MRI Technologist Salary in Texas 2026,
$96,780 Median | BLS Data by City

Texas MRI technologists earn a median $96,780 a year, $46.53 an hour, per BLS OEWS May 2025, with the middle half between $83,860 and $105,980 and a full range of $76,920 to $114,160. That is 1.4% above the $95,480 national median, and Texas takes no income tax out of it.

Houston-Pasadena-The Woodlands at $102,570 and Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington at $102,490 are effectively level at the top, followed by Killeen-Temple at $96,860, San Antonio-New Braunfels at $94,350 and Austin-Round Rock-San Marcos at $93,490. The big metros leading is unusual for a Texas clinical occupation and reflects where MR scanner density actually sits.

No. Texas regulates medical radiologic technologists who use ionising radiation, and magnetic resonance imaging uses none, so MRI falls outside that scheme entirely and there is no Texas MRI credential to obtain. Employers screen on ARRT certification in magnetic resonance or the ARMRIT registry, plus basic life support and documented MR safety training. Most Texas MR technologists come through ARRT radiography first and cross-train.

No. Texas has no personal income tax and no local income tax, so the whole of a $96,780 median salary is subject only to federal tax — as is call pay, evening differential and overtime, which in this role can be a substantial share of annual earnings.

Substantially, yes, and it is the standard route. The Texas MRI median of $96,780 sits well above what general radiography pays in the same state, the cross-training is done on the job while employed, and the resulting ARRT (MR) credential is portable nationally. Because Texas does not license the modality separately, the barrier is a certification and clinical hours rather than a state application.

Scarcity relative to scanner base. Texas's MRI location quotient of 0.75 across about 2,930 technologists means the state employs fewer MR technologists per worker than the national average, while its imaging capacity — the Texas Medical Center, the Dallas-Fort Worth hospital systems, and a fast-growing suburban outpatient sector — keeps expanding. Fewer technologists chasing more scanners produces the $96,780 median and the $102,570 and $102,490 metro figures in Houston and Dallas-Fort Worth.

The state sample is small — about 2,930 technologists — so percentile values move between vintages more than in a large occupation, and the metro rows are correspondingly thin. The other caveat is that this figure covers technologists working primarily in MR; a radiographer who covers MR occasionally will be coded and paid in radiography, at a lower band. Read this page as the pay for the modality, not the pay for the ability to run a scanner sometimes.

Call, shift and modality stacking. MRI in Texas hospitals runs extended hours with on-call coverage for emergency scans, and the call and evening differentials are where a technologist moves from the $96,780 median toward the $105,980 seventy-fifth percentile — untaxed by the state. Holding a second modality certification, particularly CT alongside MR, makes a technologist schedulable across more of the department and is the most common basis for a lead post reaching the $114,160 ninetieth percentile.