Best states for therapist pay / Utah

Where therapists earn the most in Utah

Salt Lake City-Murray pays the most on paper and still goes furthest — $98,314 after tax and cost of living. Below it the order reshuffles: $6,880separates the state's metros.

Therapists
Assistants
Real value by areaTap an area to zoom in
$94k$98k

Pay after state income tax, divided by local cost of living. Hatched areas have no cost-of-living index.

Pay against cost of living

One dot per metro, sized by how many physical therapists work there.

Hover or tap any area to see its full breakdown.

Every Utah area, ranked

By real value. Each profession ranked on its own.

Physical therapists

#AreaMedianAfter taxCost of livingReal value
1Salt Lake City-Murray$103,840$99,167100.9$98,314
2St. George$99,340$94,87097.3$97,481
3Logan$97,830$93,42895.9$97,395
4Ogden$99,170$94,707100.3$94,378
5Provo-Orem-Lehi$96,960$92,59798.2$94,263
Wasatch Front Fringe Utahno COL data$101,500$96,933
High Desert Utahno COL data$86,900$82,990

Ranked by real value — pay after Utahincome tax, divided by that area's cost of living. Rows marked “no COL data” are BLS nonmetropolitan regions, which BEA publishes no price index for; their pay is shown but they are left unranked rather than compared against a borrowed average.

Occupational therapists
#AreaMedianAfter taxCost of livingReal value
1St. George$104,040$99,35897.3$102,093
2Logan$96,200$91,87195.9$95,772
3Salt Lake City-Murray$99,980$95,481100.9$94,659
4Provo-Orem-Lehi$95,860$91,54698.2$93,194
5Ogden$95,940$91,623100.3$91,304
High Desert Utahno COL data$92,610$88,443

Ranked by real value — pay after Utahincome tax, divided by that area's cost of living. Rows marked “no COL data” are BLS nonmetropolitan regions, which BEA publishes no price index for; their pay is shown but they are left unranked rather than compared against a borrowed average.

Speech-language pathologists
#AreaMedianAfter taxCost of livingReal value
1Salt Lake City-Murray$103,740$99,072100.9$98,219
2Logan$97,340$92,96095.9$96,907
3St. George$97,390$93,00797.3$95,568
4Provo-Orem-Lehi$86,410$82,52298.2$84,007
5Ogden$82,640$78,921100.3$78,647
High Desert Utahno COL data$81,910$78,224

Ranked by real value — pay after Utahincome tax, divided by that area's cost of living. Rows marked “no COL data” are BLS nonmetropolitan regions, which BEA publishes no price index for; their pay is shown but they are left unranked rather than compared against a borrowed average.

Physical therapist assistants (PTA)
#AreaMedianAfter taxCost of livingReal value
1Logan$63,120$60,28095.9$62,839
2Salt Lake City-Murray$64,990$62,065100.9$61,531
3Provo-Orem-Lehi$61,320$58,56198.2$59,615
4St. George$60,350$57,63497.3$59,221
5Ogden$60,880$58,140100.3$57,938
Wasatch Front Fringe Utahno COL data$61,290$58,532
High Desert Utahno COL data$59,640$56,956

Ranked by real value — pay after Utahincome tax, divided by that area's cost of living. Rows marked “no COL data” are BLS nonmetropolitan regions, which BEA publishes no price index for; their pay is shown but they are left unranked rather than compared against a borrowed average.

Occupational therapy assistants (COTA)
#AreaMedianAfter taxCost of livingReal value
1Salt Lake City-Murray$71,420$68,206100.9$67,619
2Ogden$64,050$61,168100.3$60,955
3Provo-Orem-Lehi$61,280$58,52298.2$59,576

Ranked by real value — pay after Utahincome tax, divided by that area's cost of living. Rows marked “no COL data” are BLS nonmetropolitan regions, which BEA publishes no price index for; their pay is shown but they are left unranked rather than compared against a borrowed average.

How this is calculated

Median pay is the median annual wage from the BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics program (May 2025 release), for each profession in each Utah area.

After taxsubtracts modeled state income tax for a single filer taking the standard deduction, computed at each area's own median wage rather than copied down from the state figure. Federal tax and FICA are excluded — they don't vary by area, so they don't change the ranking.

Real valuedivides after-tax pay by that metro's own cost of living — BEA Regional Price Parities for 2024, where the US average is 100. Metro-grain, not the statewide figure used on the national map.

Map areas are the exact areas BLS reports wages for, built by dissolving Census county boundaries with the BLS OEWS area definitions — so the map and the wage data describe the same geography by construction.

Metros that cross a state line — the New York and Philadelphia metros on this page, for example — carry one BLS wage figure covering the whole metro, and their state income tax is modeled at Utahrates, which is the right read for a clinician living on this side of the line. They're marked in the table.

Limits: single filer only; BLS blends full-time, part-time and PRN and every experience level into one median; and 2 nonmetropolitan regions carry BLS pay but no cost-of-living index, so they are shown unranked rather than estimated. This is a comparison of typical pay, not personalized tax advice.

What should you be getting paid in Utah?

Compare local salaries by experience and practice setting.

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