Respiratory Therapist Salary in Texas 2026,
$79,540 Median | BLS Data by City

Texas respiratory therapists earn a median $79,540 a year, $38.24 an hour, per BLS OEWS May 2025, with the middle half between $69,670 and $93,680 and a full range of $61,310 to $99,690. That is 3.3% below the $82,280 national median in nominal terms and ahead of it after tax, because Texas takes no income tax.

Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington at $84,080, then Austin-Round Rock-San Marcos at $82,760, Amarillo at $80,470, Houston-Pasadena-The Woodlands at $80,450 and Texarkana at $78,880. The whole table spans about five thousand dollars, so in Texas the shift you work matters considerably more than the metro you work in.

The Texas Medical Board, which issues the respiratory care practitioner licence. Texas is unusual here — most states run a separate respiratory care board — and it means the application, renewal and disciplinary process all sit with the medical board. Above the licence, Texas hospitals screen on National Board for Respiratory Care credentials, and the Registered Respiratory Therapist designation is the effective requirement for ICU and neonatal assignments.

No. Texas has no personal income tax and no local income tax, so the full $79,540 median is subject only to federal tax. At this salary level the saving against a graduated-rate state typically exceeds the 3.3% nominal shortfall against the national median, which puts Texas respiratory therapists ahead in take-home terms.

They are the main pay mechanic in the profession. Texas hospitals pay night, weekend and on-call differentials on top of base hourly rates, and critical-care, neonatal and transport assignments carry their own premiums. A therapist on permanent nights in a large Dallas-Fort Worth or Houston system can sit near the $93,680 seventy-fifth percentile on the same base rate as a day-shift colleague near the $79,540 median — and none of the differential is taxed by Texas.

Because hospital pay scales dominate the occupation and Texas has no countervailing high-wage private sector for it. Nearly all respiratory therapists work in hospitals or hospital-affiliated services, where compensation runs on structured grids with defined step increases and differentials. The result is a $61,310 to $99,690 range with the middle half packed between $69,670 and $93,680, and a metro table where Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington at $84,080 and Texarkana at $78,880 are barely five thousand dollars apart.

The published figure is a salaried-equivalent annual number, and in a profession where much of the real variation comes from differentials and overtime it understates what many Texas RTs actually earn. A therapist working consistent nights with weekend rotation is banking meaningfully more than the $79,540 median implies. Conversely, part-time and PRN therapists — a large group in Texas — will not see the annualised figure at all.

A genuine specialisation premium that the statewide figure hides. Texas has one of the largest neonatal intensive care footprints in the country across the Texas Medical Center, Dallas and San Antonio children's hospitals, and NBRC neonatal-paediatric specialty credentials plus transport and ECMO team assignment are how a Texas RT reaches the $93,680 seventy-fifth percentile and the $99,690 ninetieth without leaving bedside practice. That route exists in Texas at a scale it does not in most states.