Physician Assistant Salary in Oregon 2026,
$155,780 Median | BLS Data by City

A median $155,780 a year, or $74.89 an hour, per BLS OEWS May 2025, with the middle half between $134,390 and $169,550 and a full range of $123,100 to $198,490. That is 14.6% above the $135,880 national median, and the premium holds across the whole band rather than being concentrated at the top.

Portland-Vancouver-Hillsboro at $163,810, ahead of Medford at $155,110, Grants Pass at $152,350, Bend at $148,610 and Corvallis at $146,710. The seventeen-thousand-dollar spread from Portland to Corvallis is real, but Portland's local income taxes apply above defined thresholds at this income, so the take-home difference is smaller than the gross difference.

Through the Oregon Medical Board. You need a degree from an ARC-PA accredited programme and current NCCPA certification, and you apply to the board for licensure. Oregon has modernised its practice framework away from the rigid single-supervising-physician model toward a practice-level collaboration arrangement — confirm with the board and your employer how that is documented for your particular role.

Oregon has moved away from the traditional supervision-agreement model toward a collaboration framework defined at the practice level, which gives physician assistants here more latitude than in the supervision states elsewhere in this batch. It is not the same as independent practice, and the specific arrangement is set by the employer within the board's rules — so the question worth asking at interview is how collaboration is documented and what it means for your prescribing and your day-to-day autonomy.

Supply and framework together. Physician supply outside the Portland and Eugene corridors is thin, with health professional shortage designations across rural, coastal and eastern Oregon, so physician assistants carry a large share of access. The modernised practice framework makes them easier to deploy than in states requiring a rigid supervision agreement, which raises what an employer can do with the role. Add Oregon's high general wage level and 20.4% projected national growth, and a 14.6% premium follows.

Less than it looks. Portland at $163,810 against Medford at $155,110 is about eight and a half thousand dollars gross. At this income a Portland-area physician assistant may face the Metro supportive housing services tax and the Multnomah County preschool tax above their defined thresholds on top of a state rate reaching 9.9% — a genuine three-layer income tax structure that Medford, Bend and Grants Pass do not have. Add Portland's housing costs and the gross premium can invert entirely. Medford at $155,110 and Grants Pass at $152,350 in southern Oregon are, on these numbers, among the strongest real-terms propositions in the state.

It is a base-wage median that excludes call pay, surgical first-assist stipends, productivity bonuses and rural recruitment incentives — all of which are common in Oregon and material, particularly outside the Portland corridor. It also treats primary care, emergency medicine and surgical subspecialty practice as one occupation, which is most of what the $123,100 to $198,490 range describes. And it does not net out Oregon's tax structure, which at this income is among the heaviest in the country once the Portland-area local layers are included.

Specialty first — surgical first assisting, emergency medicine, critical care and procedural specialties are what reach the $169,550 seventy-fifth percentile and the $198,490 ninetieth. Setting second: the Portland academic and hospital systems pay above community practice. Then call obligations and first-assist stipends, negotiated rather than scheduled. Rural and coastal shortage-area posts carry recruitment incentives that partially close the gap to Portland while avoiding its tax and housing burden — for a physician assistant optimising real income rather than gross salary, southern and central Oregon deserve serious consideration.