Dental Hygienist Salary in Arkansas 2026,
$86,760 Median | BLS Data by City

A median $86,760 a year, or $41.71 an hour, per BLS OEWS May 2025, with the middle half between $82,620 and $93,600 and a full range of $62,170 to $97,730. That is 11.6% below the $98,100 national median, though the state's 90th percentile comes within four hundred dollars of that national figure.

Little Rock-North Little Rock-Conway at $89,160, ahead of Fayetteville-Springdale-Rogers at $87,210, Jonesboro at $86,650, Fort Smith at $84,480 and Hot Springs at $82,970. The roughly six-thousand-dollar spread is modest, and it is worth noting that north-west Arkansas does not lead this particular table even though it tops most others in this unit.

Through the Arkansas State Board of Dental Examiners. You need a CODA-accredited dental hygiene programme, a passing score on the national written examination, a board-accepted clinical examination and the Arkansas jurisprudence requirement. The board also issues permits covering expanded functions and local anaesthesia administration, and those are the credentials most worth adding — they broaden what a practice can bill for your chair time.

In real terms, better than the 11.6% gap suggests. Arkansas has a 3.9% top income tax rate with no local layer and one of the lowest costs of living in the country, so an $86,760 salary supports a standard of living that would need considerably more elsewhere. The honest caveats are a high combined sales tax, a small workforce of about 1,740 that limits employer choice outside the two main metros, and a band whose upper reaches are close at $97,730.

Because the $62,170 tenth percentile is measuring part-time and partial-year schedules rather than full-time pay. It sits more than twenty thousand dollars below the 25th percentile of $82,620 — a step far larger than any other in the band — and dental hygiene has one of the highest voluntary part-time rates of any licensed health occupation. A full-time Arkansas hygienist should read the $82,620 to $93,600 range as the realistic market.

Favourably. The nominal gap to the national median is 11.6%, but Arkansas has among the lowest housing costs in the United States, a 3.9% top income tax rate with no local income tax anywhere, and a state grocery sales tax that has been reduced to a nominal level. A hygienist earning $86,760 in Little Rock or Jonesboro has meaningfully more disposable income than one earning the national median in a coastal state. The counterweight is a high combined sales tax on non-grocery spending and, more practically, a small state workforce that limits how much choice you have if a particular practice does not suit.

Part-time work distorts the published band's bottom third, as the twenty-thousand-dollar gap between the 10th and 25th percentiles shows — the $41.71 hourly median is the cleaner benchmark for comparing daily rates across states. The figure also excludes production bonuses used by some practices, and it does not distinguish general from periodontal practice, where the procedure mix supports a higher rate. With about 1,740 hygienists statewide, the metro estimates rest on modest samples.

The board's expanded function and local anaesthesia permits first, because they change what a practice can bill for your chair time and are the clearest credential step available. Periodontal and specialist practice second. Little Rock at $89,160 over Hot Springs at $82,970 is worth about six thousand dollars, which is real but secondary. And days worked, given that the published band's bottom is a part-time artefact — moving from three days to five is the single largest change most Arkansas hygienists can make to annual income.