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

A physician assistant in Texas earns a median salary of $134,550 a year, or about $64.69 an hour, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (2025). Most PAs in the state land between $102,650 at the 10th percentile and $169,000 at the 90th. Texas charges no state income tax, so more of that gross pay reaches your bank account than it would in most other states.

How Texas PA pay compares to the national median

The national median for physician assistants is $135,880, per BLS (2025). Texas sits just below that at $134,550. That’s a gap of $1,330, small enough that for practical purposes Texas pays close to the national going rate for the role.

The headline number hides the real story, though. Texas has no state income tax. A PA earning the median in a state like California gives up several thousand dollars a year to state withholding that a Texas PA keeps. So even though the gross figure here lands a hair under the U.S. median, the take-home math tends to favor Texas. We break the exact dollars down in the take-home section below.

It also helps to know how wide the band is. The state mean salary is $135,850, slightly above the median, which tells you a cluster of higher earners pulls the average up. The middle 50 percent of Texas PAs earn between $122,720 (25th percentile) and $156,000 (75th percentile). That $33,280 spread between the quartiles is where experience, setting, and metro location do most of the work. Roughly 10,110 physician assistants work in Texas, one of the larger PA workforces in the country, which gives you a deep job market to move around inside.

Physician assistant pay in Texas by experience

Experience is the single biggest lever on PA pay in Texas. A new graduate starting near the 10th percentile and a seasoned PA at the 90th are separated by more than $66,000 a year for the same credential. Here’s how the percentiles break out, all from BLS (2025).

A few things stand out. The jump from entry to early career is steep: $20,070 between the 10th and 25th percentiles. That reflects how fast a new PA gains value once they clear the first year or two and can carry a full patient load with less supervision. The climb from median to experienced is another $21,450, and from experienced to senior, $13,000 more.

Where you sit on this ladder depends on more than years logged. PAs in surgical subspecialties, emergency medicine, and dermatology routinely sit toward the top of the range, while primary care and outpatient roles cluster nearer the median. Taking call, working nights, and covering procedure-heavy services all push you up the percentiles faster than the calendar alone would. If you’re a Texas PA stuck near the median after several years, the gap to the 75th percentile, $21,450, is usually a specialty or setting question, not a tenure one.

It helps to think in dollar steps rather than vague labels. From entry ($102,650) to the median ($134,550) is a $31,900 climb, the biggest single stretch on the ladder. That covers the first several years, when a PA goes from needing close oversight to running a patient panel independently. From the median to senior ($169,000) is $34,450 more, but that second half of the climb is slower and harder. It depends on specialty, on moving into a high-acuity service, and often on a willingness to change employers to capture a market raise. The state mean of $135,850 sitting just $1,300 above the median tells you most Texas PAs are bunched in the middle, and that the top earners are a smaller group who broke into procedure-heavy or subspecialty work.

One practical read on the numbers: if you’re early career and sitting at the 25th percentile ($122,720), you’re only $11,830 below the state median. Closing that gap is usually a matter of finishing your first two to three years and asking for a market review. The harder money lives above the median, where you have to change something about the work itself, not just wait.

Physician assistant salary by Texas metro

Texas pay shifts by metro, and the differences are big enough to matter when you’re weighing a move or negotiating a relocation. Below are the five largest PA job markets in the state by employment, with the local median for each, from BLS (2025).

San Antonio leads the pack at $140,160, which is $5,610 above the statewide median. That’s notable because San Antonio’s cost of living runs lower than Austin’s or Dallas’s, so the higher headline number stretches further on housing and daily expenses. Houston is close behind at $137,240 and has the second-largest PA workforce in the state at 2,390 jobs, giving you both strong pay and deep demand.

Dallas-Fort Worth is the biggest employer by a wide margin with 3,230 PAs, and pays a median of $134,900, almost exactly the state figure. Austin matches the state median at $134,550, which surprises people who expect tech-city wages to inflate healthcare pay. McAllen-Edinburg-Mission sits at the bottom of this group at $131,870, but the Rio Grande Valley’s cost of living is among the lowest in Texas, so the lower median doesn’t necessarily mean a lower standard of living.

The spread between the top metro (San Antonio at $140,160) and the bottom (McAllen at $131,870) is $8,290. When you compare offers across cities, run each one against local rent before deciding. A San Antonio job that pays $5,610 more than the state median and sits in a cheaper market is a stronger deal than the raw number alone suggests.

Employment volume tells you something the median can’t. Dallas-Fort Worth (3,230 PAs) and Houston (2,390 PAs) together hold 5,620 of the state’s roughly 10,110 PA jobs, more than half. That density means more openings, more competing employers, and more bargaining power when you negotiate, even though neither metro tops the pay table. San Antonio (650 PAs) and Austin (680 PAs) are smaller markets, so the higher San Antonio median comes with fewer total seats to compete for. McAllen-Edinburg-Mission, at 400 PAs and a $131,870 median, is the smallest of the five and the lowest paying, but it serves a region with persistent clinical need and a low cost base.

If you’re optimizing purely for the biggest check, San Antonio’s $140,160 leads. If you’re optimizing for the most job options and negotiating room, Dallas-Fort Worth’s 3,230 positions give you the deepest market. Houston is the rare metro that scores well on both: $137,240 in median pay, which is $2,690 above the state figure, paired with the second-largest PA workforce in Texas. For many candidates, Houston is the strongest single bet across pay and opportunity together.

Take-home pay after tax for Texas PAs

Gross salary is the headline. Take-home is what you actually live on. Because Texas has no state income tax, the only mandatory deductions on a PA paycheck here are federal income tax and FICA (Social Security and Medicare). The table below shows the after-tax math at four points on the Texas pay scale, using single-filer assumptions for tax year 2026.

