Optometrist Salary in New York 2026,
$161,140 Median | BLS Data by City

New York optometrists earn a median $161,140 a year, $77.47 an hour, per BLS OEWS May 2025, with the middle half between $127,900 and $175,740 and a full range of $95,460 to $203,040. That is 18.0% above the $136,570 national median, before New York's state and, for city residents, municipal income tax.

Buffalo-Cheektowaga at $165,640, then Albany-Schenectady-Troy at $164,020, Kiryas Joel-Poughkeepsie-Newburgh at $161,850, New York-Newark-Jersey City at $161,030 and Rochester at $159,380. The entire table spans about six thousand dollars, and the two upstate leaders come without New York City's resident income tax or its cost of living.

The New York State Education Department's Office of the Professions, through the State Board for Optometry — an unusual arrangement, since most states license optometry through a health or professional regulation agency. Licensure requires the Doctor of Optometry degree, the national board examinations and the state application, and therapeutic and diagnostic pharmaceutical agent certification is granted through the same board.

State rates run progressively to 10.9%, and at a median of $161,140 an optometrist is well into the upper brackets. A resident of the five boroughs pays an additional city income tax of roughly 3.078% to 3.876%. Employees also fund Paid Family Leave at 0.432% of wages in 2026, capped at $411.91, plus statutory disability coverage. Practising upstate removes the city layer entirely.

Practice ownership, first and foremost. The $175,740 seventy-fifth percentile and the $203,040 ninetieth are largely owner-optometrist territory, where income reflects the practice's profitability rather than a salary. Beyond that, specialty contact lens fitting, low vision rehabilitation and co-management with ophthalmology in surgical practices command premiums. Upstate practices with retiring owners are the most accessible ownership route in the state.

Because optometry pay is set by practice economics rather than local labour markets, and those economics are similar across the state. A retail optical chain pays broadly the same in Rochester at $159,380 as in New York-Newark-Jersey City at $161,030, because the revenue per patient and the schedule are comparable. What differs is the cost of living and the city income tax — which is why the upstate figures of $165,640 in Buffalo-Cheektowaga and $164,020 in Albany-Schenectady-Troy are meaningfully better in real terms than the metropolitan figure.

The New York sample is small at about 2,390 optometrists, so percentile values move between vintages more than in a large occupation. The $95,460 tenth percentile also reflects part-time and fill-in work in the retail optical sector rather than a full-time entry salary — read the $127,900 twenty-fifth percentile as the realistic employed floor. And practice-owner income is not wage income; the upper percentiles blend the two imperfectly.

It sets the boundary of what can be billed. New York grants therapeutic and diagnostic pharmaceutical agent certification through the State Board for Optometry, and the state's therapeutic scope is drawn more tightly than in several other states — which limits some of the medical eye care that optometrists elsewhere provide and bill for. The practical consequence is that New York optometry income leans more heavily on refraction, dispensing and co-management than on independent medical treatment, and practice ownership is correspondingly more important to reaching the top of the band.