Physical Therapist Salary in Utah 2026,
$99,880 Median | BLS Data by City

A median $99,880 a year, or $48.02 an hour, per BLS OEWS May 2025, with the middle half between $80,870 and $109,480 and a full range of $66,160 to $136,970. That is 2.8% below the $102,760 national median, but the state's 90th percentile sits more than thirty-four thousand dollars above the national median.

Salt Lake City-Murray at $103,840, followed by St. George at $99,340, Ogden at $99,170, Logan at $97,830 and Provo-Orem-Lehi at $96,960. The whole table spans under seven thousand dollars, which makes geography a weak lever in this occupation — the setting you work in will move your pay considerably more.

Yes. Utah participates in the Physical Therapy Licensure Compact, so a therapist with a compact-eligible licence in another member state can obtain a compact privilege to practise here without applying for a full second Utah licence. Given a location quotient of 0.77, that route carries a real share of the state's contract, travel and rural staffing. If Utah is your home state, your primary licence still comes from the Division of Professional Licensing.

A location quotient of 0.77 — about three-quarters the national rate per worker — reflects a workforce that has not kept pace with population growth rather than a shortage of demand. Utah has the youngest population in the country, high rates of outdoor recreation and sports participation that generate orthopaedic caseload, and a rapidly expanding southern corridor. The shortfall is concentrated outside the Wasatch Front and is why contract and travel staffing under compact privileges is used heavily here.

Setting rather than title. Home health and contract post-acute work pay on productivity and routinely run well above employed outpatient rates, and travel assignments filling rural and recreational-market vacancies carry a premium on top — in a state with a thin therapist workforce, those premiums are substantial. ABPTS board certification in orthopaedics, neurology or geriatrics and clinic or regional management are the employed routes toward the $109,480 seventy-fifth percentile and beyond.

That in Utah, this occupation's pay is determined almost entirely by what you do rather than where you do it. Under seven thousand dollars separates the highest and lowest published metros, while the band itself spans nearly seventy-one thousand from the 10th percentile to the 90th. That is an unusually clean signal. It means a therapist weighing a move between Salt Lake City and St. George should decide on lifestyle grounds, because the salary difference is negligible, and should instead concentrate on the decision that does matter — employed outpatient practice versus home health, contract post-acute and travel work, which is where the distance from $99,880 to $136,970 lives.

Setting is invisible in it, and Wasatch Front housing is not in it at all. Outpatient orthopaedic, inpatient rehabilitation, skilled nursing, home health and school-based practice all sit inside this one number and differ by more than the state differs from the national median. On cost, Salt Lake and Utah county housing has risen faster than wages, which erodes a median that is already slightly below the national figure — though Utah's flat 4.65% tax and reduced grocery rate push back. The figure also excludes productivity bonuses and rural sign-on incentives.

Setting, decisively. Home health, contract post-acute and travel work pay on productivity and account for most of the distance to the $136,970 ninetieth percentile, and in a state with a location quotient of 0.77 those premiums are real. ABPTS specialty certification is the employed credential that pays. Clinic and regional management is the leadership route. Geography contributes almost nothing across a seven-thousand-dollar spread. And the compact privilege is worth understanding if you want to take assignments across the Mountain West without multiple full licences.