At the median, a Texas PA earning $134,550 keeps $102,718 after federal tax and FICA, which works out to $8,560 a month. The effective tax rate at that level is 23.7 percent. The state-tax column is $0 all the way down because Texas doesn’t tax wage income, and that zero is the whole advantage.

The effective rate climbs as pay rises, which is how progressive federal brackets work. An entry-level PA at $102,650 pays an effective 21.5 percent and nets $80,600 a year, or $6,717 a month. An experienced PA at $156,000 pays 24.8 percent and nets $117,379, about $9,782 a month. A senior PA at $169,000 pays 25.3 percent and keeps $126,264, roughly $10,522 a month. So while the senior PA grosses $66,350 more than the entry-level one, the after-tax gap is narrower, $45,664, because the higher earner gives up a larger share to federal tax and FICA. That’s normal, and it’s worth modeling before you assume a raise lands dollar for dollar in your account.

Notice that FICA grows across the table too, from $7,853 at entry to $12,928 at senior, since Social Security and Medicare are payroll taxes on earnings. None of these four scenarios pays a cent of state tax, which is the line that separates Texas from most of the country.

Here’s the cross-state comparison that makes the point concrete. A PA earning the same $134,550 median in California nets $94,178 after taxes, because California layers a state income tax on top of the federal and FICA bill. The Texas PA nets $102,718. That’s a gap of $8,540 a year that a Texas PA keeps and a California PA does not, on identical gross pay. Over a decade, that’s more than $85,000 staying in your pocket purely because of where you filed.

One caveat worth holding onto: net pay minus local housing is the number that actually matters. A bigger net check in an expensive city can buy less than a smaller one in a cheaper market. Run your own number through the Texas paycheck calculator with your real salary, then subtract your real rent or mortgage before you compare cities or job offers. When tax season comes, a tool like TurboTax can handle the federal filing that a no-income-tax state simplifies.

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How to earn more as a PA in Texas

The data shows a $66,350 gap between the 10th and 90th percentiles in Texas, so there’s real room to climb. Here are the concrete moves that push Texas PAs up the percentile ladder.

• Move into a high-paying specialty. Surgical PAs, emergency medicine, dermatology, and cardiology subspecialties cluster toward the 75th and 90th percentiles ($156,000 to $169,000), well above the $134,550 primary-care median. A first surgical assist or procedural role is often the fastest single step up.
• Target the higher-paying metro. A move from McAllen ($131,870) to San Antonio ($140,160) is an $8,290 raise on the median alone, before any specialty premium. If you’re flexible on location, San Antonio and Houston pay the most among the big markets.
• Take call and cover undesirable shifts. Nights, weekends, and call duty carry differentials that lift annual pay above the base. PAs willing to cover these consistently land higher in the range.
• Add billable procedures to your scope. The more independently you can run a clinic or service line, the more revenue you generate, and the stronger your case at review. Build skills that let you carry a full panel with minimal supervision.
• Earn a Certificate of Added Qualifications (CAQ). A CAQ in your specialty signals advanced competence and supports a higher offer. Pairing it with short clinical or leadership coursework, available on platforms like Coursera, strengthens both your resume and your negotiating position.
• Negotiate against the real percentiles. When you renew or change jobs, anchor to the 75th percentile ($156,000) rather than the median if your experience and specialty justify it. Walking in with the BLS numbers is how mid-career PAs close the gap to experienced pay.

The biggest single jump available to most Texas PAs is the one above the median. Getting from $134,550 to the 75th percentile is a $21,450 raise, and from there to the 90th percentile ($169,000) is another $13,000. Those gains almost never come from staying put in the same role. They come from changing the work: a higher-acuity service, a procedural specialty, a larger or busier system, or a metro that pays more. Stack two of these moves, say a switch from primary care to a surgical service in Houston, and you can clear the experienced band well before your peers who only logged years.

One underused tactic is to treat the BLS percentile table as your negotiating script. Employers know these numbers too. When you can name the 75th percentile figure for your state and tie it to the specialty work you actually do, the conversation moves off opinion and onto data. That’s where Texas PAs who feel stuck at the median tend to find their next $20,000.

Job outlook for PAs in Texas

Texas employs roughly 10,110 physician assistants, per BLS (2025), one of the largest PA workforces of any state. That scale matters for your career: it means a deep market with openings across hospital systems, specialty clinics, urgent care, and rural health centers. The two biggest metros alone, Dallas-Fort Worth (3,230 PAs) and Houston (2,390 PAs), account for more than half the state’s PA jobs, so the major urban systems drive most hiring.

Demand for PAs nationally has been strong, and a fast-growing state population keeps Texas health systems hungry for clinicians who can extend physician capacity. If you’re searching for a role, a board like ZipRecruiter lists Texas PA openings across metros and specialties so you can compare pay and setting before you apply.

Related and higher-paying roles in Texas

If you’re weighing the PA path against adjacent clinical careers, the Texas pay comparison is useful. A physician assistant’s $134,550 median sits above both of the closest comparison roles in the state, per BLS (2025). A nurse practitioner in Texas earns a median of $131,670, which is $2,880 less than a PA. A registered nurse earns a median of $95,970, which is $38,580 less than a PA. So in Texas, the PA role out-earns both, with the gap to RNs being the wide one.

FAQ: PA salary in Texas

Sources: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (OEWS), 2025; federal and FICA tax estimates for tax year 2026. Last updated 2026. See our methodology.