Dental Assistant Salary in Texas 2026,
$45,430 Median | BLS Data by City

Texas dental assistants earn a median $45,430 a year, $21.84 an hour, per BLS OEWS May 2025, with the middle half between $37,360 and $48,280 and a full range of $35,400 to $57,640. That is 5.5% below the $48,070 national median, partly offset by Texas taking no income tax.

Austin-Round Rock-San Marcos at $48,500, then Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington at $47,570, Sherman-Denison at $46,040, San Antonio-New Braunfels at $45,920 and Midland at $45,820. The spread across the whole table is under three thousand dollars, and Austin and Dallas are also the state's costliest housing markets, so the nominal metro advantage largely disappears in rent.

Not to assist chairside. Texas allows on-the-job training with no credential for general assisting, which is why the bottom of the band sits at $35,400. What the Texas State Board of Dental Examiners does regulate is dental radiography — which requires the Board's dental assistant radiology registration — and nitrous oxide monitoring, which requires a separate certificate. Both are short courses, and both change what you can be scheduled to do.

No. Texas has no personal income tax and no local income tax, so a dental assistant at the state median of $45,430 keeps the whole amount apart from federal tax. At this income level the annual saving against a graduated-rate state is real but modest, and Texas's sales tax recovers a noticeable share of it.

Stack the Board registrations and then move into a specialty practice. Radiology registration first, nitrous oxide monitoring next, coronal polishing after that — each expands what you can be scheduled to do and is a short course rather than a degree. Beyond those, oral surgery, orthodontic and implant practices in Texas pay above general dentistry, and DANB Certified Dental Assistant status plus a lead or treatment-coordinator role is what reaches the $48,280 seventy-fifth percentile and the $57,640 ninetieth.

Supply and practice economics. Texas allows unregistered on-the-job entry, so the pipeline into the occupation is wide and the bottom of the band fills easily at $35,400. At the same time, dental service organisations operate at scale across the Texas suburbs on standardised pay grids that hold the middle of the distribution down. The result is a $45,430 median against a national $48,070 despite a location quotient of 0.95 — Texas has close to the national concentration of dental assistants, it simply pays them on a flatter scale.

A meaningful share of Texas dental assistants work part-time or in practices that close on Fridays, and the annualised figure assumes full-time hours. It also pools unregistered trainees with fully credentialed expanded-function assistants. Read the $37,360 twenty-fifth percentile as the realistic full-time floor for someone holding the radiology registration, not the $35,400 tenth.

Production bonuses and practice type. Many Texas practices pay a base hourly rate plus a share of monthly production or a hygiene-driven bonus, which does not appear as a separate line in the BLS figure but materially changes annual earnings — and Texas taxes none of it. Specialty practice is the other lever: oral surgery and orthodontics run longer, more technical appointments and pay accordingly, which is how an assistant reaches the $48,280 seventy-fifth percentile and beyond.