Paramedic Salary in Washington 2026,
$104,310 Median | BLS Data by City

The published figure is $104,310 a year, or $50.15 an hour, per BLS OEWS May 2025 for SOC 29-2043, with a band from $61,010 at the 10th percentile to $133,040 at the 90th. That is 72.1% above the national median of $60,600 — the largest premium of any occupation in this Washington set — and even the 25th percentile of $80,320 clears the national figure comfortably.

Because of who employs them. Advanced life support in most of populated Washington is delivered by municipal and county fire departments rather than by private ambulance operators, so paramedic pay is fire-service pay: published municipal scales with longevity steps, collectively bargained, and benchmarked against neighbouring departments. That is a fundamentally different wage-setting mechanism from the private transport model that dominates in most states.

Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue, at $123,310, then Olympia-Lacey-Tumwater $120,260, Bellingham $119,970, Bremerton-Silverdale-Port Orchard $119,700 and Mount Vernon-Anacortes $109,620. The top four sit within a narrow range because neighbouring western Washington municipal employers bargain against each other's settlements, which produces convergence rather than a single dominant market.

Certification comes from the Washington State Department of Health, which oversees emergency medical services and issues EMT and paramedic certifications after an approved training programme and examination, with practice authorised under a county or regional medical programme director. In practice the route into a well-paid position usually runs through a competitive fire department hiring process first, with paramedic training undertaken after appointment.

Fewer than the pay might suggest. Only 2,110 paramedics are counted on this row statewide at a location quotient of 0.92, and the pro-rated projection is roughly 100 openings a year. The fire-based model concentrates advanced life support into a limited number of well-paid municipal positions that are contested through competitive civil-service processes rather than filled from an open labour market.

It replaces one wage-setting mechanism with another. In most states, paramedics work for private ambulance operators whose revenue comes from transport reimbursement, which caps what they can pay; the national median of $60,600 reflects that model. In Washington, advanced life support is largely a municipal fire department function, so paramedic compensation is set on a public-sector scale with longevity steps, negotiated collectively, funded from local levies and benchmarked against neighbouring jurisdictions. The result is a $104,310 median and a $123,310 seventy-fifth percentile. The trade-off is access: those positions are few and competitively filled.

That the row is narrow and should be read carefully. 2,110 jobs at a location quotient of 0.92 is a small base for a state of this size, and part of the explanation is classification — personnel employed as firefighter-paramedics may be counted on firefighter rather than paramedic rows depending on how their employer reports them, so the true number of people delivering paramedic care in Washington exceeds the count here. What the row does capture accurately is the wage level of positions classified as paramedic, and that level is genuinely and structurally high.

Overtime and shift trading, neither of which appears in a straight-time BLS figure and both of which are structural in fire-service scheduling. Beyond that: longevity steps on a municipal scale, specialty team assignments such as technical rescue or hazardous materials, paramedic instructor and field training officer roles, and promotion into medical services officer or supervisory positions that make up the $133,040 ninetieth percentile. Because Washington levies no state income tax, all of it — base, overtime and specialty pay alike — arrives without a state marginal rate applied.