Physical Therapist Salary in Colorado 2026,
$102,030 Median | BLS Data by City

Colorado physical therapists earn a median $102,030 a year, $49.05 an hour, per BLS OEWS May 2025, with the middle half between $83,320 and $118,980 and a full range of $76,460 to $132,010. That is 0.7% below the $102,760 national median.

Boulder at $102,430, then Denver-Aurora-Centennial at $102,340, Grand Junction at $102,160, Greeley at $100,170 and Pueblo at $99,250. The top three sit within three hundred dollars of each other, which means Grand Junction on the western slope pays essentially what Boulder does with far lower housing costs.

Yes. Colorado participates in the Physical Therapy Licensure Compact, so a therapist holding a compact privilege can practise across member states without a separate application in each. That makes travel therapy contracts practical and is useful in a state whose mountain and resort communities have seasonal staffing needs.

Nominally it is average — 0.7% below the national median. In real terms it depends entirely on where you live, and because pay does not vary across the state, the western slope and southern Colorado markets are much better value than the Front Range. Grand Junction at $102,160 against Boulder at $102,430 is the clearest illustration in this batch of a wage that travels while costs do not.

A flat 4.4% state income tax that does not rise with income, so additional caseload, contract or per-visit home health income is taxed at the same rate as salary. Denver, Aurora, Greenwood Village, Glendale and Sheridan add a small flat monthly occupational privilege tax on people working in the city, measured in dollars a month.

Because the buyers are the same everywhere. Outpatient orthopaedic clinics, hospital rehabilitation departments and skilled nursing facilities work to comparable reimbursement across the state, the larger clinic groups run standardised pay structures across their Colorado sites, and the compact makes the labour market genuinely statewide. When Boulder, Denver and Grand Junction land within three hundred dollars of each other, the practical implication is unambiguous: moving for pay does not work in this state, and moving for cost of living does.

The band does not show productivity requirements, and in Colorado's outpatient chain market those requirements are what a therapist actually negotiates. Two jobs at the $102,030 median can differ by several patients a day. The figure also cannot capture the debt position of a doctoral-entry profession against Front Range housing — a new graduate at the $76,460 tenth percentile in Denver or Boulder is in a genuinely difficult financial position, which is another argument for starting outside the corridor.

Home health, sports specialisation and ownership. Home health pays per visit and rewards efficiency and willingness to drive, and Colorado's distances make that premium meaningful. Sports and orthopaedic specialty certification aligns with a state whose population generates an unusual volume of athletic and recreational injury, and it supports cash-based and performance practice models that are well established here. Clinic direction and practice ownership are the third route — together reaching the $118,980 seventy-fifth percentile and the $132,010 ninetieth.