Paramedic Salary Calculator

1. Choose your pay type. Use hourly for a quoted rate, or annual for a salaried post such as a fire department role.
2. Enter your base pay, your hours per week and your weeks per year. Add other annual pay or a second offer if you have them.
3. Read your annual gross pay, the pay-period amounts and where your hourly pay sits in the BLS wage table.

What each result tells you:

The first preset is an example, not a typical wage. It shows a paramedic paid $29.00 an hour for an average 42-hour week. That works out to $63,336.00 a year, about the 49th percentile by the hour.

A paramedic salary is the gross pay a paramedic earns in a year, before tax and deductions. The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) counts it under occupation code 29-2043.

BLS defines the job this way: paramedics administer basic or advanced emergency medical care and assess injuries and illnesses. They may give medication intravenously, use equipment such as EKGs, or provide advanced life support. The code excludes emergency medical technicians and ambulance drivers.

These facts come from the BLS Occupational Outlook Handbook, read on 2026-10-02. BLS gives the average growth for all occupations as 3%. The handbook also notes that some paramedics fly as part of a helicopter or airplane crew.

This tool is for paramedics weighing an offer, a rota change or a move between employers. It is not a pay quote from any agency.

The calculator converts your pay between time periods, then places your hourly pay in the BLS wage distribution for paramedics.

1. Convert. An hourly rate is multiplied by hours and weeks. A salary is divided by them to get pay per hour.
2. Add other pay. Overtime, differentials and bonuses you typed are added to the annual total only.
3. Find the band. Your base hourly pay is checked against the 10th, 25th, 50th, 75th and 90th percentile wages.
4. Interpolate. W1 and W2 are the two BLS wages around your pay. P1 and P2 are their percentiles.
5. Measure the gap. Your hourly pay minus the median, then divided by the median.

The table below is the wage table the tool uses. It covers paramedics only. Emergency medical technicians have a separate, lower table.

Source: BLS OEWS, national estimates, May 2025. Read on 2026-10-02.

BLS annual wages equal the hourly wage times 2,080 hours. That is 40 hours for 52 weeks. The comparison uses hourly pay so that part-time and long-shift schedules are judged fairly.

A fire department paramedic earns a salary of $68,000. Her rota is 24 hours on and 48 hours off. One 24-hour shift every three days averages 56 hours a week, because 168 hours / 3 = 56.

The two percentiles tell different stories. Her salary of $68,000 sits near the 64th percentile of annual wages. Her pay per hour sits near the 22nd percentile, because she works 832 more hours a year than the 2,080 that BLS assumes.

The hourly figure here is an average over all paid hours. A salary that already contains overtime premium has a lower base rate than this average. Payroll can confirm the base rate.

Employer Type

Local government and ambulance services employ most paramedics, and they pay close to the same median. The Occupational Outlook Handbook lists these median annual wages for May 2025: local government $61,980, private hospitals $61,370, ambulance services $60,040, local hospitals $59,260 and offices of physicians $55,900.

The gap between the top and bottom of that list is $6,080. For paramedics, the employer type matters less than the state.

The five industries that employ the most paramedics. Share is jobs divided by 100,610. Source: BLS OEWS, May 2025. Read on 2026-10-02.

State

The state changes paramedic pay more than any other factor BLS publishes. Washington has an annual mean wage of $101,070. That is $37,710 above the national mean of $63,360.

The five states with the highest annual mean wage for paramedics. Source: BLS OEWS, May 2025. Read on 2026-10-02.

Industries with the Highest Mean Wage

State government pays paramedics the highest mean wage of any industry. The other four leaders are small employers of paramedics.

The five industries with the highest annual mean wage for paramedics. Source: BLS OEWS, May 2025. Read on 2026-10-02.

Rota Length

BLS notes that some paramedics work shifts of 12, 18 or 24 hours. A longer average week raises annual pay at the same hourly rate. At the paramedic median of $29.13, a 42-hour week pays $63,619.92 a year and a 56-hour week pays $84,826.56, both at straight time.

Overtime Rules

Overtime rules differ by employer. Private services owe overtime after 40 hours in a workweek. The Department of Labor says public fire departments may use a work period of 7 to 28 days instead. Overtime is then due after 212 hours in 28 days, or 106 hours in 14 days. That rule covers paramedics who are trained in fire suppression and employed by a fire department. The overtime pay calculator handles the 40-hour case.

A paramedic at the median earns $7.75 an hour more than an emergency medical technician at the median. That is 36.2% more.

Annual wages. Source: BLS OEWS, national estimates, May 2025. Read on 2026-10-02.

