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

A physician assistant in Florida earns a median salary of $129,620 a year, or about $62.32 an hour, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (2025). Most PAs in the state land between $98,530 at the 10th percentile and $181,610 at the 90th. Florida charges no state income tax, so more of that gross pay reaches your bank account than it would in most other states.

How Florida PA pay compares to the national figure

The national median for physician assistants is $135,880 a year, per the BLS (2025). Florida’s median of $129,620 sits $6,260 below that. So a PA in Florida earns about 95 cents on the national dollar before you factor in anything else.

That gap looks bigger than it really is once tax enters the picture. Florida has no state income tax. Many of the states pushing the national median up, including California and New York, tax wages heavily. A PA in Florida keeps a larger share of a slightly smaller paycheck, which often nets out close to even or ahead. The take-home section below puts an exact dollar figure on that trade.

Florida also employs a deep bench of PAs. The state had 9,310 physician assistant jobs in the 2025 BLS count, one of the larger PA workforces in the country. That density means real competition for talent, steady demand, and a wide spread between the floor and the ceiling. The $98,530 you see at the 10th percentile and the $181,610 at the 90th are both real Florida numbers, and the distance between them is where experience, setting, and metro choice do their work.

Put the two medians side by side and the trade-off becomes concrete. The national PA earns $135,880; the Florida PA earns $129,620. That’s a $6,260 raw shortfall, about 4.6 percent. But the Florida PA pays no state income tax on that salary, while a sizeable chunk of the national workforce earns those higher medians in states that take 5 to 13 percent of wages off the top. Once you net it out, which the take-home table below does in exact dollars, the Florida figure holds up far better than the gross gap suggests. For a real-person decision, the gross number on a job posting is the wrong number to compare across state lines, and Florida is the clearest example of why.

Florida PA salary by experience

Pay climbs steeply with experience in this field. A new PA starting out in Florida sits near the 10th percentile. By the time you reach the top of the field, the 90th percentile, you’re earning nearly double the entry figure. Here’s how the BLS (2025) percentile points map to career stage.

The jump from entry to median is $31,090. The jump from median to senior is $51,990. That second leap is the bigger one, and it tells you where the money is: the back half of a PA career, not the front. Specialty choice, surgical first-assist work, supervisory roles, and switching from a salaried clinic seat to a high-volume surgical or emergency setting are what move you from the middle of the table toward the top.

The state mean of $134,470 runs above the median of $129,620. When the average sits above the midpoint like that, it means a cluster of high earners at the top is pulling the average up. Those are the PAs in the $156,920-to-$181,610 band. They exist in real numbers in Florida, and the path to joining them is concrete, which is what the how-to-earn-more section covers.

It’s worth sitting with the percentile math because it reframes how you negotiate. The distance from the 25th percentile ($111,360) to the 75th ($156,920) is $45,560. That’s the band where the bulk of working Florida PAs actually fall, and it’s wide enough that two PAs with similar tenure can be $40,000 apart based purely on specialty and setting. If a clinic offers you the 25th-percentile number, you have a documented $45,560 of headroom in the same state to point to. Knowing that the 50th percentile is $129,620 gives you a defensible anchor: at minimum, an experienced PA should be at or above the median, and the only reasons to sit below it are early tenure or a deliberate trade for lower hours.

The median hourly rate of $62.32 is the reference point most Florida PAs should keep in their pocket. Because much PA work is scheduled in shifts with call coverage, the hourly framing is the practical one for comparing two offers that bundle hours differently. An offer quoted as an annual salary that implies an hourly rate well under $62.32 is below the typical Florida PA, and that’s a fast gut check at the negotiating table.

Florida PA salary by metro

Where you work inside Florida matters as much as how long you’ve worked. The five largest PA metros in the state span a $15,310 median range from top to bottom, per the BLS (2025). The Gulf Coast retiree corridor pays the most, while the big urban markets cluster tightly.

North Port-Bradenton-Sarasota leads at $142,510, which is $12,890 above the statewide median. It’s a smaller market with only 520 PA jobs, and the high pay tracks the dense retiree population and the specialty care that comes with it. If you’ll relocate for pay, this corner of the Gulf Coast is the strongest single bet in the state.

