Occupational Therapist Salary in Arkansas 2026,
$106,360 Median | BLS Data by City

The published Arkansas figure is $106,360 a year, or $51.14 an hour, per BLS OEWS May 2025, with a band from $65,160 at the 10th percentile to $144,250 at the 90th. That is 6.0% above the national median of $100,330. Arkansas employs 2,160 occupational therapists at a location quotient of 1.59 — one of the more concentrated OT workforces in the country relative to state size.

Fayetteville-Springdale-Rogers leads at $107,830, then Jonesboro $106,360, Little Rock-North Little Rock-Conway $104,680, Fort Smith $97,740 and Hot Springs $82,410. The 30%-plus spread between top and bottom is the widest of any occupation in this Arkansas group, and it tracks the mix of employers in each metro more than it tracks cost of living.

The Arkansas State Medical Board's Occupational Therapy Examining Committee, which is unusual — most states run a standalone OT board. Licensure requires a degree from an ACOTE-accredited programme, the NBCOT examination and the OTR credential, plus continuing education at renewal. The same committee licenses occupational therapy assistants, so an Arkansas OT supervising OTAs deals with a single regulator for both.

Because the demand is structural rather than metropolitan. A location quotient of 1.59 reflects heavy OT use in school-based and early-intervention services, in home health across rural counties, and in skilled nursing for an ageing population — settings that exist everywhere in Arkansas rather than being concentrated in one city. Those are also the settings that are hardest to staff, which is why the state pays 6.0% above the national median rather than discounting for abundance.

Arkansas's top individual income tax rate fell to 3.9% in the 2024 reduction, and at the $106,360 median an OT is inside that top bracket, so the rate applies to most of the salary. Against peer states publishing similar medians — Maryland $106,980 and Colorado $106,720 — Arkansas's rate is lower, and the state's housing costs are materially lower still. That combination is what makes a nominal 6.0% premium over the national median feel larger in practice than it reads.

Because concentration here measures need, not surplus. A location quotient of 1.59 arises from the mix of settings Arkansas relies on — school districts obliged to provide therapy services, home health serving dispersed rural patients, and skilled nursing for an older population — rather than from an oversupply of therapists. Those posts have to be filled across a wide geography with a limited number of in-state graduates, so employers bid up, and the median lands 6.0% above the national figure.

The $65,160 tenth percentile is doing something specific and it is easy to misread. Much of Arkansas's OT demand is school-based, and school contracts are paid on an academic calendar; annualised in OEWS, a nine-month contract looks like a low salary rather than a different work pattern. Combined with part-time and new-graduate posts, that is what stretches the bottom of the band. A full-time clinical OT in Arkansas should reason from the $81,810 twenty-fifth percentile upward.

Setting and mileage. Home health is the clearest lever — per-visit pay plus travel across rural counties is what carries a therapist toward the $128,220 seventy-fifth percentile, and it is the setting Arkansas finds hardest to staff. Contract therapy companies serving multiple skilled-nursing facilities pay similarly for the coverage. Specialisation matters too: hand therapy and paediatric early intervention are scarce skills in this state, and the difference between Fayetteville-Springdale-Rogers at $107,830 and Hot Springs at $82,410 is largely a difference in which of these employers are present.