Physical Therapist Salary in Missouri 2026,
$99,310 Median | BLS Data by City

Missouri physical therapists earn a median $99,310 a year, $47.75 an hour, per BLS OEWS May 2025, with the middle half between $80,910 and $109,880 and a full range of $76,110 to $124,530. That is 3.4% below the $102,760 national median, though Missouri's low cost of living improves the real position considerably.

Kansas City at $101,270, then St. Louis at $100,600, Cape Girardeau at $100,420, Joplin at $100,150 and St. Joseph at $99,310. Every published metro sits at or above the statewide $99,310, which means rural practice outside the metros is what pulls the state figure down.

Missouri permits evaluation without a physician referral and treatment within the conditions state law sets, administered through the Division of Professional Registration. The specific limits matter commercially for outpatient clinics, and they are one of the factors shaping how Missouri practices structure their intake.

In real terms, better than the nominal figure suggests. The $99,310 median is 3.4% below the national figure, but Missouri's cost of living is among the lowest in this batch and the state income tax tops out at 4.8%. A therapist earning the Missouri median keeps and buys more than one earning the same nominal salary in most of the states in this batch.

Missouri's graduated income tax tops out at 4.8%, which is low nationally. Kansas City and St. Louis each levy a 1% earnings tax on anyone working inside the city, so a therapist at a city clinic pays it even if they live in the suburbs — and given a metro premium of barely two thousand dollars, that levy can consume it.

Because the statewide figure includes a substantial amount of rural and small-town practice that no metro row captures. Missouri has a large rural geography served by critical access hospitals, skilled nursing facilities and small outpatient clinics, and those settings pay below the metro rate. The published metros — even Cape Girardeau and Joplin, which are not large markets — all sit at or above $99,310, so the page is showing you the top of the state's distribution while the median reflects the whole of it.

The band does not show productivity requirements, and in Missouri's outpatient market those requirements are what a therapist actually negotiates — two jobs at the $99,310 median can differ by several patients a day. The figure also cannot show the debt position of a doctoral-entry profession, though Missouri's low living costs make servicing that debt substantially easier than in the coastal states in this batch.

Home health, management and ownership. Home health pays per visit and rewards efficiency and willingness to drive, and Missouri's rural geography makes that premium meaningful — a therapist covering a wide catchment can earn well above clinic salary. Clinic and regional director roles add administrative responsibility. Practice ownership is well represented in Missouri's outpatient orthopaedic market. Together these reach the $109,880 seventy-fifth percentile and the $124,530 ninetieth.