Miami-Fort Lauderdale-West Palm Beach is the volume leader at 2,190 jobs and pays $132,360, a hair above the state median. Jacksonville nearly matches Miami’s pay at $132,350 with 1,100 jobs. Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater ($127,820) and Orlando-Kissimmee-Sanford ($127,200) sit just under the state median but offer the deepest hospital-system and large-practice employment outside Miami. The practical read: chase Sarasota for top pay, Miami or Jacksonville for the best pay-to-opportunity balance, and Tampa or Orlando if you want volume of openings in a lower-cost market.

These five metros together account for 6,430 of the state’s 9,310 PA jobs, roughly seven in ten. That concentration tells you something useful about the rest of Florida. The remaining jobs are spread across smaller markets like Tallahassee, Pensacola, Fort Myers, and the Treasure Coast, where postings are thinner but competition for each PA can run high in a town with one dominant hospital system. If you’re open to a smaller market, the pay can rival the big metros precisely because the local supply of PAs is limited.

One detail worth flagging: the highest-paying metro on the list, Sarasota, is also the smallest by employment. That’s a common pattern in PA pay. Markets built around older, higher-acuity patient populations pay a premium and don’t need a huge headcount to do it. Miami pays well and has the jobs, but the cost of living on the southeast coast eats into that advantage, which is exactly why the next section pairs pay with tax and housing rather than reading the metro table on its own.

Florida PA take-home pay after tax

Gross salary is the headline. Take-home is what you actually live on. Florida’s zero state income tax is the single biggest reason a Florida PA paycheck stretches further than the same salary in most states. Here’s the full breakdown across the four key career points, using 2026 tax estimates.

At the median, a Florida PA keeps $99,348 of a $129,620 salary, an effective rate of 23.4 percent once federal income tax and FICA are out. State tax is $0 at every row. That’s a clean monthly take-home of $8,279 for the typical PA, climbing to $11,269 a month at the senior level.

Notice how the effective rate moves up the ladder. An entry PA at $98,530 pays an effective 21.1 percent and keeps $77,702, or $6,475 a month. By the experienced 75th-percentile point of $156,920, the effective rate is 24.8 percent and net annual is $118,008. At the senior 90th-percentile salary of $181,610, the rate reaches 25.5 percent with $135,225 left over. The rate climbs because more of each additional dollar lands in a higher federal bracket, but the takeaway for a Florida PA is that even at the top, you’re handing over close to a quarter, not a third or more, because the state takes nothing. In a state that taxed income, every one of these rows would carry an extra five-figure deduction.

The dollar amounts are easier to act on than percentages. Going from entry to median lifts monthly net from $6,475 to $8,279, an extra $1,804 a month. Going from median to experienced adds another $1,555 a month, reaching $9,834. The senior step adds $1,435 more, landing at $11,269. Each rung up the percentile ladder is worth roughly $1,400 to $1,800 a month in your pocket, and none of it is eroded by state tax.

Now the comparison that matters most. Take the exact same $129,620 median salary and earn it in California instead. After California’s state income tax, that PA nets $91,266. The Florida PA nets $99,348. That’s a gap of $8,082 a year that a Florida PA keeps purely because Florida doesn’t tax wages. Over a decade, holding pay flat, that’s more than $80,000 in difference, and it never shows up in the gross salary you’d see on a job posting.

This is the number that recruiters and salary aggregators almost never surface, and it’s why comparing PA offers across state lines on gross pay alone is a mistake. A California posting at the same $129,620 looks identical on paper, but the California PA brings home $8,082 less every year. To match a Florida PA’s $99,348 net, that California offer would need a gross well above the median just to break even after state tax. Flip it around and the Florida advantage is plain: a Florida PA could accept a somewhat lower gross than a high-tax-state peer and still come out ahead on take-home. When you weigh an out-of-state move, run both offers to net before you decide, because the headline salary is hiding the part that actually pays your bills.

