Physical Therapist Salary in Alabama 2026,
$97,290 Median | BLS Data by City

A median $97,290 a year, or $46.77 an hour, per BLS OEWS May 2025, with the middle half between $81,850 and $115,210 and a full range of $74,770 to $133,710. That is 5.3% below the $102,760 national median, but the band is wide and the state's 75th percentile clears the national median by more than twelve thousand dollars.

Gadsden at $106,720 and Tuscaloosa at $106,450, both well ahead of Huntsville at $99,760, Anniston-Oxford at $98,520 and Birmingham at $97,750. Alabama's smaller markets paying more than its largest medical centre is an inversion worth taking seriously — it reflects how thinly staffed the non-metro parts of this state are.

Yes. Alabama participates in the Physical Therapy Licensure Compact, so a therapist holding a compact-eligible licence in another member state can obtain a compact privilege to practise here without applying for a full second Alabama licence. Given a location quotient of 0.84, that route carries a meaningful share of the state's contract and rural post-acute staffing. If Alabama is your home state, your primary licence still comes from the Alabama Board of Physical Therapy.

Because supply is thinner where the graduates do not go. Alabama employs sixteen per cent fewer physical therapists per worker than the country does, and the shortfall is worst outside Birmingham and Huntsville. Gadsden at $106,720 and Tuscaloosa at $106,450 are employers bidding to fill posts in markets that new graduates rarely target. Birmingham has the state's densest concentration of therapists and, correspondingly, the least need to pay a premium — which is why it sits at the bottom of the table at $97,750.

Setting more than title. Home health and contract post-acute work pay on productivity and routinely run well above employed outpatient rates, and in a state with a location quotient of 0.84 and substantial rural demand, travel and contract assignments carry a premium on top. ABPTS board certification in orthopaedics, neurology or geriatrics and clinic or regional management are the employed routes toward the $115,210 seventy-fifth percentile and beyond.

The width of the band and the cost of living together. A 5.3% gap to the national median is modest to begin with, but the more important number is the 75th percentile at $115,210, which is more than twelve thousand dollars above the national median — a substantial share of Alabama therapists are paid at or above national rates. Layer on the lowest property taxes in the country and living costs among the lowest anywhere, and a therapist in the upper half of this band is in a genuinely strong real position. The constraint is that reaching that upper half generally means home health, contract work or a small-market post rather than a comfortable Birmingham outpatient job.

Setting drives everything and is invisible in the median. Outpatient orthopaedic, inpatient rehabilitation, skilled nursing, home health and school-based practice all sit inside this one number, and home health and contract post-acute work — paid on productivity — account for most of the distance to the $133,710 ninetieth percentile. School-based and some hospital posts sit lower with better hours. The figure also excludes productivity bonuses and the sign-on incentives used heavily in Alabama's rural counties.

Setting first: home health and contract post-acute work pay on a different basis and are where the top of this band lives. Geography second, and it points away from the big city — Gadsden at $106,720 and Tuscaloosa at $106,450 against Birmingham at $97,750. Then ABPTS specialty certification and clinic or regional leadership. The compact privilege is worth knowing about if you want to take assignments across state lines, and Birmingham's occupational tax is worth factoring into any comparison involving a job in that city.