Pharmacist Salary in Minnesota 2026,
$159,740 Median | BLS Data by City

A median $159,740 a year, or $76.80 an hour, per BLS OEWS May 2025 — 13.4% above the national median of $140,910. The middle half falls between $135,520 and $169,140 and the full band runs $98,150 to $174,660. The low 10th percentile reflects relief and part-time practice rather than a full-time entry rate, so the median is the figure to use.

Rochester at $164,250, ahead of Minneapolis-St. Paul-Bloomington $160,990, Mankato $157,010, Duluth $154,860 and St. Cloud $147,530. Every one of those five exceeds the national median of $140,910, and the fact that Rochester leads rather than the Twin Cities reflects the concentration of clinical, specialty and research pharmacy around an academic medical centre.

Through the Minnesota Board of Pharmacy. You need an accredited Doctor of Pharmacy degree, completed intern hours, a passing NAPLEX score and the Minnesota jurisprudence examination. The board also registers technicians, licenses pharmacies and administers the prescription monitoring programme, so it is the single regulatory point of contact for practice in the state.

Because the 25th percentile at $135,520 through the 90th at $174,660 spans under forty thousand dollars — a narrow range for a profession at this level. That usually indicates a market dominated by large integrated systems and chains with structured pay bands rather than by highly variable independent practice. Minnesota's large health systems employ pharmacists in defined clinical roles with defined compensation, which raises the middle and limits the tail in both directions.

On the published figures it is one of the stronger markets in this data. A median 13.4% above the national figure, every published metro above the national median, an established clinical pharmacy tradition and early adoption of medication therapy management as a reimbursable service all point the same way. The offset is a 9.85% top income tax rate, among the highest in the country, which narrows though does not eliminate the advantage on a take-home basis.

Because the composition of pharmacy work differs, not because of cost of living. A metropolitan pharmacy market contains a great deal of community and chain retail practice alongside hospital work; a small city anchored by a major academic medical centre is weighted toward clinical, specialty, oncology, transplant and research pharmacy, all of which pay above retail dispensing. Rochester at $164,250 against Minneapolis-St. Paul-Bloomington at $160,990 is that composition difference showing through. The practical lesson is the one the whole Minnesota table teaches: in this state, practice setting drives pay and geography barely does, since even St. Cloud at $147,530 clears the national median.

The 10th percentile of $98,150 sits so far below the 25th that anyone reading the band as a career ladder will misjudge the starting point — the bottom is relief and part-time work, not entry-level full-time practice. The figure reports wages and salaries and excludes sign-on and retention incentives. And with about 6,310 pharmacists across community, hospital, ambulatory clinical, long-term care and specialty settings, one median covers roles with genuinely different work at similar money.

Practice setting first: hospital, ambulatory clinical and specialty roles above community retail, which is roughly the distance from the $135,520 twenty-fifth percentile to the $169,140 seventy-fifth. Residency training and board certification second, which is what the state's clinical pharmacy tradition is built on and what the Rochester and Twin Cities systems recruit for. Management responsibility third. Informatics and medication therapy management fourth — Minnesota's early adoption of reimbursable pharmacist services created roles here that many states still do not have. Geography contributes about seventeen thousand dollars, and every metro clears the national median regardless.