Physician Salary 2026 and Take Home Pay in Every State
The latest official figure used here is the May 2025 BLS median of $271,090 a year, about $130.33 an hour over a full-time year. The published history does not meet this site's minimum continuity and employment criteria, so no 2026 trend figure is shown for this occupation. BLS estimates employment at 754,760. The take home figures are separate estimates produced by this site’s tax model.
Latest official BLS median physician pay
$271,090
Under the listed assumptions, the model estimates $197,025 after federal tax, Social Security and Medicare, an estimated effective rate of 27.3%. State scenarios are in the table below.
The spread, not just the middle
BLS publishes selected percentile estimates in addition to the median. These are wage estimates, not stages of a career, and they do not guarantee what an individual earns.
| Percentile | A year | An hour | Estimated take home |
|---|---|---|---|
| Lowest tenth | $75,760 | $36.42 | $62,123 |
| Lower quarter | $137,900 | $66.30 | $105,523 |
| Median | $271,090 | $130.33 | $197,025 |
| Upper quarter | $387,420 | $186.26 | $269,946 |
| Highest tenth | $477,980 | $229.80 | $326,684 |
Take home is a single filer with no state income tax, so the column compares the percentiles rather than places.
Pay history
Each numeric bar is the published national median estimate for physician in that year’s release. A BLS # lower bound or a year without an exact result is labelled instead of silently dropped. Bars run from zero. The 2021 method break is marked, and the earlier published bars remain visible as historical context without being joined to the post-change calculations.
- 2021BLS # lower bound
- 2022$227,180
- 2023BLS # lower bound
- 2024BLS # lower bound
- 2025$271,090
BLS changed the OEWS estimation method beginning with the May 2021 estimates. Pre-2021 bars remain as raw published reference points; the wage, inflation, and employment calculations use post-change endpoints only. BLS also explains that the survey’s pooled design and changes in methods or classifications limit comparisons over time. The chart itself contains no future data point.
BLS estimated employment at 641,380 in 2021 and 754,760 in 2025, a modeled change of 17.7% between the two published estimates.
The figures start at 2021 because the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported this work inside a wider category until then, and only began publishing it on its own from that release.
The paycheck, cycle by cycle
Median wage, single filer, no state income tax. Take home per paycheck.
Physician pay by state
Two columns, because they answer two different questions and mixing them is how these comparisons mislead. Take home on the national median holds the wage still and shows what each state’s modeled deductions do to it. What the job pays there is the state’s own BLS median, which is a labor-market figure and nothing to do with tax. The May 2025 BLS release provides a state median result, an exact estimate or a # lower bound, for 0 of the 51 jurisdictions shown. In the other cells, BLS did not release a state median result. Its national employment estimate for this occupation is 754,760. BLS explains that estimates may be withheld for quality or confidentiality reasons and that it does not disclose the reason for a particular missing estimate. This site leaves the cell unfilled rather than substituting another source or a neighboring state.
| State | State deductions | Take home on $271,090 | What it pays there |
|---|---|---|---|
| Florida | none | $197,025 | No statewide BLS median published |
| Nevada | none | $197,025 | No statewide BLS median published |
| New Hampshire | none | $197,025 | No statewide BLS median published |
| South Dakota | none | $197,025 | No statewide BLS median published |
| Tennessee | none | $197,025 | No statewide BLS median published |
| Texas | none | $197,025 | No statewide BLS median published |
| Wyoming | none | $197,025 | No statewide BLS median published |
| Alaska | $271 | $196,754 | No statewide BLS median published |
| Washington | $3,062 | $193,964 | No statewide BLS median published |
| North Dakota | $4,232 | $192,793 | No statewide BLS median published |
| Arizona | $5,422 | $191,603 | No statewide BLS median published |
| Indiana | $7,968 | $189,058 | No statewide BLS median published |
| Louisiana | $7,979 | $189,046 | No statewide BLS median published |
| Ohio | $8,445 | $188,580 | No statewide BLS median published |
| Pennsylvania | $8,512 | $188,513 | No statewide BLS median published |
| Kentucky | $9,370 | $187,655 | No statewide BLS median published |
| Iowa | $9,767 | $187,258 | No statewide BLS median published |
| Arkansas | $9,830 | $187,195 | No statewide BLS median published |
| Mississippi | $10,111 | $186,914 | No statewide BLS median published |
| Alabama | $10,412 | $186,613 | No statewide BLS median published |
| North Carolina | $10,556 | $186,469 | No statewide BLS median published |
| Michigan | $11,270 | $185,755 | No statewide BLS median published |
| West Virginia | $11,527 | $185,499 | No statewide BLS median published |
| Oklahoma | $11,700 | $185,325 | No statewide BLS median published |
| Missouri | $11,804 | $185,221 | No statewide BLS median published |
| Nebraska | $11,925 | $185,100 | No statewide BLS median published |
| Utah | $12,063 | $184,962 | No statewide BLS median published |
