Optometrist Salary in Texas 2026,
$126,000 Median | BLS Data by City

A median $126,000 a year, or $60.58 an hour, per BLS OEWS May 2025 — 7.7% below the national median of $136,570, with no state income tax taken from it. The middle half falls between $101,700 and $155,090 and the full band runs $54,180 to $164,420. The very low 10th percentile is part-time practice, so the median is the right reference.

Killeen-Temple at $160,460, well ahead of Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington $140,790, Lubbock $140,070, Corpus Christi $138,120 and El Paso $132,240. A mid-sized central Texas market topping the table by nearly twenty thousand dollars over Dallas-Fort Worth is a recruitment premium rather than a cost-of-living effect.

Through the Texas Optometry Board. You need a Doctor of Optometry degree from an accredited school, the national board examinations and the Texas jurisprudence examination. Therapeutic and optometric glaucoma specialist certifications are available under separate board authorisation and expand what you may treat and prescribe — they are the practical credential ladder in this state.

Because non-metropolitan and part-time practice is pulling the statewide figure down. All five published metros sit above $126,000, with even El Paso at $132,240 above it, which means the observations dragging the state median lower are outside those markets — rural practice, and the part-time and fill-in work that the $54,180 tenth percentile represents.

It is one of the routes into the upper band, along with medical optometry and glaucoma certification. Texas optometry has a substantial independent and small-group practice sector, and ownership converts clinical work into practice profit. The considerations are the state franchise tax on business entities above the revenue threshold, and the Texas Optometry Board's rules on commercial relationships with optical retailers, both of which belong in any structuring conversation.

That the constraint is willingness to practise there rather than the value of the work. Killeen-Temple at $160,460 is competing for optometrists against Dallas-Fort Worth, Austin and Houston, all of which attract graduates on lifestyle grounds and can therefore pay less — $140,790 in Dallas-Fort Worth's case. The nearly twenty-thousand-dollar premium is what a central Texas market must offer to fill a chair. For an optometrist indifferent to location, that is the single largest published lever in this state, larger than any certification, and it requires no additional qualification at all.

The 10th percentile of $54,180 is so far below the 25th that the bottom of this band is part-time and fill-in practice, not entry-level full-time work. It is a wage and salary measure, so practice-owner income is under-represented in a state with a substantial independent optometry sector. And with every published metro above the state median, the statewide figure is being set by observations the metro table does not show.

Location first, unusually — Killeen-Temple at $160,460 against the state median of $126,000 requires no additional credential. Board certifications second: therapeutic and optometric glaucoma specialist authorisation expand clinical scope and are the ladder Texas actually provides. Practice setting third, with medical optometry and independent practice above retail-affiliated work. Ownership fourth, subject to franchise tax and the board's commercial relationship rules. Full-time status fifth, given how much of the lower band is part-time.