Paramedic Salary in Virginia 2026,
$60,480 Median | BLS Data by City

The published Virginia figure is $60,480 a year, or $29.08 an hour, per BLS OEWS May 2025, with a band from $42,520 at the 10th percentile to $77,280 at the 90th and quartiles at $49,960 and $67,030. That is level with the national median of $60,600. The row is SOC 29-2043, an exact match to the occupation.

The Office of Emergency Medical Services within the Virginia Department of Health — not the Department of Health Professions that holds the state's clinical boards. Certification runs from emergency medical responder through EMT, advanced EMT and paramedic, each with its own training and examination requirements and defined scope. Practice is additionally governed by the protocols of an operational medical director.

A location quotient of 0.74 across 1,960 paramedics reflects Virginia's EMS delivery model. The state has an unusually large volunteer and combination system by national standards, with many localities served by volunteer rescue squads, and in fire-based systems the paramedic function is often performed by cross-trained firefighters who are counted on the firefighter occupation code rather than this one. The paid, paramedic-coded workforce is therefore smaller than the state's EMS activity would suggest.

Virginia Beach-Chesapeake-Norfolk at $64,120, then Charlottesville $63,870, Richmond $63,750, Winchester $60,600 and Roanoke $59,020. The spread is under nine percent. Note that Northern Virginia does not appear — the Washington metropolitan area is published as a multi-state metro, so Fairfax, Arlington and Loudoun EMS employment is absent from this table.

Yes, in defined circumstances. Virginia participates in the EMS interstate compact, which permits certified personnel from member states to practise across state lines for purposes including mutual aid and disaster response. It is not a general work authorisation for taking a job in another state, but for a profession that deploys to emergencies across jurisdictions it removes a real barrier, and it is a meaningful contrast with the non-compact arrangements in several other professions in this batch.

That the paid paramedic market in Virginia is smaller and differently shaped than in states with predominantly career EMS. Many Virginia localities are served wholly or partly by volunteer rescue squads, and in fire-based systems paramedic-certified firefighters are counted as firefighters rather than paramedics — so the 1,960 figure understates how many people in Virginia hold paramedic certification and use it. For a candidate the practical implication is that the best-compensated route into EMS work here often runs through a fire department rather than through an ambulance service, because career fire positions carry pension and benefit structures that private and third-service ambulance employers rarely match.

Employer type and additional certification, in that order. The $67,030 seventy-fifth percentile is largely career fire department and senior operational roles; the $77,280 ninetieth percentile is EMS supervision, flight paramedic work and critical care transport, all of which require certification beyond the paramedic level and carry substantially expanded scope. What does not move earnings much is time — the $49,960-to-$60,480 stretch describes a working paramedic and the years within it do not add greatly. Anyone planning a long career should be targeting a fire-based position or a critical care and flight track early.

Mixed, and the mix matters. The pro-rated figure of about 100 openings a year is small in absolute terms, but Virginia's ongoing transition from volunteer toward combination and career staffing is converting unpaid positions into paid ones, which generates openings the projection does not capture. Against that, EMS nationally faces a well-documented recruitment and retention problem driven by pay levels that this page's $60,480 median illustrates, by shift demands, and by reimbursement models that pay for transport rather than for the care delivered. The profession's economics are the constraint, not the demand.