Physical Therapist Salary in Wisconsin 2026,
$101,840 Median | BLS Data by City

Wisconsin physical therapists earn a median $101,840 a year, $48.96 an hour, per BLS OEWS May 2025, with the middle half between $88,320 and $114,070 and a full range of $80,740 to $124,640. That is 0.9% below the $102,760 national median, though Wisconsin's low living costs make the real position stronger.

Sheboygan at $104,110, then Milwaukee-Waukesha at $103,030, Madison at $102,810, Appleton at $101,920 and Janesville-Beloit at $100,830 — under three and a half thousand dollars across the state. A small manufacturing city leading the table shows how uniformly this profession is priced in Wisconsin.

Yes, within the conditions set in state law and administered by the Physical Therapy Examining Board at the Department of Safety and Professional Services. Patients may be evaluated and treated without a physician referral subject to those limits, which matters commercially for outpatient clinics and supports the state's dense outpatient market.

In real terms, yes. The $101,840 median is only 0.9% below the national figure while Wisconsin's cost of living sits below the national average, and because pay is uniform across the state a therapist can take the same salary in a low-cost market. The offset is a graduated state income tax reaching 7.65%, which is less favourable at six figures than the flat rates nearby.

Wisconsin uses a graduated income tax topping out at 7.65%, with no municipal income tax. At a $101,840 salary this is less favourable than the flat rates in neighbouring Indiana, Illinois and Michigan, and increasingly so toward the top of the band — though the state's low cost base more than offsets it.

Because the employers are the same across the state. Wisconsin's large health systems operate rehabilitation services across enormous footprints, from Milwaukee to the northern counties, on common pay structures, and the outpatient clinic groups do the same. When Sheboygan at $104,110 tops Madison at $102,810, it is not because Sheboygan is a richer market — it is because the pay does not really vary and small sample differences do the rest. The practical implication is clear: choose location on cost of living, because it will not change your salary.

The band does not show productivity requirements, and in Wisconsin's outpatient market those requirements are what a therapist actually negotiates. Two jobs at the $101,840 median can differ by several patients a day, which is the difference between a sustainable career and burnout. The figure also cannot show the debt position of a doctoral-entry profession — though Wisconsin's low living costs make servicing that debt easier than in most of the states in this batch.

It creates a specialisation with employer-funded rather than payer-constrained demand. In a state with one of the highest manufacturing employment shares in the country, work-injury rehabilitation, functional capacity evaluation, ergonomic assessment and on-site industrial therapy programmes are a genuine niche. Employers pay for them directly to reduce injury cost, which makes the economics quite different from clinic volume — and for a therapist willing to build that expertise it opens contract and consulting work that reaches the top of this band.