Physician Assistant Salary in Washington 2026,
$164,360 Median | BLS Data by City

The published figure is $164,360 a year, or $79.02 an hour, per BLS OEWS May 2025 for SOC 29-1071, with a band from $125,580 at the 10th percentile to $218,150 at the 90th. That is 21.0% above the national median of $135,880. The middle half of Washington PAs earn between $138,050 and $177,930, and none of it is subject to state income tax.

Wenatchee-East Wenatchee, at $168,080, narrowly above Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue $167,290, then Walla Walla $161,980, Bellingham $161,260 and Kennewick-Richland $154,230. A central Washington market topping the table is the recruitment story: systems outside Puget Sound must match or beat Seattle to attract a licence that is portable across the state.

Through the Washington Medical Commission — or the Board of Osteopathic Medicine and Surgery for PAs working with osteopathic physicians — on the basis of an ARC-PA accredited programme and NCCPA national certification. The licence carries prescriptive authority including controlled substances, and practice is authorised under an agreement held at the practice or health-system level.

Washington authorises PA practice through agreements set at the level of the employing practice or health system rather than through individually reviewed delegation agreements for each PA. That change reduced the administrative burden of adding a PA to an existing service, which particularly benefits small and rural practices, and it is part of why central and eastern Washington markets recruit PAs as competitively as they do.

Financially it is strong. The $164,360 median is level with or above peer states New Jersey $165,690, California $165,650, Hawaii $164,050 and New York $160,880, all of which levy income tax where Washington does not. Practically, the practice-agreement structure and a 20.4% national growth projection for the profession make it an easier market to move into than most.

Because the constraint in central Washington is people, not budget. A physician assistant licensed by the Washington Medical Commission can practise anywhere in the state, and the majority want to live in the Puget Sound corridor — so Wenatchee-East Wenatchee at $168,080, Walla Walla at $161,980 and Bellingham at $161,260 have to price against Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue at $167,290 rather than against their own cost of living. Seattle's health systems, meanwhile, receive applications without effort. The state's shift to practice-level agreements amplifies the effect by making it administratively feasible for a small central Washington clinic to build a PA-staffed service at all.

It is straight-time and it averages specialties that genuinely differ. BLS excludes call stipends, production incentives and procedural compensation, all of which are standard in Washington surgical and emergency PA contracts — so a PA in a surgical subspecialty will commonly gross above the annualised band. The row also pools primary care with emergency, surgical and dermatology practice, which is what produces a $125,580 tenth percentile and a $218,150 ninetieth on one page. Specialty, not seniority, is the main axis of that spread.

Specialty first: surgical first-assist, emergency medicine, dermatology and hospitalist practice sit above primary care and account for most of the ground from the $164,360 median to the $177,930 seventy-fifth percentile. Geography second, and unusually it points away from Seattle — central and eastern Washington systems pay a recruitment premium. Third, call and procedural compensation, which is contracted separately from base and therefore additive to everything the published band shows. And because there is no state income tax, each of those increments arrives intact.