Paramedic Salary in Texas 2026,
$57,500 Median | BLS Data by City

Texas paramedics earn a median $57,500 a year, $27.65 an hour, per BLS OEWS May 2025, with the middle half between $47,740 and $63,510 and a full range of $41,030 to $77,700. That is 5.1% below the $60,600 national median in nominal terms, and roughly level after tax, since Texas takes no income tax.

Austin-Round Rock-San Marcos at $67,290, well ahead of Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington at $60,300, Houston-Pasadena-The Woodlands at $60,130, Waco at $58,390 and San Antonio-New Braunfels at $54,700. Austin's municipal third-service EMS department pays on civil-service scales with step increases; most of the rest of the state runs through hospital districts, private contractors and fire-based systems that pay differently.

Through the Department of State Health Services, which certifies rather than licenses EMS personnel. The pathway runs from EMT through Advanced EMT to Paramedic, each level requiring approved coursework, documented field experience and National Registry examination. Texas participates in the interstate EMS personnel compact, so a paramedic certified in another member state can practise here under compact recognition rather than starting the process again.

No. Texas has no personal income tax and no local income tax, so a paramedic at the state median of $57,500 pays nothing to the state. The saving against a graduated-rate state at this income is usually worth about as much as the 5.1% nominal gap to the national median, which puts Texas paramedics roughly level in take-home terms. Rent in Austin and Dallas absorbs more of the benefit than it does in the rest of the state.

Flight and critical-care transport, municipal civil-service departments, and supervisory posts. Flight paramedic roles require critical-care certification on top of DSHS paramedic certification and pay accordingly; a municipal EMS scale of the Austin type at $67,290 pays above the statewide median for standard response work. Stacking overtime on a 24- or 48-hour rotation is what carries a Texas paramedic from the $63,510 seventy-fifth percentile toward the $77,700 ninetieth.

Employment model, not cost of living. Austin-Round Rock-San Marcos at $67,290 runs a standalone municipal EMS department on civil-service pay scales. Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington at $60,300 and Houston-Pasadena-The Woodlands at $60,130 mix fire-based, hospital-district and private providers. San Antonio-New Braunfels at $54,700 is heavily fire-based, and fire-department paramedics are often coded and paid as firefighters rather than through this occupation, which pulls the published EMS figure down. The statewide $57,500 median blends all four models.

This is an annualised wage figure for an occupation that runs on 24- and 48-hour shift patterns with routine scheduled overtime. Actual annual earnings for a full-time Texas paramedic frequently exceed the published band because of that overtime, which OEWS's hourly-to-annual conversion does not fully capture. On the other side, the $41,030 tenth percentile reflects part-time and rural service work that is genuinely paid at that level.

Three levers, in order. Employer type first — a municipal civil-service department pays a structurally higher scale than a private contractor, which is the entire Austin-versus-San Antonio story. Certification second: critical-care and flight paramedic credentials open the highest-paid transport work in the state. Overtime third, and it is not marginal — shift-rotation overtime is how paramedics reach the $77,700 ninetieth percentile, and Texas taxes none of it.