Medical Assistant Salary in Maine 2026,
$47,580 Median | BLS Data by City

The published Maine figure is $47,580 a year, or $22.88 an hour, per BLS OEWS May 2025, with a band from $40,220 at the 10th percentile to $59,220 at the 90th. That is 4.1% above the national median of $45,690. Maine employs 4,480 medical assistants at a location quotient of 1.33 — one of the state's more concentrated allied-health workforces.

Lewiston-Auburn, at $51,460, ahead of Portland-South Portland $48,540 and Bangor $47,120. The Lewiston-Auburn figure is notable because it equals the state's own 75th percentile: the typical medical assistant in that market is paid at a level most Maine medical assistants only reach with several years of experience elsewhere.

No. Medical assisting is unregulated in Maine — there is no state examination, registration or renewal, and no legal barrier to an employer hiring an untrained candidate. What the larger Maine health systems require instead is national certification: the AAMA's CMA, the AMT's RMA, the NHA's CCMA or the NCCT's NCMA, plus current BLS. Those employers also tie the clinical tasks they will delegate to the certification held, so the credential shapes the job even though the state does not require it.

Complete a medical assisting programme at a Maine community college or a private career school, then sit a national certification exam — CMA, RMA, CCMA or NCMA. No state licence exists, so the certification and a clean background check are the whole entry package. Because Maine imposes nothing, the practical advice is to choose an employer that requires certification: those are the practices paying toward the $51,460 seventy-fifth percentile rather than near the $40,220 floor.

It is a reliable entry to clinical work with an unusually high opening flow — roughly 620 posts a year pro-rated, on a 4,480-person workforce — and Maine pays 4.1% above the national median. The limits are the band and the housing: $59,220 is the ninetieth percentile, so the ceiling arrives quickly, and southern Maine's cost of living absorbs much of the premium. Many Maine medical assistants use the role as a step toward nursing or another clinical qualification, which is part of why so many posts turn over.

Because it is a concentrated health-care employment centre with a smaller candidate pool than its clinical capacity requires. Lewiston-Auburn hosts significant hospital and outpatient employment for its size, and it does not have Portland's depth of available candidates or its inflow from the wider New England market. The result is a metro median of $51,460 — exactly Maine's 75th percentile — against Portland-South Portland's $48,540, and it is one of the few places in Maine where the smaller market genuinely pays better in real terms.

It covers a role whose content varies enormously by employer, because Maine regulates none of it. A medical assistant in a large health system with a certification requirement performs a defined clinical scope; one in a small independent practice may be doing reception and rooming with no clinical delegation at all. Both are counted in SOC 31-9092. The $40,220 tenth percentile and the $59,220 ninetieth are, in effect, describing two different jobs that share a job title.

Employer type and certification, in that order — and location more than usual for this occupation. A certified assistant in a large Maine health system with a defined clinical scope earns materially more than an uncertified one in a small practice, and that is most of the distance from the $45,420 twenty-fifth percentile to the $51,460 seventy-fifth. Above that, lead and clinical-coordinator roles carrying training, scheduling and quality responsibility reach the $59,220 top decile. Specialty practice — cardiology, orthopaedics, dermatology — pays above general primary care throughout.