| Colorado | $12,498 | $184,528 | No statewide BLS median published |
| Georgia | $12,779 | $184,247 | No statewide BLS median published |
| New Mexico | $12,877 | $184,148 | No statewide BLS median published |
| Illinois | $13,274 | $183,751 | No statewide BLS median published |
| Idaho | $13,514 | $183,511 | No statewide BLS median published |
| Maryland | $13,645 | $183,380 | No statewide BLS median published |
| Montana | $13,962 | $183,063 | No statewide BLS median published |
| Wisconsin | $14,039 | $182,986 | No statewide BLS median published |
| Rhode Island | $14,146 | $182,880 | No statewide BLS median published |
| Massachusetts | $14,183 | $182,842 | No statewide BLS median published |
| Kansas | $14,327 | $182,698 | No statewide BLS median published |
| Virginia | $14,773 | $182,252 | No statewide BLS median published |
| South Carolina | $14,859 | $182,166 | No statewide BLS median published |
| Vermont | $17,079 | $179,946 | No statewide BLS median published |
| Delaware | $17,289 | $179,737 | No statewide BLS median published |
| New Jersey | $17,495 | $179,530 | No statewide BLS median published |
| Connecticut | $18,227 | $178,798 | No statewide BLS median published |
| New York | $19,305 | $177,720 | No statewide BLS median published |
| Maine | $19,409 | $177,617 | No statewide BLS median published |
| District of Columbia | $20,111 | $176,914 | No statewide BLS median published |
| Hawaii | $20,120 | $176,906 | No statewide BLS median published |
| Minnesota | $21,358 | $175,667 | No statewide BLS median published |
| Oregon | $26,171 | $170,855 | No statewide BLS median published |
| California | $26,587 | $170,438 | No statewide BLS median published |
Put in your own hours
The median is a full-time year. Change the hours, the state or your Form W-4 answers.
Estimated average take home pay, biweekly
$7,577.89
$271,086.40 a year gross; the model estimates $197,025.22 after the deductions shown. That is 72.7% of gross under these assumptions.
Worked out from: single filer · a blank Form W-4 · 40 hours a week.
- Social Security withholding generally stops after wages from one employer reach $184,500 for the year, so later take home pay may be higher than this annual average.
- Additional Medicare withholding starts in the pay period when wages from one employer exceed $200,000 for the year. No pay date or year-to-date wages were entered, so the biweekly Medicare and take home figures are annual-average estimates that spread the year's Additional Medicare across 26 paychecks; actual earlier take home pay may be higher and later take home pay lower.
About this calculator. It is general guidance, not a payslip. The figures are estimates based on selected 2026 federal and state publications and modeled assumptions. Sources, interpretations and code may be incomplete or wrong, and the result should not be relied on as an exact calculation of tax, payroll or anything else. Your employer knows things this page cannot: a mid-year rate change, a benefit deduction, a garnishment, a local tax, or what it has already withheld this year. Nothing here is tax, legal or financial advice, and using it creates no professional relationship. For anything that turns on the exact number, ask an accountant or a qualified adviser. Methodology and sources.
Where this sits on the pay scale
$130.33 an hour puts this job closest to $100 an hour, where the same arithmetic is worked out for every pay cycle and every state. The published mean estimate is $277,260, above the median estimate by $6,170. That difference alone does not describe the full wage distribution.
Questions people ask
How much does a physician make?+
BLS estimates the national median annual wage for a physician at $271,090, or about $130.33 under its 2,080-hour conversion. It is a published statistical estimate, not a promise of individual pay. The source is the BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025.
What is a physician salary after taxes?+
Using the BLS median estimate, a single filer's standard deduction and no state income tax, this model estimates about $197,025 a year after federal tax, Social Security and Medicare. The state table applies the deductions currently represented for each jurisdiction; an actual payslip may differ.
Is physician pay going up?+
Between the exact post-2020 BLS endpoints shown here, the national median estimate moved from $227,180 in 2022 to $271,090 in 2025, a nominal change of 19%. The corresponding compound rate is about 6.1% a year, and the approximate inflation-adjusted change is up 9%. These are descriptive calculations between published estimates, not a BLS time-series measure; BLS warns that method and classification changes limit comparisons over time.
Which state is best for a physician?+
Two different comparisons are shown. Holding the wage and assumptions constant, the current deduction model estimates the highest take home in Florida and the lowest in California, a spread of $26,587 a year.
Wages: BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025. That is the most recent release: OEWS surveys wages in May and publishes about a year later, so this one appeared in May 2026 and stands until the next. Read August 27, 2026 from bls.gov/oes. Annual figures are converted at 2,080 hours a year, which is how BLS states them. Tax is worked out here from the 2026 federal and state tables.