Respiratory Therapist Salary 2026
RTs earn a median of $82,280 (BLS, May 2025), from $63,660 to $118,050. Why other sites quote five different numbers, and what hospitals actually pay.
Respiratory Therapist Salary: The Number and Why Others Differ
Respiratory therapists reach a median of $82,280 a year, $39.56 hourly, in the BLS release covering May 2025. All US occupations together sit at $50,980, putting this profession 61 percent ahead on an associate degree.
If you have found a different number, you are not wrong to be confused. Several widely linked pages quote figures that are years old, or means rather than medians, or projections presented as fact. That is covered below.
The Full Range
- Bottom 10 percent
- Under $63,660
- First year, smaller facilities
- 25th percentile
- $74,520
- A few years in
- Median
- $82,280
- The respiratory therapist pay figure most quoted
- Top 10 percent
- Over $118,050
- Critical care, neonatal, lead roles, contract work
Respiratory care salary and respiratory care pay describe the same occupation. So do two older terms that still get searched: inhalation therapist salary and pulmonary therapist salary both refer to this role, though no department has used either title for decades.
The profession numbered 142,000 in 2025, with BLS forecasting it to expand 9 percent by 2035. That rate counts as much faster than average in their classification.
Why Five Sites Give Five Different Numbers
Search this topic and you will find $82,280, $80,450, $77,960, $86,847 and $61,830 all presented as the respiratory therapist salary. They cannot all be right, and the reasons they differ are worth knowing because the same problem affects every salary page you will read.
Stale survey years
One figure found during research, $61,830, is from May 2020 and still sits on a live page. Always check which survey year a number comes from.
Means instead of medians
A mean averages everyone including the highest earners, so it reads higher than the median. The two are not interchangeable and most pages do not say which they used.
Projections presented as data
One site quotes $86,847 as a current figure. It is a projection forward from the real data, not something BLS published.
What we use
$82,280, the median published by BLS for May 2025. Every figure on this page comes from bls.gov and carries its survey date.
Setting
Hospitals Pay Slightly Above the Median
Working in a hospital puts the median at $82,730, slightly ahead of the $82,280 across the whole profession. Small, but it runs the right way, which is unusual. Radiography hospitals pay under outpatient. Practical nursing facilities pay over home health.
The reason is that this profession is overwhelmingly hospital based. Respiratory therapists work where ventilators are, and that is acute care. There is no large alternative setting pulling the average around, which also means there is no easy setting change available to raise your pay.
Acuity is the lever, not employer. Neonatal intensive care, adult critical care and transport teams are all harder to fill than general floor cover, and the rates reflect that.
Does RRT Pay More Than CRT?
Registered respiratory therapist salary and RRT pay are among the most searched credential questions in this profession, and BLS does not answer them. It reports respiratory therapists as one occupation without splitting CRT from RRT, so any precise comparison you find elsewhere is estimated.
What is verifiable is access. Hospital postings name RRT as standard. Intensive care and neonatal rarely consider anything else. Agency contracts generally require it outright. The credential sets which half of the market is open to you, and that is where the money difference actually comes from.
What a Contract Rate Includes
Agencies quote a pay rate for respiratory therapist work by the week, and that weekly number is two things at once. Part of it is taxed hourly pay. The rest arrives as stipends, untaxed, and conditional on you genuinely keeping a home elsewhere.
Two further things matter specifically in respiratory. Which units the assignment covers, because a contract specifying NICU prices differently from one specifying general floors. And what the on call expectation is, since respiratory covers codes across the whole building and that commitment does not always appear in the rate.
Ask what a contract would pay you
Tell us your credential, the units you have covered and your state licenses. A real figure comes back.
Frequently Asked Questions
How much do respiratory therapists make?
The May 2025 BLS median is $82,280, or $39.56 per hour. Ten percent of therapists fall under $63,660 and ten percent clear $118,050. That represents a 61 percent premium over the $50,980 all occupations figure.
Why does every site quote a different respiratory therapist salary?
Published respiratory therapist salary figures diverge because sources use different survey years, different measures and in some cases projections rather than data. Some pages have not updated since an older release. Some quote a mean, which runs higher than a median because top earners pull it up. BLS published $82,280 for May 2025.
Do RRTs earn more than CRTs?
No official figure separates the two credentials, because BLS counts respiratory therapists as a single occupation. What can be established is that most hospital postings name RRT, intensive care units almost always do, and agency work generally requires it. The credential governs access rather than rate directly.
Is respiratory therapy a growing field?
Respiratory therapy is projected to grow 9 percent through 2035, which BLS rates as much faster than average, from a base of 142,000 jobs in 2025. Chronic respiratory disease and an older population drive the demand, and nearly all of it sits in acute care rather than spread across settings.
Every number above comes from BLS, code 29-1126, May 2025, via OEWS and the Occupational Outlook Handbook. Linked throughout. Last reviewed October 2026.