Physician Assistant Salary in Arkansas 2026,
$118,430 Median | BLS Data by City

The published Arkansas figure is $118,430 a year, or $56.94 an hour, per BLS OEWS May 2025, with a band from $88,160 at the 10th percentile to $159,080 at the 90th. That is 12.8% below the national median of $135,880. Arkansas employs only 850 PAs at a location quotient of 0.62, so this is a small and comparatively thin state market.

Fayetteville-Springdale-Rogers leads at $130,810, then Hot Springs $122,720, Fort Smith $119,840, Jonesboro $117,660 and Little Rock-North Little Rock-Conway $109,110. The capital metro paying least is the surprise here — northwest Arkansas has the state's strongest income base and its healthcare wages reflect that, while Little Rock's academic and safety-net hospitals set pay on tighter budgets.

The Arkansas State Medical Board — the same board that licenses physicians. Licensure requires graduation from an ARC-PA accredited physician assistant programme and NCCPA certification as a PA-C, maintained through the NCCPA continuing certification cycle. Arkansas also requires a collaborative arrangement with a supervising physician defining the PA's scope; the state has not adopted the independent-practice model used in some jurisdictions.

Materially, yes. Arkansas reduced its top individual income tax rate to 3.9% in 2024, and a PA earning around the $118,430 state median sits squarely in that top bracket — so the reduction applies to most of the income rather than a sliver of it. Set against a nominal median 12.8% below the national figure, the lighter rate recovers part of the gap, and it applies identically in Fayetteville-Springdale-Rogers at $130,810 and Little Rock-North Little Rock-Conway at $109,110.

The demand is real and the market is small. Nationally the occupation grows 20.4%, and Arkansas's rural health needs are acute — but the state holds only 850 of these jobs and pro-rates to roughly 60 openings a year, and the collaborative-physician requirement means posts only exist where a supervising physician does. The strongest position is a specialty practice in northwest Arkansas, where the metro median of $130,810 approaches the state's $133,270 seventy-fifth percentile.

Because the two regions have different economies behind their hospitals. Fayetteville-Springdale-Rogers has been the state's growth engine, with a large corporate employer base, higher household incomes and commercially insured patients — conditions that let health systems compete on wages, producing a $130,810 metro median. Little Rock-North Little Rock-Conway is anchored on academic medicine and safety-net care with a heavier public-payer mix, and its $109,110 figure reflects budgets set against those reimbursement rates rather than any difference in the work.

The sample is small. Eight hundred and fifty PAs across an entire state means each metro row rests on a modest count, and year-to-year movement in these figures can reflect a handful of employers rather than a market trend. The state band — $88,160 to $159,080 — is the more robust guide than any single metro median, and a PA weighing an Arkansas offer should test it against specialty comparators rather than against the statewide figure alone.

Specialty first, then call. The distance from the $103,810 twenty-fifth percentile to the $133,270 seventy-fifth is largely the difference between outpatient primary care and procedural or inpatient practice — surgical first assist, emergency medicine, hospitalist and critical care. On top of base pay, call and weekend coverage are a substantial component in a state where rural hospitals depend on advanced practitioners to hold overnight coverage, and that is much of what carries the top of the band to $159,080.