Physical Therapist Salary in Mississippi 2026:
$99,990 Median

A median $99,990 a year, or $48.07 an hour, per BLS OEWS May 2025, with the middle half between $83,200 and $107,130 and a full range of $73,700 to $121,740. That is 2.7% below the $102,760 national median — one of the narrowest state gaps in this batch, and the state's 75th percentile clears the national median.

Jackson at $103,000, which is above the national median, followed by Gulfport-Biloxi at $101,870 and Hattiesburg at $97,580. The spread across the three published metros is under six thousand dollars, so setting will move your pay more than the city does.

Yes. Mississippi 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 Mississippi licence. That route covers a meaningful share of contract and travel staffing across a dispersed rural state. If Mississippi is your home state, your primary licence still comes from the State Board of Physical Therapy.

In real terms, one of the stronger positions in this batch. The median is within three per cent of the national figure, Jackson is above it, the income tax is phasing toward a flat 4% with no local layer, and housing costs are among the lowest in the United States. The honest caveats are professional isolation in rural practice, a 7% sales tax, and a patient population with among the highest chronic disease burdens in the country, which makes the clinical work demanding.

Because physical therapy is a nationally credentialed profession with a nationally mobile workforce. Entry requires a doctoral degree from a CAPTE-accredited programme and a national examination, therapists move across state lines readily — and the compact makes that easier still — and employers must compete against a national market rather than a local one. That is why this occupation's state-to-state variation is far narrower than for the locally regulated roles elsewhere in this unit, where Mississippi's gaps run past twenty and thirty per cent.

This unit is a natural experiment in that question. Mississippi's physical therapists sit 2.7% below the national median; its dental hygienists sit 31.4% below. Both are licensed clinical professions requiring accredited education and a national examination. The difference is mobility and market structure. Physical therapy has a nationally mobile workforce, a licensure compact that makes cross-state practice straightforward, and employers — hospitals, national rehabilitation companies, home health agencies — that recruit nationally. Dental hygiene is tied to local private dental practice, whose revenue depends entirely on local ability to pay for care. Where an occupation's employers compete nationally, wages converge; where they depend on local demand, they follow it.

Setting, which the median hides. Outpatient orthopaedic, inpatient rehabilitation, skilled nursing, home health and school-based practice all sit inside this number, and home health and contract post-acute work paid on productivity account for much of the distance to the $121,740 ninetieth percentile. The figure also excludes productivity bonuses and rural sign-on incentives, and with about 1,980 therapists statewide and three published metros, the estimates rest on a modest sample.

Setting first: home health and contract post-acute work pay on productivity and occupy the upper quartile. Geography contributes under six thousand dollars across the published metros, with Jackson at $103,000 leading. ABPTS specialty certification in orthopaedics, neurology or geriatrics is the employed credential that pays, and clinic or regional management is the leadership route toward the $107,130 seventy-fifth percentile. The compact privilege is worth understanding for anyone wanting to take contract assignments across the region.