One more layer to keep honest: net pay minus your local housing cost is the number that actually decides your lifestyle. A $99,348 net goes much further in Jacksonville or Orlando than it does in a coastal Sarasota or Miami zip code where rents run high. Run your own figure through the Florida paycheck calculator before you sign anything, and if you want help modeling deductions and side income, tax tools like TurboTax can estimate your full picture in a few minutes.

ThePayGuide may earn a commission from links on this page at no cost to you. See our editorial policy.

How to earn more as a PA in Florida

The spread between the median ($129,620) and the 90th percentile ($181,610) is $51,990. That money is reachable, and the moves to capture it are specific. None of these depend on leaving Florida, and because the state takes no income tax, every raise you negotiate lands in your account at the federal-and-FICA rate only.

• Move into a surgical or procedural specialty. Surgical first-assist, orthopedics, cardiothoracic, and dermatology PAs sit at the top of the distribution. These roles are what fill the $156,920-to-$181,610 band.
• Target the Sarasota corridor. North Port-Bradenton-Sarasota pays a $142,510 median, $12,890 above the state figure. Relocating within Florida is the fastest single pay bump available with no tax penalty for the move.
• Work in high-acuity settings. Emergency departments, critical care, and high-volume surgical centers pay above primary-care clinics. Acuity drives compensation in this field.
• Take call and overtime. At $62.32 an hour median, extra clinical hours and call coverage compound quickly. The hourly nature of much PA work makes added shifts a direct path to the next percentile.
• Add credentials. A CAQ (Certificate of Added Qualifications) in a specialty signals readiness for higher-paying roles. Short courses in coding, leadership, or specialty topics through platforms like Coursera can support a move into supervisory or specialty seats.
• Step into lead or supervisory roles. Lead PA and clinical-coordinator positions carry stipends on top of base pay and are how mid-career PAs cross into the experienced and senior bands.
• Negotiate against the median, not the offer. The Florida median is $129,620 and the experienced 75th percentile is $156,920. If you have tenure and you’re sitting below the median, you have documented room in your own state to ask for more. Bring the percentile table to the conversation.

Stack two or three of these and the math moves fast. A specialty switch plus a relocation to the Sarasota corridor, where the median is $142,510, can lift a mid-career PA from the $129,620 median toward the experienced band in a single career move. Because the gains aren’t taxed at the state level, a Florida PA keeps more of each step up than a peer making the same moves in almost any other large state.

Job outlook for PAs in Florida

Florida already employs 9,310 physician assistants, per the BLS (2025), one of the largest PA workforces of any state. The drivers behind that number are not going anywhere: a fast-growing and aging population, a heavy retiree base concentrated on both coasts, and large hospital systems across Miami, Tampa, Orlando, and Jacksonville that lean on PAs to extend physician capacity.

Demand is spread across primary care, specialty practice, urgent care, and surgical settings, which gives Florida PAs unusual mobility between roles and metros without leaving the state. If you’re actively looking, set alerts on a major job board such as ZipRecruiter to see live openings and posted pay ranges across Florida metros in real time.

For a sense of scale, the 9,310 PA jobs in Florida sit alongside a registered nurse workforce many times that size and a growing pool of nurse practitioners, all of them serving the same aging population. That mix matters for your career: when one role tightens, PAs can often move laterally into adjacent settings without retraining. The roles section below shows exactly how PA pay stacks against those neighbors in Florida, which is useful both for benchmarking your own offer and for thinking about a longer-term move.

Related and higher-paying roles in Florida

It helps to see where a PA salary sits next to neighboring healthcare roles in the same state. Using BLS (2025) Florida medians, a physician assistant ($129,620) earns $110 more than a nurse practitioner ($129,510), so the two roles are effectively level on pay in Florida. Against a registered nurse ($84,190), a PA earns $45,430 more. That RN-to-PA gap is the clearest illustration of what the additional training buys you in this state.

Frequently asked questions

Sources: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, OEWS 2025 (SOC 29-1071). Tax estimates for 2026. Last updated 2026. See our methodology.