Physical Therapist Assistant Salary in Missouri 2026,
$63,770 Median | BLS Data by City

Missouri physical therapist assistants earn a median $63,770 a year, or $30.66 an hour, per BLS OEWS May 2025, with a band from $50,460 at the 10th percentile to $79,000 at the 90th. That is 6.7% below the national median of $68,380. The high floor is the notable feature — a $50,460 tenth percentile for a two-year credential reflects the fact that Missouri licenses this role and permits no on-the-job entry.

St. Louis, at $65,820, with Kansas City $65,580 essentially level, then Columbia $63,540, Cape Girardeau $61,560 and St. Joseph $61,510 — barely $4,300 across the whole table. Since St. Louis and Kansas City each impose a 1% earnings tax on wages earned in the city, applying to commuters as well as residents, Columbia's slightly lower gross may well be the better net position.

Yes, without exception. Physical therapist assistants are licensed by the Missouri Board of Registration for the Healing Arts through its Advisory Commission for Physical Therapists, requiring graduation from a CAPTE-accredited PTA programme and a passing score on the National Physical Therapy Examination for PTAs, with practice under a licensed physical therapist's supervision. There is no on-the-job pathway into the role.

The state's top rate is 4.8% after the 2024 reduction, which is moderate. The local consideration is that the two best-paying metros — St. Louis and Kansas City — each levy a 1% earnings tax on wages earned in the city, whether or not the employee lives there. On a metro table this tight, that 1% is enough to reverse the apparent ordering.

The numbers are favourable for a two-year credential. A $63,770 median with a $50,460 floor, a licence that blocks unqualified entry, a location quotient of 1.18 showing the state uses the role heavily, and a projected 22% national employment growth rate through 2034. The main caveat is the ceiling: the $79,000 ninetieth percentile is the realistic top, and reaching it generally means post-acute productivity work or contract assignments rather than a promotion track.

That licensing works, at least on wages. Missouri's PTA tenth percentile of $50,460 sits well above the tenth percentiles of the state's unlicensed clinical support occupations — its surgical technologist and phlebotomist rows both start far lower. The difference is not skill or responsibility; it is that a Missouri clinic cannot hire an unqualified person into the PTA role and pay them accordingly, because the statute requires a CAPTE-accredited degree and a national examination. Every person on this row cleared the same bar, and the distribution reflects it.

The productivity model at the top of the band. Home health and skilled nursing, which occupy the $73,940 seventy-fifth percentile, frequently pay per visit rather than by salary, and OEWS annualises that into a single figure which flatters steady-caseload periods and hides the variance. Rural Missouri home health also carries substantial vehicle costs that the published wage does not net out. And part-time working, though less common here than in states with a lower floor, still means the hourly median of $30.66 is the fairer comparison for anyone not full-time.

Setting first, and by a wide margin — the move from outpatient clinic to home health or skilled nursing is worth roughly the distance from the median to the $73,940 upper quartile. Contract and travel work covering rural Missouri vacancies is second, paying a premium for exactly the reason those vacancies persist. Clinical instruction with a CAPTE programme is a modest third. Geography, unusually, is close to irrelevant here — and what geography does affect is mostly the 1% city earnings tax rather than the wage.