EMT Salary in Texas 2026,
$37,260 Median | BLS Data by City

Texas EMTs earn a median $37,260 a year, $17.91 an hour, per BLS OEWS May 2025, with the middle half between $35,130 and $44,240 and a full range of $30,320 to $52,160. That is 16.2% below the $44,470 national median, and while Texas takes no income tax, a gap that size is not closed by tax treatment.

Austin-Round Rock-San Marcos at $45,740, then College Station-Bryan at $44,420, Midland at $44,140, Houston-Pasadena-The Woodlands at $38,890 and Abilene at $38,290. Austin's advantage is structural: it runs a municipal third-service EMS department with civil-service pay scales, while much of Texas relies on private and hospital-district providers paying closer to the statewide median.

Through the Department of State Health Services, which certifies rather than licenses EMS personnel and administers the certification levels from Emergency Care Attendant through EMT, Advanced EMT and Paramedic. Certification requires an approved course, the National Registry examination and a background check. Texas participates in the interstate EMS personnel licensure compact, so certification from another member state is recognised for practice privileges.

No — Texas has no personal or local income tax, so the whole $37,260 median is subject only to federal tax. At this income level the saving runs to a few hundred or a couple of thousand dollars a year, which is meaningful but does not offset the 16.2% gap to the national median. Texas's sales tax and rent-embedded property tax take back a noticeable share of it in the Austin and Dallas-Fort Worth markets.

Financially, it is the clearest move available. Texas EMTs sit at a $37,260 median; Texas paramedics are a separate BLS occupation with a substantially higher band, and the DSHS certification pathway from EMT through Advanced EMT to Paramedic is designed to be walked while working. Fire service and hospital-district employment in Texas usually attaches its own pay step to the paramedic certification on top of the market difference.

Because of who employs them. Austin-Round Rock-San Marcos at $45,740 is dominated by a municipal third-service EMS department operating on civil-service pay scales with negotiated step increases — a structure that sets a floor well above the market. Houston-Pasadena-The Woodlands at $38,890 has a much larger private and hospital-district transfer sector competing on contract price. College Station-Bryan at $44,420 and Midland at $44,140 pay well for a third reason again: a thin labour pool that has to be bid for.

The $37,260 median includes a large Texas private non-emergency transfer sector that pays close to the bottom of the band, and it excludes overtime, which for EMTs on 24- or 48-hour shift patterns is a substantial part of actual annual earnings. A Texas EMT working a full shift rotation with routine overtime will bank more than the annualised figure suggests. Even so, this is a genuinely low-paid occupation in Texas relative to the country, and this page should not be read as understating a good market.

Shift pattern first, employer type second, certification level third. Texas services running 24- and 48-hour shifts generate scheduled overtime that lifts annual earnings above base; municipal and hospital-district employers pay step scales and differentials that private transfer services do not; and each DSHS certification level from EMT through Advanced EMT carries its own increment. Stacking all three is how a Texas EMT reaches the $44,240 seventy-fifth percentile and the $52,160 ninetieth without becoming a paramedic — but the paramedic route is faster.