Physical Therapist Assistant Salary in Colorado 2026,
$64,810 Median | BLS Data by City

The published Colorado figure is $64,810 a year, or $31.16 an hour, per BLS OEWS May 2025, with a band from $48,580 at the 10th percentile to $89,550 at the 90th. That is 5.2% below the national median of $68,380. Colorado employs only 1,350 PTAs at a location quotient of 0.65 — around two-thirds the national employment rate for the occupation.

Pueblo, marginally, at $65,970 — ahead of Colorado Springs $65,620, Denver-Aurora-Centennial $65,320 and Grand Junction $65,140, all within about 1.3% of one another. Fort Collins-Loveland is the outlier at $60,970. That Denver carries no premium is the useful finding: the state's largest metro has the deepest supply of assistants and therefore the least wage pressure.

Yes. The Colorado Physical Therapy Board, within the Department of Regulatory Agencies, issues the PTA licence on a CAPTE-accredited programme, the National Physical Therapy Examination for PTAs and a Colorado jurisprudence requirement. Colorado also participates in the Physical Therapy Licensure Compact, so a PTA already holding a compact-eligible licence in another member state can obtain a privilege to practise here without submitting a second full application.

Colorado applies a flat 4.40% income tax at every level of this band, plus a FAMLI paid-family-leave premium of 0.44% of wages in 2026, deducted from pay alongside it — an effective state charge nearer 4.84% at the $64,810 median. That is still low by national standards, but it should be included when comparing with peer states publishing similar figures, such as Arizona at $64,650, which has a lower flat rate and no equivalent premium.

It is a state with a high ceiling and a narrow door. The $89,550 ninetieth percentile is well above what most states offer this occupation, and the national growth projection is 22%. But Colorado employs PTAs at only 0.65 times the national rate on 1,350 jobs, so posts are comparatively scarce, and the median of $64,810 sits 5.2% under the national figure against a cost of living that does not. The strongest position is home health or a hard-to-staff mountain location.

Because its rehabilitation sector is therapist-led. Colorado has a dense supply of licensed physical therapists, a large outpatient orthopaedic and sports-medicine sector that markets on therapist-delivered care, and payer arrangements in that sector that do not push work down to the assistant grade the way skilled-nursing-heavy states do. A location quotient of 0.65 on 1,350 jobs is the arithmetic result: the assistant role exists here, but it has never become the backbone of delivery.

It is a below-national wage in an above-national cost state, and the gap is real rather than statistical. Denver-Aurora-Centennial publishes $65,320 — essentially the state median — against housing costs far above the US average, so a PTA there is worse off in practice than the nominal comparison with Arizona at $64,650 or Kansas at $64,500 suggests. The $89,550 ninetieth percentile is genuinely attractive, but it belongs to specific settings rather than to seniority in a standard clinic post.

Setting and location difficulty. Home health paid per visit across the Front Range is the main lever from the $64,810 median to the $77,280 seventy-fifth percentile, with acute rehabilitation close behind. Above that, the $89,550 top decile is largely mountain and Western Slope posts where housing costs deter candidates and clinics must pay to fill a role at all — plus lead assistant positions in larger practices. Metro choice inside the Front Range does almost nothing: four of the five published metros are within about 1.3%.