Physical Therapist Assistant Salary in Virginia 2026,
$73,760 Median | BLS Data by City

The published Virginia figure is $73,760 a year, or $35.46 an hour, per BLS OEWS May 2025, with a band from $54,170 at the 10th percentile to $93,600 at the 90th and quartiles at $60,810 and $80,400. That is 7.9% above the national median of $68,380. The row is SOC 31-2021, an exact match to the occupation.

Yes. Virginia participates in the Physical Therapy Licensure Compact, so an assistant holding a compact-eligible licence in another member state can obtain a privilege to practise in Virginia without submitting a full application, and a Virginia licensee can do the same elsewhere. That is a substantial practical advantage over the non-compact states, where a full application and processing period precede the first working day.

Staunton-Stuarts Draft at $79,590, then Lynchburg $75,420, Charlottesville $74,010, Richmond $73,640 and Winchester $73,570. The Shenandoah Valley leading a metro table is a recurring Virginia pattern — small markets with thin clinician supply competing for people who could work elsewhere. Northern Virginia is absent because the Washington metropolitan area is published as a multi-state metro.

In the smaller markets on the published data, and in home health by setting. Staunton-Stuarts Draft at $79,590 leads Richmond's $73,640 while costing far less to live in. By setting, the $80,400 seventy-fifth percentile and $93,600 ninetieth are largely home health caseloads with travel and productivity components, and lead or clinical instructor roles.

The data supports it. A 7.9% premium over the national median, a 1.13 location quotient indicating the state uses assistants above the national rate, compact portability that protects the credential's value if you move, and an income tax topping out at 5.75% with no local layer. The limits are the $93,600 ceiling, beyond which progression requires the doctoral physical therapist qualification, and the physical demands of the work.

Because the credential is the whole of the job's portability. A physical therapist assistant's clinical skills transfer perfectly across state lines; what does not transfer, in a non-compact state, is the legal authority to use them. The compact converts a multi-month application into a privilege obtainable quickly, which lets clinicians follow work, lets employers recruit across state lines, and lets a licensee take a temporary or travel assignment without permanent relocation. Virginia's membership, alongside Texas's and Florida's in this batch, contrasts sharply with New York and California, neither of which participates.

Thin supply meeting steady demand. Staunton-Stuarts Draft publishes the highest figure in this Virginia unit for both physical therapist assistants and welders — two occupations with nothing in common except that both require people willing to live and work in a small market. Rehabilitation demand follows population and age, which the Shenandoah Valley has in abundance; the accredited programmes producing assistants are concentrated in the larger metros; and an employer in Staunton competing for a graduate who could stay in Richmond has to pay for it. For a candidate willing to work outside the major markets, Virginia offers a wage premium and a large cost-of-living saving simultaneously.

With caution about the state median. Virginia's $73,760 sits above three of its five published metros, which is arithmetically possible only if employment outside those metros — including the substantial Northern Virginia healthcare market published as part of the Washington multi-state metro — is pulling the state figure up. That means the state median is not a good proxy for any particular published market, and a candidate should compare against the specific metro figure relevant to them. For Northern Virginia itself, employer-specific information is the only reliable source.