The paramedic 10th percentile of $44,230 is close to the EMT median of $44,470. The paramedic 25th percentile of $49,660 is close to the EMT 75th percentile of $50,100. A new paramedic near the bottom of the paramedic table still earns about what a mid-career EMT earns.

There are fewer paramedic jobs: 100,610 against 180,510 for EMTs. Workers who hold an EMT licence should use the EMT salary calculator, which loads the EMT wage table.

BLS also notes a further step. With more education, paramedics may move into other healthcare jobs, for example through a paramedic-to-RN program.

Comparing a Fire Department Salary with an Hourly Offer

Enter the salary with its true average weekly hours. Then enter the hourly offer as a second run. The hourly results line up, even when the annual totals do not.

Weighing Two Offers on the Same Rota

Use the second offer field. In the first preset, $31.50 an hour against $29.00 adds $5,460.00 a year on a 42-hour week.

Checking a Raise

Type the new rate and read the percentile. A paramedic paid $27.50 an hour is near the 42nd percentile. The salary to hourly calculator converts a salary without the BLS comparison.

Planning a Household Budget

The result is gross pay. Read the gross vs net income guide before you plan spending from it.

1. Entering 40 Hours for a 56-Hour Rota

A salary of $68,000 looks like $32.69 an hour at 40 hours. On a 56-hour rota it is $23.35. Enter the hours you are paid for.

2. Comparing the Annual Total with the BLS Annual Wage

BLS annual wages assume 2,080 hours. A long-rota salary beats them on paper. The hourly percentile is the fair test.

3. Folding Overtime Premium into Base Pay

BLS wages exclude overtime pay and shift differentials. Put premium pay in the other annual pay field.

4. Using the EMT Table

The EMT median is $21.38 an hour. A paramedic measured against it looks far better paid than she is among paramedics.

5. Treating the National Median as a Local Rate

The mean paramedic wage in Washington is $101,070. In California it is $77,740. A national figure does not price either market.

6. Reading the Percentile as Exact

BLS publishes five percentiles. The number between them is a straight-line estimate and can be off by several points.

The conversion is exact arithmetic. The percentile is an estimate, because BLS publishes only five points of the wage distribution.

BLS wages are straight-time gross pay. They exclude overtime pay, shift differentials and nonproduction bonuses. Keep those in the other annual pay field so the comparison stays like for like.

Paramedics had a median hourly wage of $29.13 in May 2025, according to BLS. The lowest 10 percent earned less than $21.27 an hour and the highest 10 percent earned more than $40.80.

The mean annual wage for paramedics was $63,360 in May 2025. The median was $60,600. The middle half of paramedics earned between $49,660 and $73,470.

It averages 56 hours a week. One 24-hour shift every three days is 168 hours divided by 3. Over 52 weeks that is 2,912 paid hours, against the 2,080 hours behind BLS annual wages.

Washington pays the most, with an annual mean wage of $101,070 in May 2025. New Jersey, the District of Columbia, California and Connecticut follow.

The medians are close. BLS reports a median of $61,980 for paramedics in local government and $60,040 in ambulance services. Annual totals differ more, because fire department rotas often carry more paid hours.

No. BLS wages are straight-time gross pay. The survey excludes overtime pay, shift differentials and nonproduction bonuses. Hazardous-duty pay is included.

A paramedic at the median earns $16,130 a year more than an EMT at the median. The medians were $60,600 and $44,470 in May 2025.

No. BLS counts flight paramedics in the same code as all other paramedics, 29-2043, and publishes one wage table. A separate flight figure would be a guess, so this page does not show one.

Ambulance services and local government employ the most. The wage survey counts 39,550 paramedic jobs in other ambulatory health care services and 38,220 in local government. General hospitals follow with 17,800.

Take-home pay depends on your tax filing status, state and deductions, and this tool does not estimate tax. It shows gross pay only, so every figure can be checked against your offer letter or pay stub.

No. The calculation runs in your browser. Nothing is sent to a server. The Save button stores a result only on your own device.

• BLS OEWS Profiles, May 2025 national estimates (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Select 29-2043 Paramedics. Read 2026-10-02.)
• BLS Occupational Outlook Handbook: EMTs and Paramedics (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Duties, training, employers, pay by industry and 2025 to 2035 outlook. Read 2026-10-02.)
• BLS technical notes for the May 2025 OEWS estimates (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Defines the wage: straight-time gross pay, 2,080-hour year. Read 2026-10-02.)
• U.S. Department of Labor, Wage and Hour Division, Fact Sheet 8: fire protection employees under the FLSA (Overtime work periods for public fire department staff, including paramedics and emergency medical technicians. Read 2026-10-02.)