Occupational Therapist Salary in Virginia 2026,
$100,710 Median | BLS Data by City

The published Virginia figure is $100,710 a year, or $48.42 an hour, per BLS OEWS May 2025, with a band from $70,200 at the 10th percentile to $134,570 at the 90th and quartiles at $83,740 and $118,740. That is level with the national median of $100,330. The row is SOC 29-1122, an exact match to the occupation.

Winchester publishes $106,540 against Richmond's $105,550 and Virginia Beach-Chesapeake-Norfolk's $99,400. Small-market premiums are common in this profession — a smaller metro with a thin clinician pool has to pay to attract graduates who could work in a larger city. Winchester sits in the northern Shenandoah Valley within reach of the Washington market, which may add competitive pressure that the more isolated Virginia metros do not face.

The Board of Medicine, within the Department of Health Professions — an unusual placement, since most states use a dedicated occupational therapy board or a general professional regulator. Licensure requires an accredited degree, supervised fieldwork and the national certification examination, with continuing competency for renewal. Occupational therapy assistants are licensed separately by the same board.

Not here. The Washington metropolitan area is published by BLS as its own multi-state metro covering parts of Virginia, Maryland and the District of Columbia, so occupational therapy employment in Arlington, Alexandria, Fairfax and Loudoun contributes to Virginia's statewide figure but appears in no Virginia metro row. Anyone evaluating the state's largest healthcare market should be aware that this page cannot show it directly.

By setting rather than by metro — the published table spans about seven percent while the band from $83,740 at the 25th percentile to $118,740 at the 75th spans considerably more. Hand therapy, neurological rehabilitation and acute or private outpatient rehabilitation pay above school and early intervention work. Virginia's single licence makes moving between settings straightforward, which is a genuine advantage over states requiring a separate school credential.

Enough to change how every Virginia figure on this site should be read. The Washington metropolitan area's Virginia component is among the wealthiest and most professionally dense labour markets in the country, and it is published as part of a multi-state metro rather than as a Virginia one. That means Virginia's statewide median incorporates it while the metro table cannot show it. For occupational therapy the distortion is modest — the state figure is level with national and the published metros cluster around it — but for occupations more concentrated in Northern Virginia the effect is large, and this unit's CPA record demonstrates it starkly.

Administratively, mainly that you have to know where to apply. Virginia's Department of Health Professions holds a number of boards, and occupational therapy sits under the Board of Medicine rather than having one of its own — an arrangement that catches out therapists relocating from states with dedicated occupational therapy boards. Substantively it changes little about the requirements, which are the standard accredited degree, fieldwork and national examination. What matters more practically is what Virginia does not require: no separate school-practice credential, so one licence covers every setting.

Middle of the pack, with an important caveat. The state median is level with national, the location quotient is essentially at the national rate, and the peer group of South Carolina, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Illinois and Ohio sits within a percent. Virginia's income tax tops out at 5.75% with no local layer, which is favourable. The caveat is the missing Northern Virginia data: the state's largest and best-paid healthcare market is invisible on this page, and a therapist considering it should seek employer-specific information rather than relying on a state median that averages it with Lynchburg.