely to tenure and step increases. Time in service is money here.
• Add specialty certifications. Hazmat, technical rescue, fire inspection, and paramedic credentials open differential pay and specialty assignments. Self-paced fire science and EMS coursework through providers like Coursera can support promotional exam prep.
• Promote into officer ranks. Once base pay flattens near the top percentile, lieutenant, captain, and battalion chief positions are where real income growth continues. Promotional exams are the gate.
• Work the overtime and detail system. In high-headcount departments, overtime and special details can add meaningfully on top of the base figures BLS reports, which only capture straight salary.

To put numbers on the strategy, the two biggest levers both swing by about $35,000. Moving from the upstate Albany market ($70,840) to the downstate metro ($106,420) is a $35,580 change, and climbing from the 25th percentile ($65,420) to the median ($100,960) is a $35,540 change. Stack them and you can see why a firefighter who lands a downstate job early and stays long enough to reach the median is in an entirely different income bracket than one who starts upstate and stops chasing tenure. Neither lever requires a degree. Both reward planning your hiring application and your years of service deliberately. The third lever, promotion into officer ranks, is the only way past the roughly $106,440 base ceiling, so map out the lieutenant and captain exam timelines at your department the moment you reach the senior end of the firefighter scale. The earlier you start studying for those exams, the sooner you escape the flat top of the base distribution.

Job outlook for firefighters in New York

New York employs about 12,950 firefighters statewide, per BLS (2025), with the bulk concentrated in the downstate New York-Newark-Jersey City metro, where roughly 14,960 firefighters work across the broader multi-state area. Demand is steady and tied to municipal budgets and population, and the largest departments hire in waves tied to civil-service exam cycles rather than continuously. Because hiring runs through competitive exams and eligibility lists, timing your application to an open list is as important as your qualifications. To track openings and exam announcements across New York departments, a job board like ZipRecruiter can surface postings, though most career-track municipal hiring still flows through official civil-service portals.

Related and higher-paying roles in New York

If you’re weighing this career against adjacent public-safety and health roles in New York, here’s how the pay compares to the firefighter state median of $100,960, using BLS (2025) medians.

A Registered Nurse in New York has a median of $109,440, which is $8,480 more than a firefighter in New York. An EMT or Paramedic in New York has a median of $48,400, which is $52,560 less than a firefighter in New York. Firefighting sits well above the EMS median and just below the nursing median in this state.

Firefighter salary in New York: FAQ

Sources: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (OEWS) 2025; ThePayGuide paycheck model, tax year 2026. Last updated 2026. See our methodology.