Physical Therapist Salary in Seattle, WA 2026,
$107,290 Median | BLS + Market Data

Seattle physical therapists earn a BLS median of $107,290/yr, or $51.58 an hour, for the Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue metro, with a published band of $64,790 to $144,960. That is 1.3% above the Washington statewide figure and 4.4% above the US median. The metro employs 2,950 physical therapists at 0.82 times the national concentration.

Barely — 1.3% above the Washington statewide median, one of the smallest metro-to-state gaps for any clinical role on this site. Physical therapy rates track reimbursement and clinic economics rather than local cost of living, and those are broadly uniform across the state, so a therapist in Spokane or Vancouver is not far off a Seattle rate.

Because outpatient physical therapy income is governed by what payers reimburse per visit, and reimbursement does not increase because a clinic is in an expensive metro. Clinics respond by managing productivity expectations rather than by raising rates. That is a structurally different situation from nursing or imaging, where hospital systems compete directly on wage to fill shifts, and it is why this occupation shows a 4.4% national premium in a metro where several other clinical roles show more than thirty.

Generally yes, and it is the clearest route to the upper part of the $64,790 to $144,960 band. Home health and contract work pay for autonomy, travel time between visits across a dispersed metro, and a heavier documentation load, often on a per-visit basis that rewards efficient clinicians. The trade is real: no colleagues on site, variable daily volume, and driving conditions across King, Pierce and Snohomish Counties that consume a meaningful part of the working day.

Yes — Washington permits direct access, so a patient may be evaluated and treated without a physician referral, subject to limits and to individual insurance plan requirements. Practically, that supports outpatient volume across the region and gives therapists a more autonomous clinical role than in referral-gated states. It does not, however, change reimbursement rates, which is why direct access improves access to care more than it improves therapist pay.

A 10th percentile of $64,790 against a median of $107,290 looks like a steep hierarchy, and for this profession it largely is not. Part-time practice is common and often deliberate — therapists reducing hours around family, phased retirement, or supplementing a primary post with per-diem work. Annualised earnings at the lower percentiles therefore reflect a chosen schedule as much as a low hourly rate. Anyone comparing a job offer to this band should compare hourly, not annual.

Entry to this profession now requires a doctoral degree, and the associated debt is substantial. Set against a metro premium of only 4.4% over the US median, that changes where the financial argument for practising in Seattle actually comes from: not the gross wage, but the absence of a state income tax and the availability of higher-paying home health and contract work. Therapists weighing markets on gross salary alone will find this metro unremarkable; weighing net, it improves considerably.

At 0.82 times the national concentration, this metro employs fewer physical therapists per worker than the country does, which is unusual for a large, affluent, health-system-dense region. Part of the explanation is the region's comparatively young population profile, since rehabilitation demand rises sharply with age. That also means the national growth projection has more room to run here than the current employment level suggests, particularly in home health and geriatric rehabilitation.